“That tickles.” She giggles. That spot is more than ticklish, it’s her trigger point, and I recall how she responded to me kissing and nipping her there last night. That shoulder of hers, exposed from the sweater continually falling to the side hints at a pale plum bra, and that’s my trigger point. I want to kiss her, right now, and I search the distance for a place to give us some privacy. Not that anyone’s around, but I don’t think Beverly would take kindly to me ravishing her out in the middle of some field. Then again…no one is around. I nip her neck, and she jumps on my lap with another bump. Dammit.
“We’re gonna have an accident if you do that while I’m driving,” she teases, but her tone turns serious. A driving accident is no joke to her.
We’re headed toward the property edge where the climb to the mountain begins. In the vast distance to our left, another home can be seen. It stands lonely and sad, too far away to note if anyone lives inside. I already know the answer. I’d love to stop and stare a moment, the thought reminding me of a Robert Frost poem, but I’m worried this old tractor will stall if we pause, so my kissing her is going to have to wait.
“We need to turn around,” I bellow over the engine. Beverly nods and gently adjusts our direction, turning in a wide curve to accommodate the lack of agility of the rusty beast beneath us. As we turn, something catches Beverly’s eye, and while the tractor curls back to the path, Beverly’s attention remains fixed on something off in the woods marking the edge to her property and the start of the mountain.
“What is it?” I ask, shifting my head behind her and squinting at the trees.
“Nothing,” she yells. “Just thought I saw a bear.”
“A bear?” I twist in the seat as best I can, keeping my hand on Beverly’s hip so she doesn’t slip off me. I don’t see anything but the thickness of trees. My eyes flash over to the house far off, and my stomach pitches a bit. Then we jut forward in the direction of Beverly’s.
“Tell me about you, Bee,” I ask, hoping to rid my thoughts of the house off yonder.
“Nothing to tell. I live here. Been here most of my life, other than growing up in Cedar Gap.”
“Cedar Gap?” I interrupt. “Never heard of the place.”
“You aren’t missing much. My parents had a church there. They practiced their own religion of sorts, and believed in hell and damnation for things like drinking, smoking, and cavorting.”
“Cavorting?” I laugh.
“Sex,” she clarifies. Although I know what she meant, hearing her say that word does things to my belly that only adds to the existing tension of her vibrating on my lap from this ride.
“How’d you end up with Howard, then?” I chuckle without humor, hoping I don’t insult her but knowing full well that Howard was nothing short of a sex fiend. A philanderer, my momma called him. Sticking his dick where it don’t belong was more like it.
“It’s textbook really. It only takes once.”
See, sticking his pecker where it didn’t deserve to populate.
“Sonofabitch.”
“Yeah, well, despite that, I have Hannah.” Beverly and Hannah are close in a strange mother-daughter dichotomy of parent-child-best-friends. All seems to be forgiven for what Beverly said weeks ago, but I also notice Hannah isn’t around much. My sympathy towards Beverly being a homebody has shifted. She’s alone too often. And while I’d already had the firm opinion that Beverly was more resourceful than she let on, it’s become more evident in the last week or so with the subtle changes in herself. Her clothes. Her hair. Her confidence.
“Howard is the only man I’d ever been with,” she admits, and it’s me who then needs to grip the tractor seat in hopes of not falling off.
“That was like twenty years ago,” I holler over the engine.
“Seventeen, actually.” Her voice is loud but not strong.
“And you never considered letting somebody else in your life?” The question has multiple interpretations, and I hold my breath, wondering which way Beverly will take it.
“Hannah’s an only child, not by choice,” Beverly states, her voice saddening, and I damn Howard again for not doing his husbandly duty and giving her more babies if she wanted them. My hand has slipped around Beverly’s hip and settles on her belly, wondering what the swell of her stomach might have felt like, knowing I’ll never experience any such thing as getting someone pregnant and having kids of my own. I’d never considered it a loss until I hold Beverly.
But my question isn’t about children. I mean a man.
Is she worried someone else might leave her just as Howard did?
“It didn’t seem right,” she calls out. “I always thought I’d only ever be with the man I married, and seeing as he ran off with another woman, and then the accident…well…I just figured my life plan was to be alone.”
She’s got to be kidding. Who wants to be alone all the time?
We each stay quiet as we travel the remainder of the way back to the main house. My thoughts run rampant with the desire to pull this beast over and kiss the daylights out of this infuriating woman. Her shoulder keeps escaping her shirt and teasing me with the smooth skin over her clavicle. My mouth waters, and I want to nip at her until she screams my name repeatedly. It’s a good thing Hannah came home last night, because if Beverly had given me the green light, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. I wanted to feel her hidden heat, explore her depths, and dive deep inside the mystery of Beverly Townsen.
Currently, my nut sack aches from need with each squirm of her backside against my zipper region. As we near the barn, I’m ready to toss her off me before I do something ridiculous. She steers us close to the back of the barn, hiding us from the main house, and I let up on the accelerator until we rumble to a stop. Not the smoothest transition, but I can’t take the pressure any longer, and then Beverly shifts, angling her body so her side leans into my chest.
“Is this place what you need?” she asks, and I swallow back the deep yes. I need you, over me, naked and willing. Then she clarifies. “Is this land the place you want to plant your roots?”
“It’s good for me to be here,” I tell her honestly. It isn’t so much the recovery of the land I thought I deserved, but a solid place to set a foundation, and I’m doing that here on her property.
“Then I’m glad you’re here if you think this is the place you need,” she admits, and the soft timbre makes my insides warm and gooey, which isn’t very manly, but I’m cookie dough to her words. Her eyes cast down at our precarious position. Her thigh must feel the thickness bulging at the seam of my jeans. Her breasts rise and fall as her breathing increases, and her arm crosses her body so her fingers can dig into my tee. “That couldn’t have been a comfortable ride for you.”
Her voice dips sultry and deep, and I swallow. What is she doing? my brain screams, while another part of me hollers for her to drift lower with those hands.
Her breathing becomes more rapid, her breasts heaving. Her shoulder rests against mine as her fingers climb up my shirt. Her hand flattens, skimming over my left pec. Her gaze leaps to my arm, the one I’ve draped over her leg in her twisted position.