DANIEL TURNS his Subaru onto a gravel road, though road is a generous term. It’s more like two gravel ruts pointing into the forest and then disappearing behind trees.
“Now you’re definitely not trying to find a McDonald’s,” I say.
He just grins, not taking his eyes off the road.
It’s Friday, two and a half weeks after his court hearing, and this afternoon he told me to pack whatever I needed for a weekend away and be ready by six, because Eli and Violet had volunteered to take Rusty all weekend.
I didn’t need to be told twice, though I’d imagined more of a… location. You know, a nice little bed and breakfast, a hotel, even a motel.
Frankly, I don’t care as long as it’s got a bed and the sheets are clean.
You know what? I don’t even need a bed. I’ll take any flat surface where pine needles aren’t jabbing me in the ass.
“You’ll see,” he says, carefully rounding a bend in the road, the car jostling.
“Glamping?” I guess, peering between the trees. Since it’s summer, the sun still isn’t down, but the light is slowly fading. Regardless, I can’t see anything besides brown trunks and the bright, nearly Day-Glo green of summertime Virginia woodland.
“What’s glamping?” he asks.
“Glamor camping,” I say.
“Okay,” he says after a moment, clearly waiting for more explanation. Guess I was wrong about glamping.
“You’re technically in a tent, I think, but it’s a permanent tent, with a floor and a bed and stuff. And heating. And air conditioning?” I say, trying to remember the details of something I read once.
“So glamping is just a flimsy cabin with no windows,” Daniel says. “Unless the tent has windows.”
“Some probably do,” I say as he goes around another bend in the road. “I don’t know, I’m not a glamping expert. I think there’s usually also kombucha. It’s that kind of thing.”
“I tried kombucha once,” he says, reflectively. “Some lady kept calling the brewery and insisting that we should start making it to sell, but honestly, it just tasted like I ruined some perfectly good iced tea. Maybe I was doing it wrong.”
“No, kombucha’s kind of gross,” I agree. “And it’s got that big weird fungus — is that where we’re going?”
Daniel doesn’t answer, just grins as he pulls his car into a clearing next to a cabin and parks.
“Hopefully it’s better than glamping,” he says.
It’s a log cabin perched above a creek in the middle of a small clearing. I hadn’t realized we were going uphill, but clearly we were, because even the parking spot has an incredible view of the unspoiled valley below, the mountains beyond, blue and purple and green. I feel like I can see straight to West Virginia, or Tennessee, or Kentucky or whichever state I’m facing right now since the geography way down here gets a little confusing.
“How’d you find this place?” I ask as we get out of the car, still staring around.
“I know a guy who knows a guy who rents it out,” Daniel says, pulling out his phone. “Okay, he says the key is under the ceramic frog with the bowtie…”
I peek through the window in the front door while he finds the key. There’s a curtain in front of it, so it’s hard to see, but I’m fairly sure there’s a big stone fireplace, a high vaulted ceiling, and a light fixture that’s not even made from deer antlers.
“Did you want to actually go inside, or just peek through the window all night?” Daniel teases from behind me, and I move. He unlocks the door, then pushes it open so I can go in first.
The opposite wall is nothing but windows, overlooking the creek below and then the mountain vista beyond, the sun just dipping below the horizon, painting the sky pink and orange and purple.
It’s gorgeous, and I walk over to the wall, just looking out at the view.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, and Daniel comes over. He drapes his arms over my shoulders and rests his chin on top of my head, his beard tickling my scalp through my hair.
“Jim Bob wasn’t lying,” he says.
“Someone named Jim Bob owns this place?” I ask. “Based on my personal experiences, I’d expect a Jim Bob to be more of a trailer guy, but what do I know?”
“Jim Bob is very enterprising,” Daniel says.
We stand there for a long moment, and I lean back into his solid form, reveling in the moment. Aside from the crickets and the grasshoppers and the birds, it’s quiet. The view is beautiful. There’s no piles of probably-clean-I’m-pretty-sure laundry, there’s no seven-year-old in the next room. We’ve got all weekend, not thirty minutes.
