Coming Home to the Mountain: Complete Edition

8. Meadow

CHAPTER 8

Meadow

R euben and I just met today, but I feel, deep down in my soul, like I've known him my whole life. When he looks into my eyes, when his lips press against my own, I feel a longing that won't be satisfied by anyone but him. I pull back from the kiss, my heart pounding, my whole body hot, warm, wanting him. "Are you okay?" he asks.

"I've never felt so good in my life."

"Damn," he says. "You're incredible, Meadow."

I smile. "You're pretty special too, Reuben." He laces his fingers with mine, and then I confess, "I have to tell you something. I know you're experienced. In a lot of things that I'm not. You've been married. You have a daughter, but I've never even..." I swallow. "The thing is, I am a virgin, Reuben."

His eyes meet mine. He nods. "I wondered," he said. "When you mentioned the fact you haven't really left home and spread your wings."

"Does that make you...?"

"What?" he asks.

"Does it make you not want to be intimate with me?"

He gives me a soft smile. "That's the last thing I'm thinking."

"Really? I didn't know if it would turn you off. If it would make you think, I don't know, that I was too precious."

"You are precious, Meadow. But when I hear that you're a virgin, that no man has ever been with you, damn. It makes me feel like a fucking caveman."

I laugh softly, "Really?"

"Yeah," he says. "It makes me feel like I could be your protector. Like I could be the one to make sure you're okay."

"You feel all those things, even though you just met me?"

"It doesn't seem that way though, does it?"

I shake my head. "No," I say. "It doesn't. I want my first time to be with you."

A low growl comes from his chest. Reuben may be tender as a lamb, but underneath that heart of his, he's as fierce as a bear; I can feel it. Protective and all alpha and looking at me with a desire, a hunger that my body matches.

"I want to have sex with you," I tell him plainly. "I'm not saying that to be crass or to be..."

He presses a finger to my lips. "You don't have to explain yourself, Meadow. I want that too. I want to undress you slowly. I want to take you in. I want to make you mine."

I swallow. "You mean all that?"

"With all my heart," he says.

He takes my hand, pressing my palm to his chest. "You feel that? That thump, thump, thump? It's fucking pounding. In your presence, I'm alive in a way I haven't been in years. Damn. It makes me feel like I could be a better man than I already am. Like I could be your man."

"Reuben," I say. "Those are a lot of words for someone you haven't known too long."

"Does it matter?" he asks. "Whether you’ve known another person for a lifetime, for a year, for a month, for an hour, when you know something is real right in front of you, isn't that all that matters?"

I explore him, running my hands over his chest, his neck, drawing my mouth to his. "Make love to me then," I say. "Please."

He picks me up and he carries me down the hall to his bedroom. There's a large bed with a hand-sewn quilt. There's a picture of Plum over his dresser. But the rest of it, the room, it's pretty bare. It's missing a woman's touch.

"I'll give you that," he says, literally reading my mind.

"I'm guessing your mom gave you this quilt?"

He nods. "Yeah. But I'm really not a mama's boy."

I smile. "I don't think I care if you are. I like the fact that your daughter makes you a soft teddy bear."

"You like that?" he says.

I nod. "I like you."

He grins. "Good, because I have a feeling in the next few minutes, we're going to get pretty fucking close."

"Don't tease me," I say, grabbing his shirt and drawing him to the bed. He sits down next to me.

"Is your foot okay?"

"It hurts, but as long as I don't stand, I think I'll be all right."

“You don't have to stand for this. In fact, Meadow, you can lie down on your back and let me take care of you."

My eyes lift, taking in his meaning. "Okay," I say as he kisses me again deeply. I begin to unbutton his shirt, wanting to feel the warmth of his skin, wanting to feel him. All of him. His chest is hard and chiseled like a rock, a piece of granite, an unmovable stone. And that makes me hot in a way I've never been before. I pull back, lifting my dress up over my head. I let it fall to the floor beside us.

And then I'm sitting there on his bed, in panties and a bra. I bite my bottom lip.

"Damn," he says. "You're beautiful."

I close my eyes, letting his words wash over me. Words I was not anticipating when I woke up this morning, but I was a different person then. And when he says he was a different man when he was 19 years old than the person he is today, I understand that. How sometimes life changes us faster than we're ready for.

But this, this moment—I'm prepared. As Reuben lays me down on my back, my head rests against the pillows on his bed, and I begin to memorize every detail. His fingertips caress my skin, unhooking my bra from the center clasp.

I exhale as he does, my breasts exposed. He massages them gently, kissing my nipples. Plucking them as if they're petals. His tongue twirls around the hardened areola. His eyes flick up to meet mine. "Fuck, you're incredible."

