Coming Home to the Mountain: Complete Edition

9. Reuben

CHAPTER 9

Reuben

M eadow's eyes are locked on mine. We're both panting, sweating, alive.

"Damn," I say, "are you feeling okay?"

She laughs. Her shoulders shake and I kiss the skin of her shoulder bone. "I'm better than okay. I feel deliriously happy right now," she says. She laughs again, pressing herself against me tighter, hooking her leg over mine.

"I'm sorry if I just got a little crazy there, but I was excited. Eager," I say.

She laughs. "It’s okay. Yes. I was curious too."

"And?" I say, running my hand over her long blonde hair. "What did you think?"

"I think I have no idea how that is going to fit inside of me, but I want to try."

"Already?" I ask her.

She nods. "Now am I the one who’s way too eager?" she asks. She closes her eyes. "Oh my God. I'm trying to not overthink everything that's happening right now. But Reuben, you're making me feel..." She groans happily. "I just feel so good. I mean, I know people are into sex, but that was... I guess I get it now."

I chuckle. "You're adorable."

"Not too naive for you?"

"No. You're curious. The fact that you basically mounted me and said ‘I'm going to give you a blowjob,’ I mean, that's fucking hot, Meadow. You got to know that."

She smiles. "Okay. I wasn't going for hot. I was going for honest. I wanted to do that, to feel you, to taste you." She swallows, licking her lips. "The way you tasted me."

"Hey," I say, "I have an idea. We could take a shower before..."

She smiles. "That actually sounds amazing.”

“After that, I have that hot tub on the back porch."

Now she's grinning. "Okay. So everything about this night is sounding perfect." She laughs.

"Good thing we ate such a good meal. Otherwise, you'd be working up an appetite."

"We can have dessert later."

Her eyes sparkle. "Maybe I can be your dessert." She rolls out of the bed, immediately wincing. "Oh, okay. I forgot my ankle."

"Damn," I say, "maybe we shouldn't take a shower. That could be a little difficult."

"True." She cringes.

"Okay. We can rethink this. Hot tub first?" I say.

"I'm game if you are."

I pick Meadow up by her waist, throwing her over my shoulder, smacking her ass. I've never felt so liberated, so free. But right now I do. This girl, she brings out a part of me that's been buried. That's maybe never seen the light of day. I'm not trying to compare people, but she's different than Beth. Beth was comfortable, safe, quiet. Meadow is a beating heart, an unstoppable force. When I look at her, she makes me feel so goddamn happy.

"Okay. You're going to sit right here," I say, setting her on the bench as I pull back the top of the hot tub, revealing warm bubbling water. I turn on the jets and then I take her hand. "Can you get in without putting weight on your foot?"

She nods. "If I can lean on you."

"Of course you can," I say. I help her in, lifting her up, and she sinks into the water. Back here facing the woods, it's totally private and we’re alone. And I'm reminded that I'm glad I texted my mom earlier saying I was having company tonight. She texted me back saying Fig had already told her, Plum too.

"What are you thinking?" Meadow asks.

I tell her about the text exchange and she smiles. "Okay. So I guess there really are no secrets in your family, either."

"Not at all. Speaking of, is your family going to be expecting you to be back tonight?"

"No,” I say. "They know I'm a grown-up and that I can do what I like."

"All right," I say, "so basically if you stay over, they're going to know we..."

Her cheeks go pink. "Yep. Like I said, no secrets."

"But they wouldn't mind you being here with me knowing we..."

She shakes your head. "No, Reuben, they're not like that. My parents are more hippies than anything. Free love, free spirits. My sister, Lulu, she's been with guys. Not to talk about her, but..." Meadow shrugs. "My family isn't worked up about that kind of thing. We've been taught to trust ourselves, follow our hearts. Trust our guts. Mine have just kept me more sheltered than my sister."

I smile, pulling her toward me. We sit right next to each other, our hips touching, and I take her hand in mine, lacing her fingers with my own. "Maybe you were just waiting for the right person, the right moment."

She leans back, her head resting on the edge of the hot tub, and I look up too, wanting to see the same set of stars that she does.