I might be in heaven.
“I’m gonna go get our stuff,” Daniel says, and drops a kiss on top of my head.
“You want help?” I ask.
“I got it,” he says, and disappears outside.
I wander back into the cabin and look around. It’s only got one bedroom, but the bedroom is glorious — a view, a sitting area, a jacuzzi bathtub in the bathroom, and a bed that I’m pretty sure is the next size up from a king bed. The rest of the cabin is open plan, the kitchen separated from the living area by nothing but the island in the center, rustic wooden stools gathered around it.
There’s a stone fireplace. There’s a light fixture — maybe it’s a chandelier; what makes something a chandelier? — that’s not made of antlers.
A minute later Daniel is back, a duffel bag over each shoulder and a giant cooler held in both hands, his biceps and shoulders bunched under his t-shirt.
I don’t even offer to help again. I just watch as he walks to the kitchen island and sets the cooler on top of it, because I’m never going to get tired of watching him lift heavy things. He walks the duffel bags to the bedroom, comes back out.
“You want to check out the deck while I make mojitos?” he asks, opening the cooler and bringing out bottles.
I lean my elbows on the cool granite surface, narrowing my eyes at him.
“What?” he asks, a bottle of rum in one hand and a bag of limes in the other.
“You’re acting suspiciously like a perfect boyfriend,” I say. “What’d you do?”
“Are you saying I don’t always act like a perfect boyfriend?” he says, grinning.
“I’m saying that last week you invited me over for a romantic dinner, only to call me fifteen minutes before I got there to ask if I’d pick up a pizza,” I say.
He puts the limes on the table and grabs two glasses from the cupboard behind him.
“Listen, I thought I could handle using the broiler,” he says. “I was wrong. Besides, I ordered the pizza and everything, you just picked it up because it was on your way.”
“Too many ideas above your station,” I tease as he uncorks the rum with a small pop. “I’d say you should have gotten Eli to supervise you, but that would have been an even less sexy time than Papa John’s.”
“I’m sure Eli can be a very sensual man,” he says.
Then he makes a face, and I burst out laughing.
“I’m sure Violet thinks so,” I say.
“Well, she gets off on the arguing,” Daniel says, pouring rum into a shaker. “I mean, she must, right?”
“She gets off on something,” I say.
“Gross,” Daniel mutters.
“You just called your own brother sensual,” I point out, still laughing.
“Go look at the deck and stop ruining my cocktail concentration,” he teases. “They’ll get done faster without you harassing me.”
“All right, fine,” I say, step over, kiss him on the cheek, and go through the side door to a huge redwood deck on the side of the house.
It’s also gorgeous. It’s also got stunning views of the creek and the mountains and the sunset, nothing but trees and sky as far as I can see.
There’s a hot tub, a simple round one with wooden sides, set into one corner of the deck, four cushioned loungers on other side, all facing the sunset, and I lean my elbows on the railing, looking out, thinking about absolutely nothing.
After a few minutes, Daniel comes out, stands next to me, and hands me a mojito. We clink our glasses together.
“Here’s to weekends in the middle of nowhere without Rusty,” he says.
“Here’s to swearing like a sailor for two days straight,” I laugh.
“Goddamn right,” Daniel agrees, and we both drink, leaning against the railing, watching the sunset.
“I brought Eli’s meatballs,” he says. “I think that’s everything.”
“They’re good, but I’m not sure they’re everything,” I say.
“I mean I’ve fulfilled your requirements,” he says, counting on his fingers. “You already got free beer, Seth agreed to do your taxes, we’re going backpacking with Caleb next month, and Eli made you meatballs.”
“You still haven’t let me win at horseshoes,” I point out.
“We haven’t played horseshoes,” he says. “Besides, I don’t think I’m good enough at horseshoes to let you win. Everything I do in that game is completely accidental.”
