“That’s it, baby,” I breathe, my head tipping back to the wall. I keep my hands on her head and gather her hair, so I can see her glancing up at me whenever I let out another noise. Which is often.
My abs tighten, a surge building. “Too close,” I tell her, but at the same time, I can’t possibly make her stop. I don’t have that much control. All I can ever do is warn her when I’m at the edge, then let her decide what happens next.
Tonight, she decides to stop. I almost regret telling her, my body aches so badly when she pulls me from her mouth.
“What position should we celebrate in?” She sits beside me, trailing her hand up and down my chest. I’m already sweating. “Slap-iversaries don’t happen every day. Maybe we should do something we haven’t done in a while.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Like that time you got tipsy on tequila at your cousin’s bachelorette, and woke me up demanding I put—”
“Not that,” she says quickly, covering my mouth as we laugh. “But that position was pretty hot. Maybe we could...modify it?”
A piece of her hair whispers over her eyes. I push it away and nod.
She gets on all fours. I stand at the foot of our bed and run my hands over the curves she’s giving me, her sex soaked and open, presented to me like a gift.
“Here.” I grab a pillow and wedge it between her legs, so she’ll have some friction in just the right spot when things get going. She groans softly when I test it, running it back and forth.
I palm my erection and press it to her. The heat makes it damn near impossible to resist driving into her in one thrust, but I manage.
“Ford,” she sighs, grateful when I give her half instead, then steadily push the rest inside. I feel her muscles clench, trying to push me out and take me inside at once.
I roll my hips against her and groan. “You’re soaked. Even before I ate you out, you were wet for me. You sure you were sleeping when I came home?”
Easton lowers her upper body to the mattress, turning her head to one side to look at me. Her blush is deep pink in the moonlight. “I might have...warmed myself up a little, while I waited for you.”
“Tell me how.”
She smiles, embarrassment growing, and doesn’t answer.
I withdraw, leaving her with barely anything inside her. “Describe it for me, E. Tell me what you did to yourself.”
“Ford,” she scolds, trying to push back and get me inside again, but I move with her. It’s as much a punishment to myself as it is to her, but I can’t give in now. Call it pride.
“Fine,” she relents, clenching the bed sheet in her fist, gathering it near her face, “I—I rubbed my clit. And I fingered myself, thinking...about my birthday.”
I reward her with half my length, then let her drive back to take the rest. Both of us sigh with relief.
“That was a great night,” I tell her, and thrust in and out slowly, picking up speed as I start the story: “Romantic dinner in the Square, some wine…. And then what did I do?”
Again, she smiles. “You had me put on my headphones and listen to music. While you ate me out.”
“Until?”
“Until I came so hard, so many times…I couldn’t even speak.”
“You cried, too, if I’m remembering right.” I increase the pace again, feeling the pillow rock underneath her. “And I know I am.”
Easton shuts her eyes. She goes silent.
She’s close.
I am, too, but as the louder of the two of us, I get anything but silent. My moans and pants of her name grow, the closer we get.
“Ford, I’m so close....”
“I know you are, baby. I am too. Tell me, Easton—tell me how much you want me to come inside you.”
With her orgasm looming so near, she can’t even be embarrassed, this time. Without hesitation, she cries, “Come inside me, Ford! Please, come inside me...fill me up, Ford, I need it so much....”
“Fuck,” I sputter, my next moan coming out staggered and choked as I grab her ass and pull her against me, hard, releasing as deeply into her as I can while her muscles spasm.
I nearly collapse against her, but catch myself with my arms on either side of her shoulders. We stay perfectly still for the longest time, our breathing the only sound in the room.
“Oh, God,” she sighs, shuddering again when I pull out of her. I take the pillow she was grinding against and prop her hips up when she rolls onto her back.
“Elevation,” I remind her.
“Elevation,” she repeats, and sighs again. While I kiss her forehead and pull the blankets over us, she asks, “You don’t think this is crazy, do you? You know...doing things backwards?”
“Of course not. At least, no crazier than anything else I’ve done in my life.” Gently, I place my hand on her stomach. “I want to see you carry our child. And I know you want that, too.”
She nods and places her hand over mine. “I do. Like I’ve said before, it’s not like it can....”
I wait, but I know exactly how that sentence ends. It’s not like it can replace what we’ve lost.
But it isn’t supposed to, either. It’s not starting over. Just starting again.
“Well, there you go,” I tell her, sitting up and sipping from my water bottle on the nightstand. I pass it to her. “You want a baby, I want a baby—who cares if we’re doing things backwards, not being married first?”
“No, I know,” she says, massaging her forehead as she sips. I get up, step into my boxers, and dig through my jacket pocket. “I keep wondering what people will say. Which I know doesn’t matter, but it’s just...one of those things that keeps nagging at me.”
“Maybe this will help.”
