Page 83 of Pumpkin Spice and Promises

He kissed me again, slower, and when he pulled back he rested his forehead against mine and let out something that was almost a laugh.

“We should go back in,” he said. “Your grandmother’s going to send somebody after us.”

“She probably already has.” I took his hand properly, laced my fingers through his, and pulled him back toward the barn and the noise and the whole rest of our family waiting to claim us both. “Come on, Mr. Pumpkin. Dance with me like you meant every single word of that promise.”

The music met us at the doors. The band had slipped into something slow and country and aching, and the couples were folding together under the string lights, and Matt just gathered me in—one hand at my back, the other around mine, my cheek finding the place on his chest that seemed to have been waiting for it—and we danced.

Slow, and close, the noise dropping away until there was only the low steel guitar and the warmth of him and the way he held me like he’d been counting the hours until he could hold me again.

And I couldn’t help thinking of the first time we danced—the wedding, the champagne, the string lights, the question I’d asked him and he couldn’t answer. We were two different people now, dancing to the same kind of song. Nobody was pretending anymore. He knew what he wanted, and so did I.

“This is what I wanted,” he said quietly, into my hair, like he’d heard the wedding in my head. “In case you were still wondering. This.”

“I’m not wondering anymore,” I said. But I held on tighter anyway.

Chapter 36

Matt

Afew weeks after the Harvest Ball, I woke to the cold coming through the window, sharper than it had been in a while, and lay there watching the light change.

Winter was pushing in for real now, and it had gotten into the maple out back overnight, hard, so that the last stubborn handful of leaves that had been holding on the evening before were gone by morning, scattered thick across the flagstone below the window. I could see it from the bed if I turned my head, past her shoulder, past the tangle of her hair against my pillow. That same tree. The one I’d stood under with her hands pressed to my chest, asking for a promise I’d had no right yet to ask for.

It had all come out right in the end. The festival had made more money than the farm had ever seen in a single season, enough to pay off the equipment loan clean before the bank’s deadline, and the grant had covered everything left standing—the roof, rebuilt properly and finally weathertight, and Iris’s secret loan was paid off entirely. The farm would go into winter with nothing owed and nothing hanging over it, for the first time in longer than Elizabeth could remember.

And she’d changed with it. A few days back I’d driven up to find her and Iris out on the porch flying paper airplanes off the rail, cackling about whose flew farther, the pair of them utterly ridiculous in the cold. I still don’t know what set them off. It didn’t matter. I stood in the yard and laughed along with them at a joke I never got, because Elizabeth was laughing free and loose over absolutely nothing, and a woman who spent a whole fall too frightened to breathe was up on a porch launching paper airplanes with her grandmother, and that was the only thing I needed to understand.

She stirred against me, still half asleep, and pressed her mouth to my shoulder without opening her eyes.

“Stop thinking so loud,” she mumbled. “It’s too early for whatever’s happening in there.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Liar. You get a very specific breathing pattern when you’re having feelings at six in the morning.” She cracked one eye open and found the window, found the bare tree, and went soft all over, the way she does. “Oh. It finally let go.”

“Overnight.”

“Good.” She turned into me properly, one leg hooking over mine, her palm flat against my chest like she was checking something was still there. “I like it better bare. Means we’re getting close to the good part of the year.”

“There’s a good part after this?”

“The part where it’s too cold to do anything but stay in bed.” She kissed my jaw, slow and lazy, and I felt every plan I’d had for the morning quietly reschedule itself. “Convince me you agree with my thesis, Officer.”

I did.

I rolled her beneath me, the sheets whispering around us as her body arched up to meet mine. Her hands slid into my hair, tugging just enough to pull a low sound from my throat, and I kissed her properly then, deep and unhurried, tasting the sleep still clinging to her tongue. She tasted like home and the quiet promise of every ordinary morning we’d stolen together since the Harvest Ball.

I took my time with her, the way she deserved. Trailed my mouth down the line of her throat, across the delicate flutter of her pulse, lower to the soft swell of her breasts until her breath hitched and her fingers tightened in my hair. When I drew one nipple into my mouth, teasing with tongue, she gasped my name—Matthew, not Matt, the full weight of it spilling out like a secret—and her hips rolled up against me, seeking friction. I gave it to her, sliding one hand between her thighs, finding her already slick and hot. Two fingers eased inside her, curling just right, and she clenched around me with a broken little moan that went straight to my cock.

“Matt—please⁠—”

I loved the way she said it, needy and sweet and mine. I reached for the nightstand drawer, grabbed a condom, and tore the packet open with my teeth. She watched me with heavy-lidded eyes as I rolled it down my length, her fingers tracing my abs, then lower, helping me smooth it into place with a touch that made my breath catch.

Before I could settle between her thighs again, she pushed gently against my chest—warm palms and quiet strength—and guided me onto my back. I went willingly, heart pounding as she straddled me, knees bracketing my hips. The sight of her above me, hair tousled and eyes dark with desire, stole whatever was left of my breath. She braced her hands on my chest and sank down onto me slowly, taking every inch until I was buried deep inside her tight, velvet heat. We both groaned at the new angle, the way she enveloped me completely.

She started to move, rocking her hips in a slow, devastating rhythm that had me gripping her thighs, thumbs stroking the soft skin there. Her head fell back, lips parted on a sigh, and the morning light caught the flush spreading across her chest and throat. I sat up just enough to kiss her breasts, to suck at her nipples while she rode me, her pace gradually quickening. One of her hands tangled in my hair, holding me to her as her other braced on my shoulder for leverage.

The slick slide of her body around me, the gentle bounce of her breasts, the soft sounds she made every time she ground down—it all built in a sweet, aching climb. I thrust up to meet her, matching her rhythm, one hand sliding between us to circle her clit with steady pressure. Her inner walls fluttered and tightened around me, her moans growing louder and more desperate.