When I nudge my head to the bowl of peas I’m in the process of shelling, air whizzes out of his nose before he moves toward the dining table to speed up the process. With how slow I am, his stew will be soup before he adds vegetables into the mix.
My brows stitch when he pauses three steps away. He looks a little lost. I realize why when his eyes drop to the only chair in the room. His cabin isn’t set up for visitors, and my backside is hogging the only chair.
“Here, you have this seat, and I’ll—” My breathing shallows to a purr when my hobbled leap from the chair is quickly followed by JR taking a seat and pulling me to sit on his lap. “Sit on your lap.”
Within minutes, the awkwardness of sitting on his lap and trying not to swivel dissipates, and the enjoyment of a simple, basic existence takes over. I smile while remembering how I sat on my grandpa’s knee while shelling peas. He used to tell me stories about growing up in Korea and how I was lucky to live in the United States.
I thought he was too old to understand the difficulties of growing up in a country where neither of your parents originated from. It was only as I got older did I realize what he meant. I had so many more opportunities growing up than my mother had. I explored multiple continents, gained friends solely because I sounded different than them, and grew up with two loving parents who forever encouraged me to strive for my goals.
Up until yesterday, I thought I was doing that.
Now, as I sit on the lap of a man who has no possessions but a content soul, I begin to wonder if that is true.
How can you put a price on happiness when it’s meant to be free?
After breathing out the uncertainty swirling in my stomach before it requires a trip to the bathroom, I ask JR, “Do you always favor your left side?” When he peers down at me with his brows quirked, I place down the pod I’m in the process of shelling. “You pick up things with your right hand, revealing it is your dominant side, but all your strength seems to come from your left side.”
While keeping my head tilted to ensure he can see my lips, I raise his hands and mimic the moves he does while shelling a pea. “You gather the pod with your right hand, but you shell it with your left.” After taking a moment to drink in the contrasting sizes of our hands, I rip through the peapod with my left hand, grimacing when I destroy half the peas in the pod during the process. “I’m clumsier with my left, but you seem ambidextrous, if not favoring your left side.”
When I mimic the movements I just made, but with his hands instead of mine, the peas pop out without the mess mine made. “See. Ambidextrous.” When his eyes darken with unease, I add a bit of humor to my next comment. “You also always toss me onto your left shoulder. You should mix it up occasionally and let me view one butt cheek as regularly as the other.” Realizing I’ve gone too far, I blurt out, “Not that I was perving on your butt. It was just… there. I couldn’t help but look.”
I burrow my head into my hands before saying a silent prayer for my smarts to return. I get that and so much more when JR pulls my hands down from my face before covering them with his.
With his heart beating as fast as mine, he gathers up a pea before guiding its deshelling with my left hand. It’s still a disaster, but three peas land in the bowl instead of on the floor.
I call that a victory.
Tears well in my eyes when JR signs, “Again.” That’s the first word he’s spoken to me, and although simplistic, it’s a massive milestone I can’t wait to extend on.
After settling the shake of my hands with his, he repeats the process. We save four peas this time around, but when just as many land on the floor, I say with a giggle, “You’re going to curse the day you saved me.”
JR freezes at my confession I now see him as my savior instead of his captive, but he shuts down his shock before returning to showing me how to shell peas.
We work together side by side for the next several minutes, and the tension it causes is bristling. It crackles and hisses in the air as powerfully as it did this morning when I watched him stroke his cock. It is an awe-inspiring time that has me doubting more than my intuition. I thought I loved Cedric. He’s smart, energetic, and well-established, yet not once in the year we spent together did he have my body heightened with as much anticipation as it’s being bombarded with now.
We’re shelling peas, but JR’s lack of dictatorship and patience is like an aphrodisiac. Every fine hair on my body is paying attention to each movement he does, and the occasional smirk slipping out from beneath his bushy beard mesmerizes me as well as the peacefulness in his eyes.
He may not have it all, but right here, and right now, he believes he does.
Regretfully, the infinite number of sparks darting between us doesn’t improve my shelling skills. They’re still a disaster. It’s a rough estimate, but at a guess, I’d say there are more peas on the floor than in the bowl.
When it dawns on me that they’re most likely JR’s supply for an entire year, I say, “Shall I’ll gather up the strays and wash them?”
Not giving him the chance to answer, I slip off his lap and commence hunting the balls of goodness I suspect JR grew himself. There isn’t much to pursue during our slippery treks to the toilet, so I take in a tiny greenhouse with more interest than I generally would. Although the roof is covered with snow, the hessian wrapped around the soil means the plants inside are none the wiser to the icy conditions surrounding them.
“Have you ever tried peapod soup?”
When I tilt back my head to make sure JR can see my lips, partway there, my throat gets scratchy. My crawl around the dining room table has placed me in direct symmetry with JR’s crotch, and I’m not the only one noticing. He’s hard, and despite my brain telling me it has nothing to do with me sitting on his lap, my insides cheer like the deer meat he’s about to eat is filet mignon.
When my perverted gaze gets busted, I snap my eyes away before blubbering out, “It isn’t actually factual. You need as many peas as you do pods, but—” A silent scream rips through my internal organs when something crawls over my hand. It isn’t lightweight like an ant wanting to roll a pea home to its family. It’s decent in size, has a heap of legs, and feels as hairy as JR’s chest.
With my breathing irregular and my body frozen with fear, I slowly force my eyes to my hand. Karma for having irrational thoughts about a man so soon after ending my engagement is served without prejudice when I notice a big hairy spider on my hand. It’s a wolf-spider, and although I know they’re harmless, I scream bloody murder, flick it off my hand, then attempt to leap to my feet.
I say ‘attempt’ as my head smashes into the thick wooden tabletop long before my feet return to the ground. The collision almost knocks me out, but before I can collapse into a sobbing heap, JR scoops me into his arms, then sprints for the bathroom.
He’s fast in general, but his brutal speed has me convinced he isn’t a fan of spiders either. Not only does he lock the bathroom door with the spider on the other side, but he also stuffs a ‘towel’ under the airy crack, so we won’t have any more unwanted visitors.
“Not a fan of spiders?” I murmur with a giggle that JR cuts off with a vicious stink eye. It doesn’t have any heat to it. His eyes are too filled with worry to let anger in.
