18. Ned

H e walked straight past me, opening the door and leaving me to follow him inside the way we always had. Him right there, me a few steps behind. The comfort in that simple gesture made me emotional. I just…I loved it so much. The feeling of coming home.

"It smells amazing in here," I said, dropping my gloves and hat onto the kitchen table as he unfastened his coat.

"Heating is back on again. Roland popped by earlier. As you said, another loose connection. Bloody mice probably."

"I hear you have cats." I winked.

"And Flora needs to stay out of my business. We've always had too many cats. Dad was just better at keeping them outside. I…I care too much. Bring the kittens in, sort them out and feed them. No wonder they keep coming back. It's like they keep having litters and dumping them on me because they know the idiot at the farm will sort their offspring out."

He was talking more than he had in days. The table was littered with coffee cups and crumbs as well as two trays that had once obviously contained baked goods. They no longer contained anything, which made my heart sink.

"Saved you two." He winked, pulling a plate out of the cupboard. "I knew there wouldn't be anything left. "

"Locusts?" I smirked, biting into the golden piece of goodness he offered me. The cinnamon hit my taste buds, sharp against the sweetness and the salty butter as I chewed appreciatively. "Never tasted the same when Mom made them. I think our flour is different in the States, and the cinnamon is stronger here."

"It's just buns," he said, picking up a couple of crumbs off the table. "And no, no locusts. Students. Keeps them all sweet. They get to help themselves to snacks and I have them wrapped around my finger when I need jobs done, and I have nothing out for dinner."

"Violet made stew." I grinned and returned to the truck because, of course, I'd forgotten the plastic tub that was still sitting neatly on my passenger seat.

"You got potatoes?" I presented him with the tub of stew like it was fancy and priceless.

"'Course!" He grinned. "But they're up in the stores, and I don't fancy shovelling more snow. I have frozen oven chips. Like a normal person."

"That'll do." I tried to mimic the way he spoke while he grabbed a rag and wiped down the table.

"Sit," he commanded. I didn't dare argue with him because I still somehow felt I was intruding here, and he was, as always, softly walking on eggshells around me. Something that had to stop.

"You okay?" I hoped he was.

"Yeah." He stepped out of his outer gear, walking over to the drying cabinet in the hallway, leaving me sitting there with my anxiety. I got up and poured us both a glass of water because the beer tray was empty again and I still hadn't figured out where he kept his stash. We did this most nights. Clothes, shower, beer, talked nonsense about our days, food, before inevitably ending up in bed, falling asleep within minutes.

"So," he said, taking a seat opposite me. His hair was damp and flat from wearing a hat all day, his cheeks still rosy from the cold, the now-familiar thermals covering him like a second skin.

I liked him in those. Every little curve of his chest. His arms. They hid nothing. Just showed him like he was. Almost naked when he wasn't .

"I need to talk to you. Properly," he said quietly, looking more serious than I was comfortable with. "I want to do this with you. This whole thing." He gestured wildly, both arms flailing through the air.

Wow. Real talk. We hadn't done much of that. Mostly because of how hard we'd both been working but also because it was easier not to acknowledge the fact that we had no idea what we were doing.

I sat there waiting because his chest was heaving, and he needed to get words out. I knew now. I could read him—the way he kept everything so bottled up in that chest of his.

I was right here.

"I want this with you. Like we do now. I just haven't got a fucking clue what I'm doing, and I'm terrified you'll just up and leave again, and I need to find a new chainsaw trainer because I shagged the one I have now, and I don't want him to make a pass at you and make things awkward."

Okay. That was a lot.

"Why would the chainsaw trainer make a pass at me? If you had a thing with him, that's okay, you know. If there have been other men. I get that."

"I don't…no other men. Not since you. I don't want that. Ever."

"No, no, no. I don't mean it like that." I was as messy as he was, no clue what was coming out of my mouth. "I promise not to allow the chainsaw dude to make a pass at me. You'll have to introduce us so I can…you know. Mark my territory."

"Pee on the ground around me like a dog?"

