“Please,” she sobbed. “I need you inside me.”
I didn’t make her wait. I knelt between her legs, my cock thick and throbbing, and drove home with one deep, possessive thrust. She arched her back, her pussy clenching around me so tight it was almost agony.
I moved with her, a slow, powerful rhythm that matched the swaying of the flowers around us. I watched her face—the wonder, the pleasure, the love. I wasn’t just her first anymore. I was her everything. And she was mine.
Later, as we lay there, under the vast Montana sky, I knew the mountain had finally given me its greatest treasure. The woman in my arms.
I hadn’t known I was waiting for her. That was the thing. A man doesn’t know what’s missing until it arrives. For me, it came in a dusty sedan, with a smart mouth and curves that made my hungry.
The brooding mountain man was gone. I was just a man who had finally found his home in a field of poppies.
EPILOGUE
Cord
Six months had passed since I’d planted that field of poppies, and every day since had been a lesson in how much a man could love a woman without actually losing his mind.
I was in one of the greenhouses, checking the humidity levels, but my focus was elsewhere. It usually was these days. It was on the sound of the back door of the cabin slamming, or the way Poppy hummed when she was mixing fertilizer.
She walked in a few minutes later, looking flushed and a little bit breathless. She was wearing a pair of my old work pants held up by a belt, but they were starting to look tight across her lush, wide hips. Her breasts seemed heavier, too, straining against the fabric of her t-shirt in a way that had been keeping me up at night for weeks.
“You’re late for the morning check,” I rumbled, though I couldn’t keep the softness out of my voice. I reached out as she got close, my hand automatically finding the small of her back to pull her into me.
“I had a special project to finish,” she said, her eyes sparking with that familiar sass. She was holding a small, four-inch starter pot in her hands. A tiny seedling, no bigger than my thumb, was pushing up through the dark soil.
I stared at the tiny seedling, then back at her face. “Is that from your pepper plants? The ones form the rack disaster?”
She shook her head. “No. I think I’ve found a new species, Cord. It’s a bit of a hybrid. High maintenance, very demanding, and likely to cause a lot of trouble in about six months.”
I frowned, looking down at the pot. “It looks like a pepper plant to me, Poppy.”
“Read the tag, Mountain Man.”
I leaned in, squinting at her messy handwriting on the plastic stake.
Species:Homo Sapiens—Mountain Variety
Planting Date:Roughly twelve weeks ago
Expected Harvest:Late December
Growing instructions:Needs lots of pickles, foot rubs, and a very big, very possessive father.
I stared at the tag, the words blurring as the reality slammed into my chest like a falling pine.
“Poppy?” My hands were shaking as I let go of her waist to cup her face. “Are you... are we...?”
“There’s a bun in the nursery oven, Cord.” Her smile wavered just a little as her eyes filled with tears. She was watching me with those dark eyes—nervous and brave in that way that was entirely, exclusively her. “We’re having a seedling.”
A primal, explosive surge of protectiveness roared through my veins. I didn’t just want to kiss her. I wanted to build a wall around the entire mountain and never let a single breeze touch her. I dropped the pot—thankfully onto a bag of mulch—and hauled her against me, my face burying in the crook of her neck.
“God, Poppy.” My voice broke as the reality of what she’d told me settled inside me. “A baby. My baby inside you.”
I pulled back just enough to look at her, my gaze dropping to her stomach. Knowing what was growing there changedeverything. I reached down, my large hand covering her belly, my fingers splayed over the skin.
“I knew it,” I muttered, my mind racing. “I knew your breasts felt heavier. I knew your pussy felt tighter, hotter every time I was inside you lately.”
“Cord,” she laughed, though she was blushing a deep, beautiful red. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”
