Page 80 of Sudden Summer

“You’re so fucking perfect. I’m so mad at myself for wasting all these years. I was a fucking coward⁠—”

Her mouth was on mine before I could finish my thought.

“Everything worked out exactly how it was supposed to.” Her eyes sparkled as I looked down into them. “This moment means everything to me. Everything. And it wouldn’t be what it is without everything in our lives going exactly as it did to bring us here. I’m so grateful for all the years I had as your best friend. And I’m so grateful that we are finally at a place where we can admit it’s always been so much more than that.”

“I love you, Chickadee.”

“I love you, too, Cowboy. If you’re waiting for an invitation, consider this it, okay? I’m ready. Really, really…and I can’t stress this enough…really ready.”

Nodding, I kissed her, my body pressing hers further into the pile of pillows as our tongues tangled together.

“Are you comfortable?” I asked.

“Yes, just…go slow,” she whispered as her hands landed on my shoulders.

I kissed her again, my teeth playfully pulling at her bottom lip. “I will. I don’t ever want to hurt you. You’re too precious to me.”

Our eyes stayed locked on one another as I pressed my cock against her entrance. Jesus, fuck. I hadn’t made it further than the tip of my dick, and she already felt like heaven. “Fuck, Birdie. You feel…this feels…”

I was stuttering over my words. Everything in the world seemed to quiet, including any coherent thoughts in my brain as I inched deeper into her.

“I’m good, Beau. So good. Just keep—oh!” I was fully seated in her when her eyes rolled to the back of her head and closed.

“Birdie? Hey, sweetheart.” My hand brushed over her hair while I balanced on my other arm to stop myself from crushing her. “I need you to tell me that this is okay. That you’re not hurting, that I’m not hurting you.”

“I’m good, Cowboy. You feel so good. I feel…” Her neck moved as she swallowed, her eyes finally opening to find mine. “I’m so…full. I just…give me a second to catch my breath.”

I chuckled, my head falling to the crook of her neck where I licked over the pulse point that was jumping under the delicate skin there.

“If you don’t want me to use foundation, you better not give me a hickey,” she warned, gasping as my mouth continued to suckle on that spot while my hand brushed against her nipple.

“I need you to move now, okay? I need you to move.” Her repeated plea was so fucking cute. But it was her nails raking over my shoulders and her hips rolling beneath me that were going to send me over the edge. When she lifted her leg and hitched it around my hip, I knew she wasn’t messing around.

“You got it, baby. Fuck, even in my wildest dreams, I never thought you would feel this good.”

We fell into an intense rhythm—slow at first, but still so fucking powerful—my hips guiding the connection between our bodies. I captured her mouth, our tongues colliding as her nails slid down my back.

“Look how perfectly I fit here,” I groaned as I pulled out, pushing back into her as slowly as the last little bit of my control would allow, my hand pressing low on her belly, just between her hips. I leaned down, my eyes rolling into the back of my head. “You take me so fucking well, Chickadee. You were made for me.”

The heat built slowly at first, melting everything down to a singular point of connection between us. And then the fire hit. An inferno that was so powerful, its crescendo fused our two souls together as one.

There, under the stars in the place I loved, with the woman who had always held my heart, I watched as her orgasm rolled through her. My own release wasn’t far behind, a pathetic groan leaving my chest before I could swallow it down.

My head rested against hers, my body still trembling from my release. “I love you, Birdie. I love you so fucking much. You’re the best gift I’ve ever been given. And I’m so sorry it’s taken me all this time to get here with you. But all that time we lost, I’m going to make it up to you.” It was a promise that bled from the deepest part of my soul and took root in the soil we were laying together on top of. Every word would grow into the grass, and the flowers, and the trees surrounding us. The promise would seed out over the land through the years I kept that vow. And one day, when Birdie and I were both no longer here, when we were waiting at the springs for our children to come and join us on the other side like she’d sang in her lullaby to Juniper, those words would come back and spark new love and life into our family for generations to come.

Birdie

My fingers traced over one of the small ladybugs on Beau’s forearm. I was still trying to catch my breath after…everything. Beau had me wrapped up in his arms, my back pressed against his chest.

I rolled so my stomach rested on the edge of his waist, and my finger found another ladybug. It was always funny to me how he’d stuck with the one theme for all these years. “You should let me color these sometime.”

His eyebrow quirked. “You don’t like them black and white?”

“I love them how they are, but it might be fun to see what they could look like colored in. When Juniper gets old enough, I bet she’ll love doodling on her dad.”

“You want to doodle on me? My body is your canvas, baby.”

I laughed. “You’d do just about anything for me, wouldn’t you, Cowboy?”