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Desire unfurled from my core, moving outward until every nerve ending was begging for touch.
“Come here,” he demanded, patting the top of his leg.
And, well, I went there.
I nearly bounced on the bed like a little kid when a parent wasn’t looking.
Ranger’s hands grabbed the hem of my shirt, smiling a bit when my arms went happily over my head, helping him remove it.
His breath exhaled hard before he ran his hands up my back, pulling me forward, sealing his lips to mine, crushing my sensitive nipples to his chest.
I was shameless in that moment, my hips grinding down against his hardness, driving myself upward before he really even touched me.
By the time his hand sank inside my panties, I was drenched.
And by the time his finger slipped inside me, well, I was begging for more, for everything.
His body folded, grabbing a condom out of his nightstand, protecting us, then urging my hips up, letting me sink down, take him deep inside on a soft sigh.
I didn’t have the self-control he seemed to possess.
Once he was inside me, my motions became fast, borderline frantic, driving my body up to the brink and throwing it over before my thigh muscles could even start to ache.
He followed quickly behind, hissing my name like a curse or a prayer, or maybe the two mingled together.
“Nuh-uh,” he said when I collapsed forward into him, taking deep breaths. His hands moved to my butt again, giving it a squeeze. “No dawdling. We have planting to do today.”
I pulled backward, a big smile tugging at my lips. Even orgasm-contented, he was still Ranger, still practical, work-focused.
And I liked that about him.
More than I thought I could.
“Fiiine,” I pretended to grumble, slowly moving off him, fetching my tee, slipping it back on a little self-consciously as Ranger got out of the bed bare-ass naked, no insecurity at all. And why would he be? With a body like that.
“And after dinner,” he said as he dug through his dresser drawers, “we got to deal with those stitches.”
“I’ll be happy to get them out. They keep snagging at things,” I told him, finding panties and pants, deciding the tee would be good enough for the day’s tasks.
From there, we had a quick breakfast, fed the dogs, handled the other animals, then gathered the packs of seeds, tools, and several buckets of compost, then headed out to the big garden, spending the rest of the day pouring compost, placing seeds, marking rows, hauling water pails to soak in the seeds, and then hanging ropes with little pinwheels to keep birds from attacking the seeds when they started to grow.
We cleaned up, ate, he took out my stitches, then we fell into bed, and into each other once again.
It was lovely.
Easy.
Uncomplicated.
I never realized before how much pressure there was on relationships in the world outside our woods. That constant back and forth at the beginning, not knowing what the other one was thinking, everyone programmed not to be the first one to confess feelings, no one wanting to get hurt, or have their pride bruised, or not wanting to commit in the current hook-up culture.
And even once you did decide on exclusivity, everything had uncertain steps. When was it appropriate to spend the weekend, move in, meet the parents, confess love, get engaged, get married, have kids.
Then there was the input from family, from friends, from co-workers, the pressures of life, of work, of differing personal timelines.
Everything was wrought with pressure, so much so that you got a pearl, or everything burst apart, leaving everyone in wreckage, everything in pieces.
This was nothing like that.
This was simply natural, instinctive.
There were no games or expectations. We simply went on with life as we had before, but now there was added sweetness. An unexpected touch, a little kiss, someone to curl up with at night, to talk little things with before sleep claimed us.
No one was around to give input, to raise questions we weren’t ready for. There was no outside pressure.
We just let things happen as they happened.
I decided I liked it this way infinitely better.
—
It was on the fourth day that I found it.
It had been easy to overlook before, tucked into a paper bag that first glance had shown me was bottled hair products and body wash – things I no longer wanted to use since I preferred the stuff that Ranger made. But I had been looking for a fresh razor – some things never changed, I still absolutely needed to have a close shave at all times – and had found it tucked toward the side in a ziplock bag.
A picture in a frame.
Not just any picture in a frame.
The only picture in a frame I had in my whole apartment.
My mom was sitting beside my grandfather in the aged Adirondack chairs on his beloved front porch. And a smiling, fat, young me was perched on my grandfather’s lap. Everyone smiling. All of us having the exact same one. Except mine was stained red from the raspberries I was clutching in my pudgy fist.
