Page 11 of Craved By the Lumberjack

His expression remained neutral, though. Damn, he was a hard one to read.

He ripped open the packet with his teeth, then pointed it toward me. I reached inside and pulled out the ring, surprised at how wet it was. Not just wet—kind of slimy and cold. I hadn’t expected that.

He tossed the packet aside and waited as I positioned it above his tip. I began rolling it down, realizing right away that I’d faced it in the wrong direction. I flipped it around. From there, it was easy—just roll it on.

But when I looked up, I saw that I was affecting him. His chest was rising and falling even more dramatically now, and his eyes seemed to blaze a hole right through me, sending heat straight to where it mattered most.

Once the condom was on, I rose above him and positioned him at my entrance, ready to plunge down on him. That was when he stopped me.

“Hold up,” he said. “You’re going to want to ease into it.”

Oh, right. There may or may not be a membrane we had to break through. That famed “cherry” that was always talked about. But whether my hymen was still intact was up for debate, at least from what my research indicated.

With a hand on each of his shoulders, I slowly eased downward, barely getting him a couple of inches inside. I worked hard to keep my face calm and not show my pain. I didn’t want him to worry. It would pass. Pain always passed.

“Go slowly,” he said.

He returned his thumb to my clit and began rubbing it just as he’d been doing before we paused. It seemed like a waste of energy with all the pain that had taken over that area, but I didn’t stop him. He knew more about this stuff than I did by far.

He moved his other hand to my breast and began circling my nipple again. The combination of that and what he was doing to my clit started paying off. It didn’t feel good exactly, but it felt good enough to take my mind off the pain.

Soon, the pain lessened. I wasn’t going very deep, but it was definitely enough to make me no longer a virgin. We’d have plenty of time for him to go deeper. The rest of our lives, if I had my way.

“Keep doing that,” I said.

I closed my eyes and focused on the pleasure, the warmth starting in my core and spreading throughout my body. That familiar tingle was taking hold, seeming to center on my neck and shoulders. It was like I was cold and hot at the same time—but in the best way imaginable.

I heard myself saying “Oh” over and over, and a small part of me worried I looked and sounded ridiculous. The rest of me didn’t care, though. I was so caught up in how amazing this felt—a feeling I never wanted to end.

As I came down, I took in my hunky lumberjack. His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched. He let out a guttural moan,followed by a couple of grunts. At the tail end of all that was a long, drawn-out, “Fuck.”

I knew he was coming in the condom. Soon enough, there would be nothing between us. And soon after that, we’d start a family. I could see it almost as clearly as if I were psychic.

It was my future. And it had been waiting for me all along.

Finally, he opened his eyes, and I saw it. Love. The very beginnings of it, of course, but I felt it too. And it would only grow stronger the more time we spent together.

As he pulled me down toward him for another long, slow kiss, my heart felt full for the first time in my life. It was hard to believe that tacos over TV trays had led to this.

But I wouldn’t trade any of it for the fanciest dinner in the nicest restaurant in the world.

EPILOGUE

KINGSTON

My wife was working at the kitchen table again.

Delta had an entire craft room. It was upstairs along with our kids’ bedrooms. But she liked to work at the kitchen table. She said it made her feel like she was part of things.

Kinsley, seven, and Brielle, five, would be at school right now. They’d barely started elementary school, and they already had so many friends’ birthday parties and ballet lessons, I was surprised my wife kept up with it all. But my wife of eight years was amazing.

“I came home for lunch,” I announced as I closed the cabin door behind me.

We’d moved into this place on the pond when we were expecting our first child. My two-bedroom cabin would have been fine for a while, but Delta had already started her online shop by then, and she needed an extra bedroom for supplies.

“Just finishing up these custom orders,” she said. But when she looked up, her eyes widened and a smile slowly spread over her face. “You picked up tacos.”

I held up the bag. My smile widened too, mostly because just looking at her lightened my mood. That bright, smiling face always cheered me up. She wore an oversized T-shirt and yoga pants—nothing fancy—but she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

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