"Don't," I plead, meeting him movement for movement. "I want this. Want you. Want your cock. Forever."
"Come with me," he demands, his voice straining. "Want to feel your pussy squeeze my cock while I fill you with my cum."
His words push me over the edge. I shatter around him, my inner walls clenching and pulsing around his thickness as I cry his name. He follows immediately, driving deep one final time with a guttural groan. I feel every pulse, every hot jet as he comes inside me, marking me as his from the inside out. The sensation of being filled so completely triggers another wave of pleasure that leaves me trembling in his arms.
Afterward, we lie amid the wildflowers, sweat cooling on our skin as our breathing returns to normal.
"I'll go back to Vancouver," I say finally, tracing the contours of his chest. "But only to wrap things up."
"How long?" he asks, his arm tightening around me possessively.
I press a kiss to his chest, breathing in his scent of pine and sweat and sex. "As little time as possible. Then I'm yours. For good."
The possessiveness in his eyes should bother me. Instead, it makes me feel cherished in a way I never have before. Wanted. Needed. Essential.
As the afternoon sun bathes us in golden light, surrounded by a tapestry of wildflowers, I've never been more certain ofanything. Sometimes life's biggest turns come when you least expect them.
Sometimes you have to get lost to find exactly where you belong.
Thorne
Two Weeks Later...
TheAnnualTimberFestivaltransforms Silver Ridge. Strings of lights crisscross Main Street, wooden booths line the town square, and the scent of pine mixes with funnel cake and barbecue. It's been this way every summer for as long as I can remember.
But this year, everything is different. This year, she's here.
I stand at the edge of the square, watching Dahlia arrange wildflowers in a hollowed piece of cedar I found for her last week. Her booth has drawn a crowd all day—tourists and locals alike captivated by her unique designs that combine Silver Ridge's timber with seasonal blooms she's harvested from the surrounding meadows. Sustainable, she calls it. Beautiful, I call it.
She looks up, somehow sensing my gaze, and smiles. Two weeks. That's all it's been since she went back to Vancouver to settle her affairs. Two weeks that felt like years. But now she's here. For good.
I've always been a solitary man. Content with the rhythm of my days—working the timber, meals alone, sleep, repeat. I never knew how empty that existence was until she filled it with color and laughter and warmth.
"You're staring again," my brother Wade says, appearing beside me with two beers. He hands me one. "It's getting embarrassing."
I accept the beer without taking my eyes off Dahlia. "Don't care."
"Clearly." He follows my gaze, shaking his head. "Still can't believe you convinced a city girl like that to move to Silver Ridge."
"Didn't have to convince her of much," I say, remembering the wildflower meadow and her whispered confessions. "She belongs here."
Wade smirks. "With you, you mean."
I don't bother responding. Wade knows me well enough to read the answer in my silence.
Across the square, Dahlia demonstrates to a group of women how she weaves thin strips of bark through her arrangements. Her hands move with confidence, her smile bright as sunshine as she explains her technique. Several of the women scribble notes. Already she's building a clientele, teaching workshops alongside her custom pieces.
"Speaking of city folk," Wade says, his tone darkening as he gestures toward the competition area, "they're everywhere this year."
I follow his gaze to where the axe-throwing contest is being set up. Several tourists in brand-new flannel shirts are examining the equipment, cameras dangling around their necks.
"Festival brings revenue," I remind him, though I understand his irritation. Wade's the five-time axe-throwing champion ofSilver Ridge, and he takes the competition seriously. "Tourists spend money."
"They get in the way," he grumbles, taking a long pull of his beer. "Half of them are just here to get Instagram photos ofauthentic lumberjacks." The disgust in his voice is palpable.
I hide my smile behind my bottle. Wade's always been the more sociable of us Harrington brothers, but he's fiercely protective of Silver Ridge's traditions.
"That one hasn't stopped taking pictures since she arrived," he says, nodding toward a blonde woman with a professional-looking camera. She's photographing the setup for the log-rolling contest.
