Strange that I know that already. Strange how fast I’ve gotten to know him. But then again, maybe not strange at all, given how well we knew each other before. It was only a couple of summers that we hung out, but it was long enough. I’m the same girl, and he’s the same guy.
I step up beside him.
“Hey.”
He keeps chopping the vegetables, quiet, unresponsive. But he’s listening, at least.
“I thought you forgot me,” I say. “I believed the same thing you did.”
He turns to look at me then, but his dark eyes are unreadable. Inscrutable in this low light. When he finally speaks, his voice is low. Full of pain. “How could I possibly forget you, Sasha?”
I press my lips together, a tight line. “You abandoned me first, Grant. You started hanging out with the jocks, stopped coming by the farm. Never asked me to any of the school dances, never kissed me, when there were so many chances, late at night out watching the stars…”
“I wanted to kiss you every single one of those times,” he finishes, eyes still locked on mine. Then he sighs and tears them away, shoulders still tense. “I didn’t have the guts. I thought you weren’t interested, anyway—you were hanging out with the artsy crowd, never asked me over—”
“Because I assumed you were busy being a cool kid,” I point out.
“And I thought you were too important for me. I thought you left me behind, the way you left everyone here behind when you left town.”
I bite my lip. “I never meant to do that to you. I just needed to get out of here. After Dad left, after everything Mama went through… I couldn’t spend my whole life here. I needed to get out. Try something different. See what the rest of the world was like.”
“And what do you think?” He lifts a brow.
I dare a tiny half-smile. “The rest of the world? It’s overrated, if you ask me.”
For a long moment, he keeps chopping veggies. Dumps them into the pot, then slowly sets down the knife and turns to look at me. This time, I can read the pain in his gaze all too well. “I’m not a kid anymore, Sasha. I’m not going to beat around the bush. If you’re just looking for a vacation fling before you head back to the big city and your life there, that’s fine, but you’d best tell me now.” He meets my eye, and I cannot look away. Can’t tear my gaze from his. “What do you want, Sasha?” he asks.
I blink, startled. It’s a question I haven’t been asked in a very long time. It’s a question I haven’t asked myself in even longer. I haven’t dared. Because if I were being honest, I’d admit that I don’t want the life I currently have. Everything I’ve built for myself, my little empire in the city… It’s everything I always dreamed of. Everything I thought I wanted. And it makes me feel nothing except stress. Sadness. Emptiness.
He sighs, deep in the back of his throat, and starts to turn away when the silence stretches on too long. But I grab his arm, pull him back to me, and blurt the only answer that comes to mind. The truth. The one that came into my head the moment he asked the question, even though it seems crazy.
“I want you,” I say.
He steps closer. Looms over me. My head tilts back to keep our eyes locked, and my heart beats in my throat at his nearness, the scent of him, the feel of the heat radiating off his skin. “Are you sure about that?”
“As sure as I’ve ever been of anything,” I whisper, and it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said.
Grant cups my cheek gently. Leans down to kiss me, and this time, when we kiss, it’s different. I sink into him, falling up, as I wrap my arms around his neck to steady myself. It’s a slow, sensual kiss, the kind I could lose myself in for hours. His mouth parts, his tongue traces my lips, slides between them, and I tangle my tongue in his, lose myself in him, his taste, his scent.
We part again, and he hovers inches from my lips, his breath hot across my cheeks. “If you stay with me… If you want a life with me… You know that means living here, don’t you?”
“I do,” I murmur.
His eyes search mine. “Can you really accept that, Sasha?”
I open my mouth, but he stops me with a tilt of his head, a flicker of his brow.
“Don’t answer this lightly,” he admonishes. “I know how eager you were to run last time. How badly the big city tugged at you. You couldn’t wait to put all of us—this whole town and me, in your rearview mirror. Are you sure you could really make a life here? Would you really be happy in this town?”