I sigh and lean my head against his shoulder.
“Same,” I admit. “It’s a stupid game.”
I tap the engagement ring against my mojito glass idly, a habit I’ve developed over the past two months. I glance down as it catches the fading light of the sunset, flaring with internal fire.
Suddenly, I remember the last thing that was on my list of demands.
“We never had the world’s most amicable breakup, either,” Daniel says, putting his hand on my back, tucking his body against mine as we watch the sunset together.
“I can let that one slide,” I say, looking down again. “Though I should probably give the ring back to your mom, and we can tell the gossips that, I don’t know, we’re still together but not getting married because we don’t believe in putting labels on relationships or something.”
I tap it against the glass again, leaning into Daniel, the fuzzy feeling of contentment floating through my body. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, his thumb just idly stroking my lower back.
“It was a joke,” I say, turning my head toward him, though now I’m just talking to a pec because his chin is resting on top of my head. “I think labels are useful.”
“What if we didn’t?” he says suddenly.
“Use labels?”
“Give the ring back.”
“I can’t just keep it, your mom would kill me.”
“Not if we were really engaged.”
He pulls back, turns to face me, his hand still on my hip, and I stare up at him.
It’s still him. Even if our relationship has been flipped upside down and then right side up in the past two months, it’s still Daniel. He looks the same, he sounds the same. When we talk, he talks the same and he acts the same, and thank God for all of it because if we had lost anything we had, I’d have been heartbroken.
But we didn’t. We added, multiplied, built on the bedrock foundation that we’d laid down over the years.
And I think he just asked me to marry him.
“Too soon?” he says, his eyes running over my face, taking in my surprised silence.
I look into his eyes like I’m diving into a perfect blue lagoon, and I realize I don’t know how long I’ve been in love with him. I’m not even sure whether I count that time in weeks, months, or years.
“No,” I say. “It’s been eighteen years.”
“Then will you marry me?”
He gets down on one knee. He literally does that as I’m standing there, still feeling one step behind, still trying to trace how we went from meatballs to proposal as he takes my hand, slides the ring off. I’m still holding a mojito as he turns the ring slowly in his fingers, and my heart feels like it’s blooming.
“Charlie?” he asks, and I realize I haven’t actually said anything yet.
“Yes!” I say. “Yes, Daniel, of course yes.”
He slides the ring back on my finger, kisses my knuckles, stands. He takes my face in one hand and kisses me, and I wonder for half a second if a really-engaged kiss will be different from all the others, but it’s not.
It’s just as good.
“I love you,” I murmur, our lips still touching.
“I love you back,” he says.
It’s a tender kiss, a slow kiss, lit by the last rays of the sunset, a kiss that’s got all the time in the world.
Slowly, I step in. Slowly, my body presses against his, harder, tighter, his warmth bleeding into my skin through our clothes. The kisses quicken, deepen, grow more urgent because it doesn’t matter how much time we have right now, it matters that most of our moments are stolen, brief, and that’s made us ravenous for each other.
Daniel pulls back, his lips an inch from mine. I gaze up, the fingers of one hand already twined through his belt loop, pulling him toward me, the other wound around the back of his neck. He’s got one palm flat against my back and he gazes down at me, an expression in his eyes I can’t read.
Carefully, slowly, his thumb traces my bottom lip, a look of total concentration on his face. Then he follows his thumb with his lips, his tongue, taking my head in his hand and holding me to him, so tight I can barely move but I open my mouth under his anyway, aching for him.
Daniel moves me backward, step by step, until I walk into something. The side of the hot tub, and then he’s grabbing me, hoisting me, pushing my legs wide and stepping in between them as I throw an arm around his neck, trying to keep my balance.
“I won’t drop you,” he teases, nuzzling his face along mine “Probably.”
“Don’t,” I gasp. “My phone’s in my pocket, and I can’t go through two in one month.”