I laughed. He did too because we were bloody idiots.

"What I mean is that…" He took a deep breath. "I need you in my life. We've come too far now, and I need all of this to work out, you here with me, but I also need Flora in my life. She rents the back paddock and the barn. She works here, and I need her to keep doing that to keep me sane. Just like she needs me to just, you know, sometimes make sense of life."

"She adores you." Truth. We had to say these things. "I actually quite like her. She turns up at Violet's sometimes. Checks up on me. Hurls some subtle threats involving the removal of my balls if I ever hurt you. "

"She's been in love with me since we were, like, five. That's when she started mentioning marriage. It's a lot of history."

"She's terrifying, but she's promised to hold off on cutting off my balls for now. If she does, she will feed them to her goats. Or was it chickens?"

"Wouldn't put it past her, and I think Patrick Thorn is on her hit list again. Keeps shagging her and then cutting her loose. He needs sorting out."

"She likes him?"

"She does, but he's unreliable. It's not like he's going to give up his accountancy firm in town to become a sheep farmer."

"Ah."

"And he does my accounts. So yeah. I'm not going to go beat the shit out of him, even though that thought has crossed my mind."

"I love the inbreeding around here."

"Shut up."

"At least I'm fresh blood."

"You're related to Violet. We might as well just give up now. Dad was related to Violet."

I nodded. "Fourth cousin by marriage or something. I did check. Violet did too because you know how the landowner forum likes to gossip."

"Yeah."

"So the plan is…?" My head was spinning, and his clearly was too.

"We sort out Flora. Make sure she's in the loop here. Otherwise, you will be ball-less within a week."

"Check."

"And we live here and make a good go of this."

"Agree."

"And I'm not promising anything because this is sheer lunacy right here. I don't fucking know shit about you, Ned Anderson, apart from that Violet is thrilled to have you back and is bragging about you and your skills everywhere, and your communication is abysmal because you never bloody text me and…and… "

"Yes?" He was so bloody cute, especially when he let me grab his hands. I kept hold and stroked my thumbs over his knuckles.

"I think this is one of those love things, and I'm not easy to live with. My dad told me all the time. I'm messy and disorganised, and I can't tell you the last time I washed my bed sheets. I never hang the towels up, and I can't make pancakes. I truly can't. So don't expect a fairy tale here because I have a temper too, and I get angry and frustrated and shout at people."

"Like the chainsaw dude?"

"Nah. He's actually a nice guy. Good shag."

"I want him gone."

I loved how he smiled. I was kidding. He knew that. I hoped.

I took a breath. "I will get better at the communication thing. Got a Swedish SIM card coming in the post, so I can actually use my phone properly without it costing me a fortune and…I mean. I was never good at the HR thing. It was never really a role I felt capable and comfortable working in. I was just, you know, hanging by a thread all the time. Just about meeting targets. Never quite understanding what I was trying to achieve. Now I'm here, and I'm under no illusion that I'm an expert at anything to do with heifers, but I'm comfortable here. There are no expectations on me to be perfect. I just need to get the job done. Keep up with everyone else, and if I don't, they just show me how to do it better, and you have no idea how different that is from the office where I spent the last ten years. The stress I had all the time. The constant feeling that I wasn't good enough, not for anything. Not even for the men I hooked up with. I was never good enough. Never fit enough. Never the one they asked to see again."

"I wanted to see you again. I still do. I want you to come and sleep here. Every night."

"I know," I whispered. I hadn't noticed the tears, but fuck. Fuck this.

I grabbed his neck, planted my lips on him. Kissed him, hard and brutal, because kissing was better than words. Fuck all the words.

"This is insane, but it's our insane, and I think this will work because I want it to. "

"Bloody demanding, you are," he whispered.

"Want food?" I whispered back.

"Yeah."

"So we make food. Find our Flora a guy and live happily ever after?"

"Something like that."

"And Flora keeps saying she wants the bed moved upstairs. Something about not wanting to see my bare ass in the mornings?"

