His hand slipped between us, finding my clit beneath the water. The added pressure was too much. I shattered around him, my orgasm crashing through me in waves that matched the rhythm of his thrusts. I cried his name, the sound bouncing off the rocks and scattering birds from the nearby trees.
He fucked me through it, never slowing, drawing out my pleasure until I was shaking and oversensitive. Then his rhythm faltered, his thrusts becoming even more erratic.
“Amelia,” he groaned, burying himself deep. “Fuck, I’m going to…”
He came inside me with a roar that echoed through the forest. I felt him pulsing, filling me with his release, and something about the intimacy of it made my chest ache with emotion.
We stayed like that for a long moment, tangled together in the hot water, both of us breathing hard. His forehead rested against mine, his eyes closed, and I could feel his heart pounding against my chest.
When he finally opened his eyes, the tenderness there took my breath away.
This was the best sex I’d ever had in my life. Nothing else even came close. And now that I’d had him, I couldn’t imagine going back to a life without this man.
Eventually we untangled ourselves, floating side by side in the warm water, our fingers loosely intertwined. The late afternoon sun filtered through the pine branches overhead, dappling the surface of the spring with golden light.
“So,” I asked tentatively, my heart hammering with nerves. “What happens now?”
Grayson was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I was thinking I could show you my place.” He glanced at me, something vulnerable flickering in his expression. “It’s not much. But would you like to see it?”
My heart soared.
“I’d love that,” I said, unable to keep the joy out of my voice.
He smiled then, a real smile that transformed him into something breathtaking. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The fact that he wanted to show me where he lived meant more than I could say. He was opening up to me. Maybe this wasn’t just a fling for him. Maybe he wanted more, too.
Hope bloomed in my chest, fragile but real.
Grayson’s survival school was nothing like I’d expected.
We’d driven up a winding dirt road to reach it, the truck bouncing over ruts and rocks until we emerged in a small clearing.
The main building was a sturdy log structure, clearly handmade with care, but obviously unfinished.
He gave me a full tour, showing me the teaching room with its bare plywood floors, the community bathroom with exposed pipes and missing tiles, and the kitchen that was nothing more than a concrete shell with some rough plumbing.
Grayson had built a small, one-room cabin for himself, separate from the property, enough to have heat and a place to rest his head. It was humble but functional.
“This is it, hon.”
I looked around the small, unfinished room. There was a single bed pushed against the wall, tools stacked neatly beside a wood stove, and plywood where drywall should have been.
“You live here?” I asked quietly.
Grayson shrugged. “Yup. This is what I traded my cabin for. Figured the school mattered more.”
He said it like a simple fact, but something tight twisted in my chest at the sacrifice hidden inside those words.
When the tour was over, he brought me back to what would eventually be the workshop room. We sat in two camp chairs, surrounded by half-finished walls and the smell of sawdust.
He looked away from me, his voice low, “I thought Ryan had my back. I put everything I had into this place.” I could hear the quiet pain in his voice. “It was a gamble that hasn’t paid off.”
“Ryan?”