Easton’s always said she takes after her dad: calm and collected, ruled by facts and action. But I think she got some of her mom’s dramatic flair in there, too—proven by the way she gasps when she lowers her hand and finds me down on one knee, the ring box in my hand.
“Easton Lawrence,” Ford whispers, “will you marry me?”
In this moment, I can only think of two responses: “Of course I will,” and the one I actually say:
“Did you ask my dad?”
“No,” he drawls, voice dripping with sarcasm, “I’ve got no clue how things work in small Southern towns.” His smile flashes as brightly as the ring when he opens the box. “Both your parents approved. I think your mom cracked two of my ribs when she hugged me.”
I laugh as he holds the box a little higher, waiting.
“So? Will you?”
Tears rise into my throat. I sip some air, blink hard, and nod.
The stones, he explains, righting the ring on my finger, are from his mother’s engagement and wedding rings, once belonging to her mother. “So these diamonds have a history of being owned by incredibly strong women,” he says, and brings my hand to his mouth to kiss it. “Mom would be ecstatic you’re the one wearing them, now. And I think it’s cool they get to represent another marriage, a better one.” He pauses. “A new start.”
We lie awake for hours, staring at the ring together, mulling over our options between big weddings, small ones, elopements, courthouses. By the time our voices soften, bodies ready for the sleep our pulses won’t let us have, we’ve yet to make a decision.
“I don’t care how it happens,” he says, lips against my temple. “As long as I wake up the next day married to you, I’ll be happy.”
“Me, too.”
I watch his chest rise and fall as he sleeps. His brow relaxes, like he’s just started a good dream.
My eyes trace the curve of his lip, the thin scar at the corner, before I kiss him. He stirs, smiling sleepily and wrapping his arms around me. “I love you,” he whispers, before drifting off again.
I say it back and rest my head on his chest. His heartbeat drums a rhythm in my head I wish I could make into a song. It would have this beat, the background hum of cicadas in summer, and a rolling melody that ebbs and rises like green hills in the distance
, or the ruts in red dirt roads.
The beginning would start so differently from the rest: an angry burst of drums and clashing of chords, before evolving into a sweeping, breathtaking combination of notes, simplifying as time crawls on.
It wouldn’t have an ending. No repeats, no loops. Just one single beginning, as imperfect as it is, with a hundred chances along the way to get things right. It would pick up new elements, drop others, and—when you’re so sure you’re facing the end—seem to begin again.
The Midwife’s [Partial] Playlist
Wonderwall, Oasis
Casey’s Song, City and Colour
Walls, All Time Low
Remember When (Used to Be Used to It), There for Tomorrow
Tears Dry on Their Own, Amy Winehouse
In the End, Drake Bell
Found Out About You, Gin Blossoms
Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley
Glycerine, Bush
Favorite Record, Fall Out Boy
The End of All Things, Panic! at the Disco
Where You Go, Hana Muftic
Where You Go
Lyrics by Piper Lennox
Music and vocals by Hana Muftic
Free download Available Here
Almost had it
You and I
Broken pieces
Catching light
Drawn together like
Hearts on tethers, you and I
We were young and reckless
You and I
Crashed and burned and then we
Stoked it high
Can’t remember how
September took us down
You and I
You were fireflies, I was autumn
You were my greatest high
And the worst rock bottom
But when we
feed that hunger
When we
stop being younger
I will find you
outside the old days
I go where you go
always
Woke up sober
You and I
Lost the fight and now it’s
All goodbyes
Said forever but we’re
Too fair-weather, you and I
I was summer nights, you were thunder
You were my fool me twice
And the best damn blunder
But when we
feed that hunger
When we
stop being younger
I will find you
outside the old days
I go where you go
always
Us against the world won’t work
Us against the world won’t work
If we don’t stay us
But when we
feed that hunger
When we
stop being younger
I will find you
outside the old days
Yeah, I will find you
in a summer haze
I will find you
I go where you go
always
Where you go
I go
Where you go
I go
Always
Also by Piper Lennox
Now Entering Hillford
The Midwife’s Playlist
(Book 2: coming soon)
The Fairfields
Darling, All at Once | Honey, When It Ends
Baby, Be My Last
Love in Kona
Pull Me Under | Crash Around Me | When We Break
Standalones
All Mine | Teach Me | The Road to You
It’s Complicated: A Novella (Subscriber Exclusive)
About the Author
Piper Lennox is the author of The Fairfields series, the Love in Kona series, All Mine, and more. Her favorite heroes are broken; her favorite heroines are feisty (and, usually, also broken). Nothing fascinates her more than all the incredible ways two people can learn to save themselves—and each other.
Piper lives in Virginia with her husband, their three children, and a Siberian Husky too smart for his own good. Before she spent her days writing about life and love, she wrote copy for insurance companies. She will never, ever go back.
www.piperlennox.com