Daniel just laughs and wraps one strong arm around my back, holding me in place while he pushes my legs wider with the other hand, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my upper thigh, roaming beneath the hem of my shorts.
“I forgot to tell you the real reason I found this place,” he says, his voice rough, deep. “And it hasn’t got shit to go with the view.”
“Don’t tell me there’s a secret sex dungeon,” I say.
“Better,” he says. “We’re smack dab in the middle of a hundred acres of private property with no one else on it.”
He kisses me hard, our tongues tangling. His fingers find the crease of my thigh, the leg of my panties, and they slide underneath.
“So you can indulge your exhibitionist tendencies all you want,” he says. “You can spend the whole weekend naked outdoors, and I sure wouldn’t mind.”
“Is it as much fun if we can’t get caught?” I tease.
His body is up against mine, his hard cock right against my heat, the friction of the denim between us almost unbearable.
“I guess we’ll have to find out,” he says, and in that instant his thumb slides under my panties and finds my clit. I jolt. He catches me before I fall into the water, holds me tight against him. I cling to him, roll my hips, grind myself against him and listen to the soft groan that escapes him.
It lights me. I’m dry brush, the forest floor after a long drought, and he’s a spark. In moments I’m aflame, ravaged, the heat racing through me like a wildfire.
I grab his wrist, pull his hand out of my shorts before he can stop me, push him back from the hot tub and hop down.
“No?” he says, a devilish smile on his face as he pushes forward again, pinning me against the side of the hot tub. “We’re engaged and suddenly I can’t get you off on the side of the hot tub, should I be worried?”
“Maybe,” I tease, finding the thick ridge of his cock under the zipper of his jeans and sliding my palm along it. Daniel groans, louder this time, and I twist my other hand in his shirt, drawing him in. “Next thing you know I’m going to be all baking, sewing, and sex only on Saturday nights.”
“It wouldn’t work,” he says. I slide my palm down again, hard, the friction sending sparks through my whole body. “I’d find some way to seduce you, even on a school night.”
I pull him closer, kiss him, his hands sliding under my shirt.
“How?” I ask, biting his lower lip between my teeth.
He grinds his hips against me and a thrill rocks through my body. Before I know it, I’m pulling at the button on his jeans, getting it undone, fumbling for the zipper.
“Just like this seems to work,” he says. “Kiss you. Tell you I love you.”
He undoes the clasp on my bra and in one movement, pulls both that and my shirt over my head so I’m suddenly topless in the evening air, my nipples puckering.
“Very romantic,” I murmur.
“Tell you I want you to ride me like a wild mustang,” he says. “And if that doesn’t work, I’m out of ideas.”
I pull the zipper down and his cock springs out, still half-constrained in boxers. I wrap my hand around it, stroke, feel the muscles in his whole body tense and relax.
I grab his shirt, pull it off, kiss him again with my hand stroking his cock and he moans into my mouth, primal and guttural. I pull his boxers down until we’re skin-to-skin and he groans again, digs his fingers into my sides.
We kiss again and I want him, and I don’t want to wait, I want to turn around and bend over this hot tub and let him bury himself in me until I’m seeing stars, until I’m shouting his name into the wilderness. I want to tell him to come inside me so that I don’t have to sacrifice a second of us, even if it’s risky, because I want him with a desire so deep I can’t fathom it.
I don’t. I kiss his neck, his shoulder. I drop to my knees and before his hands have even wound through my hair, I’ve got the head of his cock in my mouth, sucking, swirling my tongue around the thick ridge, swallowing his salty precum.
“Charlie,” he whispers, and I take more of him, opening my mouth as wide as I can, stretching my tongue along the underside of his cock, one fist at the base.
He’s huge, almost too big to manage, but then his fingers tighten in my hair and I push my lips down just another inch, eyes watering, and he whispers my name again.
I love this. I love the way he tastes, the way he says my name, the way he breathes when I’ve got his cock in my mouth. I love giving in to him like this, getting on my knees, worshipping at his altar.