"Do you believe in destiny?" she asks. "And fate? In the universe, in God, any of that stuff?"

"I believe in that stuff, sure," I tell her honestly. "After losing Beth, it helped me make more sense of the world. My family, we don't go to church on Sundays or anything like that, but I believe the world's bigger than me. That things don't have to end here on earth. Maybe that makes me sappy, or romantic, or a fool, but it makes the world seem a little less cruel. And after Plum's mom died, after all that, I didn't really want to live in a world that was all hard edges and cruel lines. I wanted something to believe in. I want Plum to have a world full of hope."

Meadow's head rests against my shoulder. "That's beautiful," she says.

"What about you?" I ask her. "What do you think?"

"I think that there are so many stars in that sky, and I hope that your daughter, Plum… I hope when she looks up at it, she feels her mom looking down at her."

I can feel Meadow smile against my skin and my chest fucking pounds at the beauty of the moment. Being here with a woman like her… "Fuck," I say, "you're making me a sentimental fool."

She pulls herself into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I'm making a grown man cry?"

"I figure you are."

"What's going to happen tomorrow? Are we going to wake up and this will have all been make believe? Because if so, Reuben, I don't want this night to end. I want to stop time altogether. I want to have this moment last a lifetime."

The moment the words leave her lips, she presses her hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. Maybe that is too..."

"No," I growl. "It's everything." I kiss her hard then with a need I've never felt before. I wrap my arms around her back, pulling her close to me. "I don't want to hurt you," I say, "but Meadow, I need you."

She whimpers. "Yes. I need you too." And I kiss her ear, her neck. I hold her tight. She lifts her ass and it's like her body knows my body, even though we've only begun to memorize each other. But it's like her soul is already imprinted in mine, and she gasps as she begins to be filled up by me. My hard, thick length belongs in one place and one place only, her.

She gasps, her head drops back, and her long neck makes me harder, thicker than I thought possible.

"God, you're beautiful," I gasp. Her breasts bob in the water. Her whole body is locked to mine. She sinks down on my cock, and I know the pressure must be intense because there are tears in her eyes when she looks at me. "I don't want to hurt you, baby."

"It's not pain. It's something more, something deeper. It's..." She lets out a sigh that's laced with love, and fuck, right then and there I know it’s true. I know it’s real.

“I love you,” I say. “I love you, Meadow.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t know me.”

“I know all I need to know. I love you.”

She gasps as I fill her up and she holds onto me so, so tight. “Reuben,” she says, “I love you too.”

It’s impossible, I think, to fall in love in the space of a day, but as I hold her, as we move as one, as she begs for more—to be brought to the edge and back—I know that the impossible is possible.

Just like there's life after death, there's love here in the woods for me. And I found her when she fell and somehow I got to be the guy to pick her back up and now I never want her to fall again.

I hold onto her tight, tight as I can. I won't let this girl go. "You're mine," I promise.

She gasps. "I'm yours," she repeats, and it's like we've made a promise, a vow signed, sealed, and delivered, our future set in the space of one damn day. I have no idea what's going to happen next. What people will think, what our families will say, how this is going to go with Plum.

Plum, I think. I set those thoughts aside as Meadow’s body is filled up by mine. We finish quickly because there was only one destination, one place we needed to go, and then I help her out of the hot tub, carrying her back into the house, to my bed. I lay towels on the quilt and she wraps herself up in one, and I carry in a bottle of white wine, two glasses. I pour her one and another for me.

"I meant what I said," I tell her.

"That's the kind of toast I've been waiting for my whole life," she whispers.

We take a drink of our wine, then we set it aside and once again, she crawls up into my lap against me. And this time I lean over her, laying her down on her back.

"Let's do this again," I say. "This time I want to look down into your eyes when I tell you I love you."

"Maybe we're too spun up in this," she says. "In the moment."

"Does that matter?” I ask her. "What's the worst thing about getting spun up in somebody else, someone who sees you?"

She laughs softly, closing her eyes as my hard cock guides itself once more to her core.

"I want to believe in the impossible," she says.

"I think it's a choice," I tell her, groaning as my cock finds its home.