Page 58 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch
She wrapped her legs around his back, thrusting herself up to him, desperate to feel him deeper and deeper. Frantic for her throb to be satisfied but longing to feel this way forever – with him – balancing on the edge of pure, exquisite bliss.
And then she was coming and coming in the most sensuous waves, and so was he, hot and fast, desperate and feral, pushing himself into her and gasping into her hair. She felt alive. So very, intensely alive. And she never wanted to stop feeling like this.
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‘Of all the ways to get warm, that was probably my favourite,’ said Rosie, her gentle laugh filling the space around them as she huddled under a blanket against Zain’s chest.
They’d drifted off to sleep in the pumpkin field after Zain had brought some of her pumpkin farmer fantasies to life, and when they’d woken not long afterwards, Rosie shivering into the October night, he’d carried her back to his hut to warm up.
They were now in his bed, the morning hour still early. Her mind couldn’t stop replaying images from what had undoubtedly been the most intimate night of her life, which had continued more slowly and deliberately when they’d reached his bed. Of course, with previous boyfriends, she’d had reasonable amounts of sex before. As a woman of thirty-six, she knew where everything went. But suddenly, it felt like none of her earlier encounters had beengenuine.
After all those years of assuming that she knew what love and lovemaking was, in a few precious hours, everything she thought she understood had been turned on its head.
Because last night had been something else entirely. It had feltreal. Her body had moved with Zain’s as though they were one complete person, with one beating heart. When their bodies were connected in the very deepest way, it had felt like he was part of her. Like every shudder, every pulse, was connected directly to her soul. It had been beautiful and magical and almost terrifying. To lay herself so completely bare, to gasp his name as if it was the only word she could remember. The sound of it coming from somewhere deep within and guttural. Her body was flushing again at the thought.
At last, she was sure that previous relationship disasters hadn’t left her immune to feeling or falling deeply – she’d just always chosen the wrong men for her. And Zain was oh so right.
Rosie glanced at the clock. They would need to be up soon, to push on with preparations for the official launch party and auction, which was happening the next evening. Until that time, she would cherish every inch of him. Her fingers tracked the artwork on his body. The collage of etchings she’d been so desperate to pore over since that morning when she’d accidentally barged in on him in the shower.
‘Do they mean anything?’ Rosie asked, the pad of her finger tracing the outline of a mountain. Vines twisted out from it and a bird flew above.
‘Not really. A tapestry of things that I’ve added over the years. Me finding parts of myself, and hoping that by searing them onto me, I’ll keep them close.’ He shook his head, taking her hand off the small bird and placing it over his heart. ‘Though it doesn’t work like that. Belonging, I mean. You can’t carve it onto you. You have to feel it inside you.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess. Still trying to work it out.’
‘They’re stunning. And I hope you can belong with me,’ she whispered.
‘I hope so too.’
He turned onto his side to face her, and as her hand trailed downwards his eyebrows rose. She remembered him making a throwaway excuse that first morning in the shower, about the cold water having an adverse effect on the size of his manhood. She could now vouch that everything he had to offer was particularly generous.
‘You’re chuckling again,’ he whispered into her hair, which was now completely wild from the best-ever night. The way she was feeling, the wilder the better. Had she ever even lived before she’d arrived on this farm?
She tilted her gaze towards him, hungry to see his face, his smile. Desperate for her eyes to sink into his.
‘And blushing a little.’
There was his smile again. She felt like she’d seen it a surprising amount since they’d been working together on their projects, but it had never come so easily nor shone so naturally as it did this morning. He was lighting up the world.
‘Are you hot for me?’ His gently teasing tone was setting her on fire.
All she could do was nod. For a writer, she had relatively few words to answer with. Though she knew that when she stole some time with the typewriter later, her heart would spill. In fact, everything she’d written about love until recently suddenly felt like drivel. Maybe those terrible rejection letters from publishers had been right. Perhaps her romantic scenes had been oddly lacking – because much like a piece of chatbot software, shehadn’tknown what love was. But something had changed.
His gaze was still on her, his eyes delicately sweeping her face as though they were enamoured with everything they saw, even though her eyes were probably puffy, and her cheeks creased from the sheets. He was looking at her as if she was his world, and his mouth twitched like there was something he couldn’tnotsay.
Suddenly, she felt it too. The overwhelming surge of it. Filling her up and threatening to burst from her. Her lips opened and the words tumbled out.
‘I love you.’ They were followed by her own small gasp. She hadn’t meant to say it so early, although somehow, she hadn’t been able to stop it.
‘I love you too.’ His words were quieter than hers. Slower. More considered. ‘And that thing you said before about no one knowing how to doforever. You’re right. Forevers are created one day at a time.’
She could feel his heart beating under her hand, steady and strong. Getting faster as her other hand teased up his body towards his face. And once again she was climbing on top of him, even though, in a past life, she wasn’t usually confident enough to take the lead. She loved the look in his eyes as he drank her in, the swell of her breasts, the delicate dip of her navel. His tongue traced his lips, and she remembered the deep pleasures of it from last night. He’d made every part of her glow.
As they both grew ready, Zain searched around for protection and put it on. And soon Rosie was easing herself onto him, both of them gasping with sheer, uncontrollablewant.
The look in his dark, hypnotic eyes as they moved steadily together told her he’d found everything he needed to belong.
She felt it too.
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