I pick up the pace, my thumb working her clit while my fingers mimic the rhythm I’m about to echo with my dick. She’s shaking now, her breath coming in jagged, shallow hitches.
“Jude, please… I can’t… I’m going to—”
“Come for me, Birdy.”
Her entire body goes taut, her back arching off the couch as she screams my name into the rafters of the cabin. I watch every second of it with intense pleasure. The way her muscles spasm, the way her chest heaves, the way her wet pussy pulses around my fingers… It’s the most gorgeous sight I’ve ever been privileged to witness.
I wait until the last tremor fades before I move back up her body. I hover over her, bracing myself on my forearms. Taking my dick, I rub the head against her, coating myself in her sweet wetness.
Her eyes flutter open. “Now, take me, Jude. Please,” she whispers, reaching down to guide me.
I don’t need to be told twice. I shift, aligning myself, and sink into her in one long, slow thrust until I’m completely buried inside her. The feeling is better than any fantasy I’ve played out in my head since the moment she walked into my life. She’s so small, and I’m so goddamn big, but she takes all of me, her body stretching to accommodate my thickness with a wet, heavy slide that nearly ends me right then and there.
I stay still for a heartbeat, buried to the hilt, breathing her in. I want her to feel the weight of me, the reality ofus. As far as I see it, we’ve melted into one, no longer separate, but together forever.
“You okay?” I ask, my voice sounding like gravel.
“That’s an understatement,” she pants and smiles as her arms wind around my neck to pull me down for a kiss.
I start to move, pulling nearly all the way out before slamming back in. The sound of our bodies meeting joins the crackle of the wood stove. I’m not being gentle anymore. I can’t. All I can do is claim every inch of her with a possessiveness that surprises me. I want her marked and filled by me so thoroughly that the rest of the world ceases to exist for her.
“You’re so tight,” I groan, burying my face in the crook of her neck. “So perfect for me.”
I reach between us, my thumb finding her clit again, and I draw circles over it as I drive into her. The double friction sends her over the edge again almost instantly. She wails, wrapping her legs around my waist to pull me even deeper, her heels digging into my glutes.
“That’s it. Take all of me,” I growl.
“I’m coming,” she whimpers.
My thrusts become fast and shallow as the white-hot heat of my climax roars up. I give one final, devastating shove, seatingmyself as deep as humanly possible, and let go. I groan her name as I fill her, my vision going dark at the edges.
We collapse together onto the couch, tangled and slick with sweat. I roll to the side but keep her tucked firmly against my chest while my heartbeat slows down in tandem with hers.
I look at her. She’s flushed, beautiful, limp, and completely mine. And I finally know. The solitude I thought I wanted was a lie I told myself until she got here.
I pull the wool throw from the back of the couch and drape it over both of us. Birdy is heavy against me, her head tucked perfectly into the hollow of my shoulder. I run my hand down the length of her spine, marveling at how perfectly she fits against my side. For fifteen years, I’ve been a man of hard edges and tactical distance, but with her, every defense I built has turned to ash.
“You still with me, Birdy?” I whisper.
Her fingers trace the edge of a scar on my ribs. “I’m not going anywhere, Jude. I told you. I’m staying.”
The way she says my name makes my chest tighten. I’ve spent so long trying to be a ghost in these woods, making sure nobody needed me because I was exhausted after giving so much of myself for all those years. But looking at her now and seeing the marks of my fingers on her hips and the flush on her cheeks, I realize I’ve never been happier to give everything to her.
“I’m going to take care of you,” I say. “Whatever you need. If you want to keep working at the flower farm, I’ll drive you down the mountain every morning. If you want to stay up here and paint, I’ll build you a studio with the best light in the valley. If you want to channel your inner Taylor Swift and bake sourdough bread every day, I’ll buy you bags of flour. You’re mine now. That means your happiness is my job.”
She lifts her head. “You’ve been taking care of everyone for so long, Jude. Who takes care of you?”
“You just did,” I tell her honestly.
She smiles, and it’s a slow, beautiful thing that makes my heart skip multiple beats. She kisses me, long and lazily. “Then it’s a deal. We take care of each other.”
I tighten my grip on her, pulling the blanket higher around her shoulders. The wind picks up outside, whistling through the high boughs of the timber pines, but inside, the cabin is a fortress. My hearth, my home, and now, my woman.
“Birdy?”
“Hmm.”
“I… I love you.”