Page 74 of Apple of My Eye
Shari: Drool. He’s so dreamy.
Me: It’s not important. He’s leaving like the week after next anyways.
Shari: Acting like you don’t have the date written in sharpie in your calendar.
Evan: I can’t WAIT to debrief.
Me: Evan. No time to debrief. It will be crazy here! Be prepared to work.
Evan: As long as I’m paid in apple pie.
We’re going all out this year. We’ve never done anything like it before. I’m not sure whether to staff Evan at the JJ meet and greet, the photo backdrops, or at the bake stand. Although given his love for apple pie, I’m thinking the latter. We’ve never invited visitors to meet JJ, but with his renewed strength I think he’s up for it and I know it’s time to see how he interacts with new people, the first step of many to potentially finding him a new home.
‘God, you’re sexy,’ Nick breathes into my neck, pulling me out of my train of thought just in time. I bury my nose into his hair and inhale the minty smell of his hair gel.
‘I don’t know what you’re doing to me, Nick Russo.’ I sigh.
He runs his hands through my hair and I squeal with happiness. Suddenly his hands are everywhere. For the past three days we’ve alternated between exhaustion and overdrive—all hands, urgent, panting, sweaty and fast. We’ve spent every night together since the first night Nick slept over, but usually by the time we collapse in bed next to each other all we do is snuggle and sleep. Nick wraps his arms around me or a leg on top of me and I feel luxuriously cozy under his muscular limbs.
Yesterday morning he came back over to our farm like he usually would, after he had breakfast with Betsy. We had just started taking soil samples, doing our best to act normal, when Dad asked if I could grab something from the basement storage room.
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘wanna come?’
Nick nodded and I saw the glint in his eye. I saw what was going to happen in that basement storage room a mile away.
It was damp and dusty, so unsexy that itwassexy. Nick lifted me on top of a work table before I could even question what was going on, his tongue in my mouth, my hands greedily pulling his T-shirt off.
He nibbled the top of my bum and pulled my pants down with his teeth, grazing my skin while he did it. I writhed with pleasure. ‘Nick,’ I warned, ‘ten minutes.’
‘Ten minutes, Scout’s honor,’ he said, pulling my pants down with his hands. He slid a finger between my thighs, his other hand reaching up my shirt and thumbing my nipple. My breath hitched in my chest. I whimpered.
‘You’re so wet for me already,’ he breathed into my ear, nibbling on the bottom of my earlobe. My toes curled. I arched my back up into him. Felt his hardness against my backside.
‘I’m not the only one who’s ready,’ I replied.
‘It’s not about me today.’ His thumb pressed on my clit right as he said it and I gasped. He flipped me over again. ‘It’s about you,’ He said, before he kissed each of my nipples, flicking his tongue around them so expertly that I moaned. He trailed kisses down my belly button until he reached his hand, his thumb never hesitating, still circling my clit with expert rhythm.
When his lips reached me, I felt like I could dissolve with pleasure. ‘Nick,’ I moaned, thrusting my fingers into his hair and pulling gently, guiding his tongue to exactly where I needed it. ‘Just like that.’
He obeyed, one hand palming my breast, the other working in tandem with his tongue. He swirled and licked and sucked in a perfect rhythm, building me closer and closer to the edge.
‘Keep going,’ I moaned, and he sucked harder, my vision clouding with stars as I completely let go.
He raised his head from between my legs and licked his lips.
‘You are,’ he said, with more sincerity than I’ve ever heard from him lips, ‘perfect.’
I felt like the heroine in my book. And it feltsogood. It felt so goodtwice.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Nick
WEEK NINE
The earth is damp this morning, soil packed tightly underneath my boots. Not like yesterday when everything felt dusty. It was the perfect rain before U-Pick, Joe told me this morning—enough to bind the soil together, to stop everything from being coated in silt, but not too much that it turned everything to mud. We officially open our doors to folks this weekend, who will come in from across the state to pick apples with their families, their friends, and their partners.
I’m exhausted, it’s the first night I’ve spent without Eloise all week and I didn’t sleep well. I tell myself it’s because I like her mattress better than Betsy’s, trying to pretend that I don’t already know insomnia will plague me again when I return to San Francisco. I tried to bring up visiting the last time we were together, asking if she would go see Linden if he didn’t end up making the trip during the summer, knowing the answer was probably no.
