Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 89(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 89(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Then we reach it. It is all too perfect, too powerful, too intense. We’re holding onto one another, our sexes shuddering around one another, orgasm claiming up both so fully and completely. I cry out his name, hearing it echo through the trees, and he does the same for mine. My core shudders around him as it’s wracked by bliss, and deep within I feel him pulse and flood me with the efforts of our lust.
Thank God for birth control.
He holds me steady for a time, both of us struggling to catch our breath.
“Wasn’t expecting to have the best sex of my life from going out to buy some elderberry jam,” he says.
“I could go for some huckleberry jam on a pancake right about now. That seems pretty good.”
He looks at me with disbelief.
“What? It’s a compliment. Really good sex makes me hungry for something sweet. Would you prefer that we eat at the diner in town? That’d hit the spot too.”
Fox laughs, setting me down. “Food of any sort would do. You’ve definitely worked up an appetite in me too, Tabitha.”
I start to gather my clothes. Just as I expect, there’s twigs and dirt on all of them. Fox is trying to get some of the dirt off his jeans, but me? I’m just glad nothing got in my panties.
“You think anyone will have any idea why we’re so roughed up and dirty?” I say, pulling my dress back on and making sure that my bra was set right. “Maybe we need to come up with a snappy excuse. May I suggest we’re involved in a bare knuckle boxing league with the local lumberjacks?”
Fox chuckles. “Ah yeah, that boxing league that Bear tells me he does all the time, and totally exists.”
“Good thinking, mention him, it’ll sell our story more.”
He shakes his head in bemusement.
I’m going to enjoy spending a whole lot of time with this man.
Whether it be a few months, a few years, or, well, the rest of my life.
Yeah, if it was the rest of my life, that’d just be just too good to be true.
FOUR
tabitha
The next few weeks fill with plenty of dates. We see a few movies. A comedy show. We bounce between the city and Evergreen Valley freely, but it quickly becomes clear that we’re both more at home in the small town.
It’s all good. Fine, even.
But I can’t help but shake that something’s wrong.
As saccharine as it all is, it’s just us. We joked about meeting the parents when we first met, but he made no moves to introduce me to his, even after we had a nice enough dinner with my dad.
Dad did say that he liked Fox.
But he also wondered why Fox never talked about his own old man.
And that is where the seeds of doubt began to hit me.
I’m waiting at a nearby park for him to show up. It’s a cool summer evening, and there’s some folks doing a cook out not far from here. It makes me hungry, but Fox and I were preparing to roast some hot dogs when we were going to wind down on our own hike.
I yearn to be with him even more. His lack of openness isn’t the point where I want to tell him to put up or shut up just yet.
It does keep me wondering. Are his folks that vile? He seems to like his mother. Is his father just that repulsive where he fears I’m going to dump him on the spot?
Could there be something else?
Part of me just wants to get up and ask him, demanding a straight answer. But I’m also aware that it may well be a sensitive topic for him. He’s a strong looking guy with his head on straight, but it’s hard to grow up in today’s world without getting some trauma and something you feel anxious about not sharing with other people.
His truck pulls up, its persistent filth the proof he’s as much of an Evergreen Valley native as he says he is. He steps out of his truck, his hiking backpack at the ready. “You're looking absolutely as beautiful as ever.”
“Thanks. I think the brown boots and shirt with a million pockets really brings out the color of my eyes.”
“I mean, it’s more of you’d be absolutely beautiful in anything. Including nothing. Especially nothing.”
I giggle. “Wouldn’t mind seeing you in nothing myself.”
He offers his arm to me, an old timey maneuver meant to make me laugh. “Now where are we going tonight, m’lady?”
“First, never call me ‘m’lady’ again,” I say, pulling him along and heading down the path.
“I promise I will never seriously call you m’lady again, m’lady.”
I playfully pieface him with the palm of my hand. “Dork.”
“What, I can’t help but love the way you crack up.”
I had sold Fox on another one of my natural little getaways. While what I had dubbed as ‘Nature’s Cathedral’ was the most sacred of these spots to me, it didn’t mean that I didn’t have a fine list of a bunch of other fun little spots that I quite enjoyed.