I come to him and straddle his lap. Lifting, I feel him positioned and slowly slide down his length. How I feel complete every time we do this reminds me of how empty I feel when we’re not entangled together. Resting my arms on his shoulders, I put my head to his cheek, breathing through the stretch and acclimation. I love this. I love this with him so much, any pain washed away by the pleasure.
He kisses my cheek, whispering against my skin, “I will never take you for granted, my love.”
My love.I drink in his words, rolling them around my tongue to see if they taste as good as they sound. The softer edges and sweet centers of those two words slip past my stomach and head straight for my heart. The urge to please him, to give him everything courses through my veins, revealing the need to tell him, “I love you.”
Rocking slowly on top of him, I lean back to keep my eyes locked on his as the sensation of owning him as much as he owns me takes hold. He sits up, taking control of my hips and moving me faster as he whispers, “You’re so good to me, baby. Fuck me just like that. Yeah, keep going.”
His words encourage, filling me with a boldness I didn’t have before. “You’re so big, so full inside me.” I lift anddevour, rock and embrace, squeezing so hard to push him closer to his release just to watch him fall for me all over again.
Watching his mouth fall open and his eyes close because of me weaves into my veins, tying us together.
I betray myself. The feel of him claiming my insides as his gaze hooks me into the daze of deep breaths and darkness, the chase and reaching the peak, before the simplest touch of his fingers to my clit induces my orgasm.
A wave of tremors swims through me just as he grabs my hips, lifting me before dropping me back down to an eruption of moans and swears, Sunshine and him coming. And when my body has no bones left to keep me upright, I collapse onto him with my head on his shoulder and him tucking me into the fold of his arms.
He kisses my head and temple, my nose, and the sweetest of kisses is brushed against my lips while he tries to regulate his own breathing.
Our connection is otherworldly, kismet, nothing I’ve ever felt before or knew existed before Daniel. Our love, that’s eternal, greater than either of us has ever experienced.
Time is a bitch, though . . .
“We should go before someone comes looking for us,” I say, not moving a muscle and wishing we could stay like this. At least a little while longer.
Using a bottle of water to clean up on the side of the house is not one of my best moments. That the water is French makes me feel a little fancier as I get the dirt off my legs after it splashed me.
“Shortcut through the woods?” I ask, ten steps ahead. I’m now convinced that whoever said shame should be a part of the aftermath of intercourse when walking home wasn’t having great sex.
Just on this side of the special place where my parents are buried, Daniel asks, “What’s that?”
I stop and look back at him. “What’s what?”
“That sign on the tree?”
I look in the direction of his gaze, but there are a billion trees to sort through. “What kind of sign am I looking for? An animal, a bird, a wanted sign for someone on the run from the law? X marks the spot? I’m going to need more information here.”
Chuckling, he says, “No, it’s not treasure. At least, I don’t think it is. I’m talking about that carving.” He steps over brush and brittle branches that are crushed under his shoes when he deviates from the path. I follow, figuring there’s not a foot of this property I haven’t stomped through at one time or another. He taps a tree. “This.”
Looking up at it, I’m stumped. “I haven’t seen it before. Doesn’t look new since the bark is healed. Lift me up, so I can see it.” He picks me up from under the arms, holding me so close to the tree that I push back just so my eyes can focus. “CS #7.Huh.Down please. It’s extra odd because it’s so high. Who would carve a message that most people will never see?”
“No clue.”
“No idea,” I hum under my breath. Reaching up, I run the tip of my finger along the scraped letters. “C-S. Charlie Season.” This makes no sense. “Is it a marker?” I look up at the treetops only to find leaves and branches, and nothing out of the ordinary.
“Number seven? It’s got to mean something. It’s too specific not to.”
“Seven trees? The seventh from the ocean? Or the road?” Even from where I’m standing, I can tell there are more trees than that in every direction. No signs of tampering or othercarvings, no markers or anything that would give us any indication to what this means. Glancing back at Daniel, I say, “It’s here to mark something, to signal to someone. Or do you think it’s random?” I turn my gaze back to the carving.
Reaching over my head, he touches it as if it will help him come up with ideas. He moves his arm around my lower back. “C-S. Charlie Season.”
Hearing him say my father’s name shouldn’t overwhelm me as much as it does. A lump clumps in my throat, leaving me unable to repeat the name out loud.
Daniel squeezes my shoulder. “My guess is that those are his initials. It’s not some teenage crush with a heart though. So I’m curious what the number seven stands for. A pointer.” He laughs and waggles his brow. “To buried treasure and it’s located seven paces from the tree?”
“Could be.” I finally clear my throat. “Since there’s nowhere else to look but down. Maybe we’ll find another hint on the ground. The issue is, would it still exist after all these years? Wind. Rain. Storms. Floods three years ago. Snow and ice. The landscape changes with nature. If my dad carved this, it’s been too long to find other clues he might have left.” I don’t know why I feel like I lost something I never had. It’s probably nothing. But why does my gut tell me otherwise? “I don’t know what it means.”
Daniel’s eagle-eyeing the surrounding trees when his hand slips away from me. The absence of his touch bothers me more than not knowing what this carving means. I step over some brush and bump up against him. “Yeah. It meant something to someone.”
I’m not sure we’ll ever know, so I leave the mystery for another day.