I smile, loving the warmth of the room. The way it feels when his hands touch mine. I try to take big, deep breaths so I don't pass out from pleasure as his mouth kisses my stomach, over my belly button. His fingertips hook around the waistband of my white panties and he teases them off past my knees, my ankles, until they're on the floor. I'm naked before this man whose heart is so damn big, whose eyes make me melt, whose body makes me wet. His fingertips run between my legs, easing my knees apart. I let them fall. As he begins to touch me, stroking my pussy so gently, the tenderness takes my breath away.

I gasp as his fingers begin to explore my folds, stroking me slowly. "You are wet." His warm breath is on my ear. We're side by side, and I roll my body toward him on the bed. Eager for him to intensify everything he does.

"I want to taste you," he says. I nod.

"Don't wait."

He doesn't. He kneels before me on the bed, pulling my ass to the edge, spreading my knees apart. His mouth is on my most tender space. He's kissing me then and licking me there and making me gasp. I whimper as his tongue enters me, twirling around my clit, sending a fire through my core, up my spine and to my heart. It pounds so hard. "Oh God." I gasp as he takes me to the edge.

An edge I've never been to before, but oh my God, I want to fall right over if it means he's the one who will catch me. "Rapunzel," he says. "You are divine."

I laugh. The smile on my face is so damn wide as he begins to touch me again with his fingers, one dipping inside of me and then another, and then, oh God, oh God, my back—it arches as an orgasm rolls over me. And yes, I've tried to do this before, make myself cum, but this, this is something else. Something more. Ours. "Oh God," I gasp in pleasure.

My wetness seeps out of me as he kisses my inner thigh. And I'm weeping in pleasure. My shoulders shake. I didn't know it was possible to feel this good. "Oh God," I say again, crashing. I press my hands to my eyes, shaking my head. I couldn't imagine it would be like this because this is a depth I didn't know existed. His fingering intensifies. "I'm going to make you cum again," he tells me.

I gasp as he adds a third finger. And now it's more than a touch. It's a pounding that makes me cry out. "Oh my God. Oh, Reuben. Oh, Reuben. Yes. Yes." And he knows he's finally gotten me where I belong. The freefall is so much better than a cliff jump. This is a full-on dive, and whatever pool of water is beneath me, I know I want to go in headfirst. Reuben lets me finish.

And then he pulls his hand away, offering me his fingertips, telling me to lick. I do, tasting myself. And then he cups my breasts once more as if I'm something to worship. To admire. "You are purely everything."

He shakes his head, looking at me as if I am otherworldly. I kiss him then, rolling on top of him, straddling him. I kiss him so hard it takes both our breaths away.

And then, looking down at him, I say, "I want to taste you the way you tasted me. I want all of you, Reuben. Don't make me wait. And don't make me ask again."

He growls at me with desire as he unbuckles his belt, and I pull down his jeans. And then he shows me his length, exposed, naked before me, this hulk of a man who is more than I ever imagined. He is huge. But more than that, he is alive and thick and ready.

He wants me the way I want him, and a whimper escapes my mouth once more. The absolute pleasure is unable to be contained within my body. I touch him eagerly, stroking his long shaft, his balls. I dip my mouth to them, having never touched a penis before or testicles, but this, this… I can't get enough.

I suck him. Suck his balls in my mouth, massaging them, breathing him in. He is all man. Right now, he is all mine. He groans with want, squeezing my ass as I bend over, my mouth on his cock. I take him in. He's hitting my throat, but I don't care. I want more. I want more. I want it all. And he gives it.

I bob my head up and down. Everything about this is primal and instinctual. And yes, I haven't the faintest idea if I'm doing it wrong or right. But it feels so good. His mouth, my mouth on him, his skin against my skin.

I suck him off until he is throbbing, veiny and ready. And I know before he does it that he's going to cum inside my mouth and I'm going to swallow his seed and it will slide down my throat and fill up my belly and I will not be satisfied. I want more. I want more. All of it.

He massages my ass as I suck him off until I get every last drop, and his cry of pleasure echoes through this room, making my eyelids sleepy in a way that isn't tiredness. In a way that can only be described as satisfied.

I crawl up to him and he cradles me in his arms and he kisses me again, tasting himself. And I don't know if this is how it was supposed to go. I never played it out like this, this fantasy. But whatever this is, Reuben and me in his bed, in his cabin nestled in the woods alone, I feel like it's more than a fairy tale. More than a fantasy. I feel like this could be my life. My tomorrow. I feel like Reuben could be my forever.