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“Taip. Yes.”

I shove it all from my mind and take what I need from the drawer. The lube and a regular condom. Can’t pretend the magnum ones don’t find their place in the back of my mind to think about later, but it’s distant. I leave it in the wind and work Oscar open with slick fingers, my free hand on his chest, tracking every pleasured sound he makes until he squeezes my wrist.

“I’m ready, Po. Please?”

I don’t need to be a hearing person for his whispered plea to reach me.

To obliterate me.

I roll on a condom with shaky hands. But as I align us and hold his cinnamon gaze, the shaking stops. Responsibility bears down on me and the single-minded focus that’s rebuilt my farm from the dirt up settles on him.

Nothing exists beyond Oscar and his trust in me to get this right.

I kiss him and press my forehead to his. “This might hurt.”

18 OSCAR

This might hurt.

I have always believed Poet.

He does not lie.

But the part of me that’s craved this from him from the start burns hot and reckless, and I am so aroused I can’t imagine a reality where anything about this hurts. “Do it. I want it. I want you.”

Poet pushes inside me.

Slowly.

And of course he is right.

It does hurt.

A lot. More than that. The sensation of him so thick and hard inside me stings and tears, scorching through me as my fingers dig into his shoulders and my breath leaves my body.

But beyond the pain, something brighter shimmers. Something I reach for as Poet eases deeper and deeper and my vision dances like raindrops on a stormy sea.

It…

Oh.

Oh.

Sharp pleasure blooms inside me. I arch my spine, chasing it down, and tighten around Poet with such force he lets out a startled groan.

“Easy.” He rubs my chest. “I have you.”

“I know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Poet grins a little, but it doesn’t stay. As he rolls his hips, stoking a slow rhythm, his humour fades, overcome by the fierce concentration I’ve become familiar with when we are together like this. The way he watches me as though nothing else exists. My every breath. Every blink and tiny shift in my face. It’s the same expression he wears when he coaxes life from stubborn soil, or wrestles with the battle-scarred tractor everyone else wants him to scrap. Strength tempered by innate care.

He is so present.

I kiss his jaw.