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“Sure you don’t want me to lick you again, Sienna?” Her sweet taste filled my senses, swirling around us, and I was drunk on her intoxicating scent.
A soft whimper–of frustration, or need, or both–left her mouth. She reached down, gripping my hands and pushed my fingers inside her. Wet heat enveloped me as she arched on a cry I knew I’d always remember. My girl never spoke, not as I worked her through more than one orgasm, letting it roll into the next until she lay sweating and panting and soft beneath me.
Then I sheathed myself inside her, keeping my rhythm slow and damning, drawing out her answer to the question I hadn’t really asked, but knowing this was her acceptance.
Pleasure rolled over me as I watched her come undone a hundred different ways. Soft kisses mingled with frenzied cries until the dawn broke over us. Then I let myself go, sinking intoher, searing her insides soul deep, and making sure her body knew only one man, the one who belonged to her.
Mine.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I never did get that yes from Sienna, though we still got married. Two months later at the beginning of what promised to be a stunning winter, she walked with me through the red and white seed heads as the grasses turned with the season along the incline behind Jack’s house.
My wife–the concept that she was mine in every way, and me, hers–still blew me away. She spent half her time at Longside making creams, a part of her time at the house on the hill near Rachel’s–I still teared up if I called it Jack’s place–and the rest of the time travelling with me and learning what my life really looked like from the passenger seat of my truck.
She hadn’t left me yet, still smiled and loved it when I slept with my head near her stomach, my lips pressed to her side, waiting for the day a little hand pressed back.
The house was being rebuilt, slowly. Brendan still had some problems breathing, and Trav offered me his best workers and foreman for as many days as it took to help put a roof over my girl’s head. Not that she loved the place, more tolerated it while her father lived. I had the impression she’d want it gone at some point and sever ties with her previous life.
I didn’t blame her in the least.
An early snow gave us pause, and since there was no work to be done today, we walked out behind Jack’s place–cue tears–to the grave marked out the back of his house, along the white andred feathered head grasslands that ran from his place all the way out to Rachel’s veterinary surgery.
As always, Sienna walked quietly alongside me, sometimes touching or stopping to kiss me, but never filling the silence between us with unnecessary words.
The silence was never uncomfortable, and I learned to listen to what wasn’t said as much as what was. Now might be the time for walking and listening, but my turn for talking was fast coming up. A familiar lump breached my throat, labouring each breath I pushed out between tight lips.
I stopped at the small kissing gate where Jack’s grave lay. He couldn’t have hallowed ground, but then the mountain was the only god we were on speaking terms with round here.
Only one mound occupied the space, but Trav insisted I make it large enough for my family as it grew, planning ahead as always. Hell, he even insisted I use the plot above his house where his parents were buried, but I couldn’t do that, either.
Lacing my fingers through Sienna’s hair I tugged gently, pressing my lips to hers in a soft kiss that left her shivering deliciously against me.
“Give me a few minutes, okay?”
She smiled sadly up at me, one hand pressed to her tummy, the other pushing into mine with the handful of wildflowers and coloured grasses she collected on our walk.
I took them, grateful, and kissed the tip of her nose.
She stared out to the west, to her mountain, watching. I knew she’d want to go back there soon. It was like she couldn’t bear to be away for too long, but I also knew it wasn’t the same for her anymore. It’s why we rotated our time between Jack’s, Longside and my rounds across the state and further to the east.
I puffed my cheeks out, leading with the posy, and promised myself I wouldn’t procrastinate too long. The ground around Jack’s grave was cleared, and I sat on the short grass, placing thetiny bouquet near the carved granite Jude and Gage etched for me.
“Sienna says hi. Rachel, too. They miss you, old man.” I uncapped two beers, clinking the glass, and placed one near the flowers. “House and yard looks clean. You did good, cleaning the place up. Promise.” I sipped my beer, looking out past the headstone. “Hope you’re enjoying the view. And the company you keep.” I raised the beer, saluting the ghosts I still swore haunted the house, and imagined them shaking their heads or raising a drink in return.
I chattered on, talking through my rounds, the changes at Red Hart. How the house was growing, how much I appreciated the gift I could remember him with. I didn’t drink alone, finishing my beer with the comforting presence that settled behind me as I stared out at the mountain.
“It’s a hell of a place you settled in, Jack. I hope you know that.”
Somewhere on the wind, I swore the old man agreed, grumbling away like the breeze that brushed the seed heads, bending them to his will. The mountain’s air grew colder. I stretched my legs, bending down to tug a long, feathery red grass head from beside the grave and added it to the bouquet.
“Take care, old man. I’ll see you soon.”
Sienna smiled gently at me, reaching out to wind her arms around my waist. We walked slowly back to the house, both of us still figuring out where we were in this life, and what we needed. It didn’t matter what those answers were, as long as we were together.
She shivered in my arms, looking up at me playfully. One part of our lives was complete, and the next days were all new to us, if a mirage of those already past. The mountain promised a cold winter with its harsh breath, but we would weather it together. My final words to Jack lingered on the wind that sweptaround us in tiny eddies that lifted Sienna’s hair and fluttered it against my arm.
Somewhere behind me, I almost heard his reply.
