She patted down her pockets, looking for her cigarettes, which were actually over on the bedside table. With her eyes pointed down at the floor, and so quietly he could barely hear her words, she said, "It's sure nice to hear that what I want is so obvious. Maybe you'll do me the favor one day of explaining it to me, so we can both know."
Unable to locate a cigarette, her hands got busy twisting the tacky engagement ring on her finger.
"Brynn, you don't have to marry that guy. Not if he doesn't make you happy."
She snapped, "What's happy got to do with anything?"
"Well … " He rewound the conversation in his head. What were they even talking about? What unmarked detour had they taken to be bottoming out on these washed-out roads?
When he met her blue eyes again, they were twinkling. Mood changed.
She laughed, which made him laugh.
He rubbed his hands over his face, as though just waking up. "I should be getting home," he said.
"Just like a man," she said, her tone light yet gently chiding. "You got the strawberry pie and you're done."
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Gently, he pulled her to him and kissed her forehead then lips.
"I'll never be done with you," he said. "You're in me now, a part of me. Brynn, I close my eyes and feel you in my blood."
She melted against him, the swirling emotions around them both lifting like fog in the dawn.
"Oh, David," she said, smattering him with tiny kisses. "You should write poetry."
"I do."
"Can I read it?"
"Don't ask me that."
She pulled back. "This really was a one-time thing. Don't tell anyone, or I could lose my job, and I'll make you sorry if I lose my job."
"Fine."
"Fine." She turned and headed for the cottage door.
Like hell that was their last time.
The next week, David Smith Wittingham chased Brynn to a spare stall filled with hay. As she kissed him, both of them breathless, he pushed his hand down the front of her tight riding pants and found the crux of her, where he slid his finger back and forth between those plump furrows of flesh.
She squirmed on his fingers, telling him they shouldn't, they ought not to, but she never said no.
When she sought his cock, fumbling with his belt, he turned her around and pushed her ahead onto a raised bit of wood on the floor. With her riding pants down at her knees, gathered over her brown leather boots, he bent her forward and took her from behind, his own trousers barely loosened.
At first, the only sound was the buckle on his belt clattering as he pumped against her round bu**ocks, pale like moons. As his breathing grew ragged and audible, she began to moan and gasp. He clutched at her body, deep inside her, but not fully immersed enough.
He withdrew. "Take off your boots."
"My boots are so tight. They're impossible. Just f**k me already. Don't be a f**king pu**y, David." She leaned over, grabbing her knees, and peeked around the side of her legs, a twisted smile on her lips to soften her words.
He thought he heard someone outside the stall-another instructor or rider inside the barn. He thought about walking away, of saying he'd had enough as of now.
"I'm cooling down," she said, sounding annoyed.
He glanced back toward the doorway, then down at that lovely body. Pale, creamy, lightly freckled. The center of her was deep pink and inviting. He fingered the frilly skin and spread her wetness back and forth. With a mind of its own, his c**k followed, and he plunged in. He wanted more, but he grabbed onto her h*ps and took what he could.
If a close friend would have known to ask, David would have said the deal with Brynn was simply sex, no strings attached. In the dark, secret part of his heart, though, he looked forward to one day seeing her left hand without that tacky little diamond ring.
The secret, poetry-writing part of him believed she would one day be his.
In September, he'd just started college, and though his parents had suggested he drop riding to have full focus on his studies, he'd continued the riding lessons, "for stress relief."
On their final session, he noticed the ring with a dull thudding in his heart-disappointment. She still wore the diamond ring, along with a new, thick band. Brynn, the woman he was fiercely in love with, had married a man whose name David didn't even know.
The ride itself that day was a nightmare. When his horse wasn't stumbling, the gelding was ignoring him, obsessed with a prancing mare in heat, over in another pasture. The poor gelded horse had no idea what he couldn't do to that tantalizing mare.
After the ride, David confronted Brynn in the saddle room.
"How could you go through with it? How could you get married?"