Daniel sighs, moans. He works his fingers into my hair, his entire body full of barely held restraint as I move faster, suck harder. He’s leaking precum now, groaning every time I swallow, and I don’t stop. I don’t want to stop, because even though I want him, I want this, too.
But suddenly, he pulls my head back and I’m looking up at him, fist still wrapped around the base of his cock. Delicately, I open my mouth, lean forward, swirl my tongue around the head of his cock, wrap my lips around it as he groans, his eyes going to half-mast before he pulls my head back, grabs me by the arm, pulls me up.
“You’re sure?” I murmur.
In response, he undoes my shorts, shoves a hand inside, swipes two fingertips along my slit and grins.
“I’m sure,” he says, finding my clit again, circling it with slick fingers.
My shorts come off, his pants fall, and then I’m on one of the lounge chairs, sinking into the cushion as Daniel pushes me backward, mouth on mine until I’m at an angle against the back.
“I packed condoms,” I say, breathless, before I can say something irresponsible like fuck me bare and come inside me. “They’re in my duffel bag, in one of the outside—”
He holds up a foil packet, rips it open with his teeth.
“Pocket,” he says, kissing me again. “I learned my lesson.”
He rolls it onto his thick cock, his tongue in my mouth. I can hardly breathe for anticipation, for wanting, for needing him like this again like he’s oxygen and I’m on Everest.
“I learned my lesson too,” I say, grabbing his cock again, guiding him toward me. “Fucking outside is fun.”
He finds my entrance, pauses, teases me. He nips at my lips with his teeth, kisses me hard and fast, slides the tip of his cock between my lips and I grab the top of the chair behind my head, roll my hips.
Daniel tweaks one nipple, rolling it between his thumb and finger, and I moan in helpless frustration.
“I love you like this, you know,” he says, his voice velvet against my ear.
“Like what?” I whisper.
“When you want me,” he says. “When you need me to fuck you so bad you can’t stand it, but there’s nothing you can do.”
“Tease,” I whisper.
“You know what else I love?” he asks.
He doesn’t wait for an answer, just hilts himself in one stroke, and even though we’ve done it dozens of times I still feel a little like I’m being split in half, like he’s knocked my soul free from my body. He collapses into me and I sink my fingers into the hard muscles of his back, curling one leg around him.
“I love it when I finally do,” he whispers, his face in my neck, his beard ticklish and scratchy, sending quick shivers through my whole body.
I don’t say anything. I can’t. My mind is so blank it feels spiritual, ascendant. When we’re together like this is when everything else suddenly goes quiet and there’s nothing but Daniel and me, our bodies together, flesh become transcendent.
When we move, we move together, like different parts of the same machine. I’ve always found solace in physicality and in him I find deliverance, redemption, something more than pleasure.
It’s pure, wild lust but it’s lust for him, for his body and his mind, for the way he growls love you in my ear so low I almost can’t hear, for the way he pulls me against him and kisses me like he’ll never be able to get enough.
We crash together, meld, waves in a storm. He fucks me hard and fast and deep and he whispers my name as he holds himself over me, his other hand sinking into my thigh, pulling me, seeking more.
Suddenly he pulls out, kisses me, breaks it.
“Roll over,” he gasps.
“Why?” I ask, already on my hands and knees, grabbing the back of the lounge chair.
He plants a hand over mine, runs a hand down my back. He sinks himself into me again, slow but hard and deep and I gasp, pushing back against him, taking him until my toes curl.
“Because I like it when you fuck me back and come hard,” he says, holding me against him.
I can feel every inch, every millimeter, can feel myself pulsing and clenching while he fills me. It feels good. It feels right. It feels like home.
“Because I like the way you whisper my name and tell me to make you come as if I wasn’t already going to,” he says, his voice dipping as he starts moving.
My knuckles go white on the iron bar of the lounge chair.
“And because I don’t want you to miss the view,” he says, laughing.