I lean up to press my lips to his, tentative at first, then deeper, harder. When we pull apart again, I know. I wrap one hand around his neck and tug him down until his forehead rests against mine, our eyes fixed on one another. “I want this, Grant. That life, the big city, all the hustle and bustle, it… I enjoyed it, for a time. But it never felt real. It never felt settled. This, you… This feels more real than any of that ever did.”
“What do you want to do about the farm?” he asks softly.
I bite my lip and shake my head once, hard. “I don’t want to sell it. I can’t imagine it, not after everything we’ve built here, not after fixing it all up like this… Together. We built this place. My family built this place, way back when. I want to keep it.” Then I wince and step back a pace to watch him. “But, I mean… I know I only own half the place now. If you want to sell, I can respect that. I’ll…” I shake my head. “I don’t know. I’ll figure out another place to live…”
“I don’t want to sell, Sasha,” he cuts across me. “I never did. Hell, when you told me you did…” He grimaces, and it makes my heart ache to see that pain on his face. “It felt like a slap in the face,” he finally murmurs. “You finally came home, and all you wanted to do was get rid of everything left that might tie you even a little bit to this place. That, and you acted like you didn’t even remember me.”
“Yeah, well, you pretended you didn’t know me either.” I cup his face between my hands, his beard scratchy against my palms. “I don’t know how either of us ever believed that of one another, Grant. I’m sorry for that. But I remember you. I remember it all. I always have. Not just the bad parts, the only parts I let myself think about for years. I remember how much I loved it here, before Dad left. Before I started to worry that everyone would leave me, eventually…”
“I won’t,” he promises, and I smile, as I lean up to kiss him again.
“I know,” I whisper against his lips, and it feels like a new start. Then Grant grabs my hand, tugs me away from the sink, into the living room.
We don’t even make it as far as the bedroom. We fall in a tangle of limbs onto the couch, both of us tearing at one another’s clothing.
I don’t know how I couldn’t see this sooner. How I could ever run away from this place—from a man like Grant–when he’s the first person who’s ever made me recognize how miserable I really was in the rat race of the big city. Here, I’ve seen the stars every night, tasted fresh air, worked up a sweat at hard physical labor that I never dreamed I’d be capable of doing. But I’m stronger than I thought, and capable of so much more than I ever dreamed.
Just look at how quickly we shaped up this farm. In just under a week, we’ve been able to make it look like a completely different place, a real home, and a farm that could start working again. Imagine how much we could do if we lived here full-time, really put our all into getting this place up and running and producing again?
I love this place… And, I’m starting to realize, as Grant kisses me until my lips ache and lowers me down onto the couch, lying atop me, his muscles hard against mine, his body hot and close… I love him.
Grant tosses the last scrap of my clothing aside just as I finish pushing his boxers down, freeing his cock, already rock hard at attention between us.
But when he sits back down on the couch, he grabs me and pulls me onto his lap, until I’m kneeling across him, our lips still pressed together, tongues entwined. He pulls me down slowly, angling me just right, and then I lower myself the rest of the way, pushing the tip of his cock between my lips into my entrance, and slowly, inch by inch, lowering myself onto his thick shaft. I moan, head falling back as I sit down against him completely, and he fills me up, stretching me the way he always does.
Fuck. I will never get tired of this feeling.
“I love your tight little pussy,” he murmurs against my lips, and I grin into our kiss, nipping at his lower lip. He bites mine in response, hard enough to make me gasp, and then he kisses it better, his hands tightening on my ass, lifting me up.
“You feel so fucking good inside me,” I whisper into his mouth, as I slide back down against him, thrust him in deep again. We start to rock in time with one another, building up momentum, and with every crash of our hips together, the tension in my pussy builds, my clit throbbing with desire before long. His hipbone grinds against my clit every time I sit down against him, and it makes me wild. His hands run down my back, nails raking over my skin, as I cling to him so hard I’ll leave marks on his back for days. I don’t care. I want everyone to know.