By the time she applies whipped cream to my dick, Iam ready to combust, which I do, embarrassingly, within minutes of her taking me in her mouth.
After, we lie catching our breaths, her head on my chest, my fingers combing through her hair. The fire is still burning with a quiet hiss, as gas fires do, and the cabin has settled into that deep quiet that only comes in the middle of nowhere.
“We need a shower.” She chuckles. “We’re sticky.”
“In more ways than one,” I agree. “And we need to change the sheets.”
“They promised me they’d have extras in the closet.”
“Vixen!” I slap her ass lightly. “You planned this.”
“Most certainly. I’m trying to cram two dates into one, after all.” She sits up, and she looks glorious, naked, sticky,mine.
“What else have you planned, sweet Mia?” I ask, feeling joy swirl through me in long, loose circles.
“Wait and see.”
The next afternoon, after lunch at a tiny roadside diner—a place with cracked leather booths and apple pie that tastes like someone’s grandmother still makes it—Mia grins like she’s got a secret.
She drives us down a narrow country road until we pull up to a weathered red stable tucked at the edge of the forest.
A grizzled old man in a wool cap greets us. “Name’s Carl,” he says, his voice all gravel and Vermont drawl.
He sizes us up like he’s been matching horses to people his whole life. “You look like a Daisy,” he tells Mia, handing her the reins of a sleek chestnut mare with a glossy coat and curious eyes. Then he turns to me, squinting. “And you…need Jasper.”
Jasper turns out to be a big gray gelding with a lazy blink and the faintest smirk—if horses can smirk.
“He’s a gentleman,” Carl assures me. “Mostly.”
Mia hides a smile. “Perfect match, then.”
When she sees the surprise on my face, she says, “You used to love riding.”
“Then Dad sold the horses, and…I just forgot how much I loved it.” I hug her, thanking her for doing this for us.
We ride out through the forest, the trail a patchwork of fallen leaves and dark earth. Leather creaks under me, the reins warm against my gloves. Hooves thud softly, sometimes splashing through shallow puddles from when it last rained.
The air is crisp enough that every breath turns to mist.
We go along a narrow path, the horses’ hooves muffled on the thick carpet of leaves, and stop at a vista point.
It’s almost the end of the season, and nature is giving us a brilliant show before the trees become bare and winter takes over. Trees blaze in every direction—amber,scarlet, deep wine-red—and shafts of low sunlight catch in the branches like stained glass.
Mia turns in the saddle, her cheeks flushed, and her hair tumbling out from under her hat.
“This is incredible.” It’s not just the view. It’s her, sitting straight in the saddle like she was born to ride.
“I chose Stowe for our last dates,” she tells me, her eyes twinkling with delight, “because I wanted to change what this place means to me…to us. Now it’s where we had monkey sex with whipped cream and went horseback riding, and not where…we had our worst Christmas ever.”
I’m touched by her thoughtfulness.
“What are you saying, baby?”
“I’m saying the past is now in the past. I don’t want to carry it anymore.”
The air is cold enough that our breath ghosts in front of us, but her words make me feel warmer than I have in a long time.
She hasn’t said she loves me, yet, or that she’s moving back in, or that she’s forgiven me—not in words—but she has inactions. There are no declarations. But I feel it in my chest, like she just reached in and set my heart right.