He wraps an arm around me. He kisses my cheek and fucks me hard, one hand over mine and the other snaking down my body as we crash together, relentless.
It builds. He drives into me and I take him, push back, ask for more. Our words are guttural if they’re words at all, just sounds, begging and pleading and praising. I’m laid bare, helpless, utterly vulnerable to my own want and Daniel takes me, protects me, gives himself to me until I’m gasping his name because I’ve forgotten my own.
I beg him don’t stop please don’t stop and I beg him make me come oh God make me come and then there are fingers on my clit and sparkles in my vision and I come like an earthquake.
I shout his name. I rock back and forth, taking everything, a seismic shift in my body. I moan and I whisper and I think I howl and then his hands are on my shoulder, pulling me into him as the aftershocks rattle through me and he’s whispering I fucking love it when you come into my ear and I respond with come inside me please Daniel I want you to come inside me and he does.
He kisses the back of my neck. He slides his fingers down my spine, slick with sweat, and finally he pulls out, both of us shuddering. I roll back over, onto the lounge chair, and he collapses onto me, his face on my belly, my fingers in his hair.
It’s nearly night, the whole cabin and deck and valley and mountain range are different shades of blue, stars popping out of the sky above.
Daniel pushes himself up, pulls me down, gives me a long kiss on the lips.
“You enjoy the view?” he asks, a smile on his lips, and I laugh.
“Of course,” I say. “The view was great. Very satisfying.”
He rolls over, his head against my chest. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he takes it in his.
“Plus, I don’t have to see Officer Sherman now,” he teases. “That man really knows how to kill a mood.”
I just sigh dramatically.
“Hell, we don’t have to put on clothes all weekend if we don’t want to,” Daniel goes on. “I don’t even know why I brought them.”
“Because it’s better than putting sunscreen on your dick,” I say, and Daniel laughs.
“I’ve never had cause to sunscreen my dick before,” he muses. “It’s never even occurred to me.
“You’re welcome,” I tell him. “And don’t act like you didn’t enjoy everything that happened before Officer Sherman showed up, either.”
“Of course I enjoyed it,” he says. “I went to great lengths to make a version of it happen again, didn’t I?”
I laugh, fingers winding through his hair, my other hand in his. The ring sparkles, even in the night, and I think: we’re engaged.
“I have a question,” I say, my voice slow, lazy.
“Shoot.”
“Did you mean to propose?” I ask, still stroking his hair.
He twists, looks up at me.
“Of course I meant to,” he says, his eyes the color of the night sky, filled with stars.
I swirl his hair around one finger, the night breeze soft against my bare skin.
“That doesn’t mean I was planning on it, though,” he admits, and I laugh.
“You really booked this super-romantic cabin just so we could fuck outside,” I say as he sits up, offers me a hand, pulls me upright.
“I thought you’d like it,” he says, that rakish smile on his face.
“I did.”
He puts one hand on my face. I’m still flushed with heat and his fingers are cool, dry, slightly rough against my skin.
“The plan was to wait a couple of months at least,” he says, thumb on my cheekbone. “The plan was to give you a little time, maybe start looking at houses together, have a couple of discussions about marriage, figure out all the logistics, then ask you to marry me.”
“Nice plan,” I say.
“It was really well thought-out,” he says. “And then I ruined it by suddenly not wanting to wait.”
He takes a deep breath, leans his forehead against mine, and I close my eyes.
“I’d have waited,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I’m the one who couldn’t.”
We kiss gently, tenderly.
“I love you,” he says. “And I have for a long time and I will for a longer time yet.”
“I love you back,” I say. “Long time, longer time.”
He kisses me again, and then we get up. We eat spaghetti and meatballs and we soak in the hot tub and we sleep in the same bed, Daniel’s arm thrown across my back.
When we wake up, we wake to the sun streaming through the bedroom window. We snuggle for a long time, saying nothing, just Daniel and me together, alone, the two of us.
And it’s perfect.
