Page 62 of Bountiful
The idea of seeing Dave a couple of times a year to facilitate visits with Nicole made my heart lurch with both excitement and dread. No matter how many years went by, I’d always look at his handsome face and think,ifonly.
David: You are thinking really hard overthere.
Ireallywas.
Zara: You should come. I’ll text the details today. Ipromise.
Dave: Okay gorgeous. Now I should go. I’m standing in a river right now, trying to catchafish.
Zara:Really?
He sent a selfie a minute later, and I laughed aloud. Shorts and waders was a pretty silly look. But, damn him, Dave was still hotter than a Julyafternoon.
That pang? It would nevergoaway.
Zara: Funny, I’m doing exactly the same thingrightnow.
Dave:Seriously?
Zara: No. But it’s nice to know you’re sogullible.
I held up my phone and took a picture of Nicole and I nursing on the couch. Her eyes were half-mast, her little mouth slurping lazily at my breast. It was a hundred percent reality and not the leastbitsexy.
After I hit send, I sent him directions to myfamily’sfarm.
ChapterTwenty
Dave
Idream of Zara.Daylight. White sheets. Filtered sunlight on soft,bareskin.
We’re tangled up in bed together, her body under mine. I sink down into her curves. We’re wound so tightly together that my hips move in shallow, inadequate thrusts. She makes breathy, desperate sounds. We’re never going to stop. The wanting will never be sated. I grip her more tightly and moan. Our mouths are locked into onelongkiss.
But then I hear it—the baby crying. She’s wailing, and it’s been going on a while. I just didn’t noticeuntilnow.
I pull back, but Zara grips me even moretightly.
The baby lets out an agonizingcryand…
Iwoke up sweaty,my breath coming too fast. Also, I was reallyfuckinghard.
Letting out an entirely different kind of moan, I threw off the sheets to getsomeair.
Really, brain?A mashup of the sexy dream and the baby screaming? It was almostfunny.
Almost.
It was Sunday morning. I lay there a little while, waiting for both my body and my fucked-up mind to relax. When I picked up my phone, I saw it was ten a.m. I still had plenty of time to shower and get ready for the midday meal at Zara’suncles’farm.
The phone was open to that photo Zara had sent me. I didn’t know how long I’d looked at it yesterday, but it was longer than I cared to admit. I was drawn to it, and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t meant to be a sexual shot. I wasn’t perving on the nursingmother.
Okay, I was, a little. She was so casually voluptuous in the photograph. And her smile wascheeky.
But there was more to it than that. There was my sleepy baby’s head in the shot, her face serene, her little hand curled comfortably around the fabric of Zara’s T-shirt. The two of them so cozy and socomplete. Like they belongedtogether.
And Zara’s smile was wise. Like she knew secrets I’d never learn. One of us had grown up a whole lot in the last two years, and itwasn’tme.
I put the phone down and rolled over in bed. But my hungry body imagined Zara underneath me—the Zara of two years ago, who’d wanted me only for sex. My cock thickened again, as it always did when I remembered those nights. I trapped my palm between the mattress and my dick and flexed my hips. Her body had welcomed me in. I’d fucked her so eagerlyandthen…