"She's seen mine plenty. I'm sure she'd cope."

"Upstairs? Can I go have a nosy around? See what needs doing?"

"Knock yourself out. I won't have a spare minute until New Year's Eve, but sure."

"Okay. I have this Sunday off, Violet said. I haven't had a day off since I got here."

"You're a farmer. Get used to it."

"I know."

"Sunday it is then. We sort stuff out."

"Food?"

"Food."

I kissed him again and felt all the day's stress running off me, slow trickles of muscle pain dripping onto the floor as he pulled me to my feet and held me, his face in my neck and mine in his, our arms around each other as I slowly allowed myself to breathe.

"We're doing this?" I repeated.

"I think we are."

"How come you always smell so nice when you come back inside?"

"Sweat. Blood. Tears," he mumbled.

"I smell of filth."

I did. Of cattle and hay and sweat and muck. There was nothing romantic about how I smelled. Or the fact that I was still wearing my work trousers.

"Ned?" he said carefully, detangling himself from my embrace. Then he winked. Smiled. And I melted because …

This.

This was why I was here smelling of cow poop and not sitting in a dusty office in Arizona. I was here because this man was smiling and sweeping his tongue over his bottom lip, and then he just whispered one word. "Strip."

I did. Clumsily and awkwardly, admittedly. The room was warm, and we hadn't even built the fire, but he was right there, playing with his waistband, a noticeable erection in those thermal long johns as his hand moved downward. Cupped his junk. Smiled at me.

"You wanna bottom?" he asked. Well. It wasn't a question. It was a clear indication of what he was about to do to me. He'd not done that yet, topped me. We'd messed around—blow jobs, getting each other off—but we'd been too tired to actually fuck.

This was exactly the way I functioned, when I felt the need to take control of things, and the thought of him fucking me turned me on more than I wanted to admit. I topped. Mostly. When I felt out of control, I needed someone to steer me right back to where I needed to be.

It didn't even make sense in my head, but his arms on my waist, him walking me backward toward the bed—that made all the sense. His mouth on my collarbone. His teeth scraping my skin.

I couldn't even speak, but I wanted to shout. Yes. Yes. YES!

He knew. Of course he did because he flipped me over, and I spread my legs like the needy little slut I was, and he had big hands. Big digits. His lube-covered thumb trailing down my crack made my whole body shiver. Huge. It felt even larger as he pushed against my entrance. Slow, steady moves as I finally managed to speak.

"More."

"I know what you need." His voice was low, his breaths coming out in small growls as his thumb pushed inside me, and I roared because it was a little rough. A little too much. Very much perfect.

I welcomed it the same way I welcomed his mouth back on my neck, those deep, sucking kisses where I knew he would have me covered in bruises by the morning. Bruises nobody would see but would make me…fuck. I wanted them. I wanted all of his marks all over me.

Teddy.

My Teddy.

"Hold yourself open," he demanded. Familiar sounds. The squirt of lube, the bottle bouncing onto the unmade bed.

Fuck. Curtains. Open. Darkness.

"Nobody here," he grunted like he knew exactly what was going through my head.

"Fuck me," I replied.

Vocabulary. A limited edition when he got his way with me like this. He'd never fucked me before, and I had no expectations, yet I did exactly what he told me. Held myself open as he pushed his thumb back in, then slid out. Two fingers pushing steadily inside of me as I roared again. A small bead of sweat ran down my forehead, and I shivered, muscles inside of me spasming as I teetered on that thin line of pleasure and too much.

He would always be too much, and I bellowed out a string of obscenities as his two fingers bottomed out inside of me.

"Can you take more?"

Fuck, I was going to come. My hips jerked awkwardly against the sheets as he stabbed at me, slow movements where he hit all the right spots, over and over.

"Gonna come, Ted. Need a…slow…"

"Patience," he murmured, carefully sliding his fingers out of me. Lifting my hips like I weighed nothing, he got me up on all fours and gave my ass cheek a little slap.

"More," I begged. Fuck knows what for. "No condom. I want you."

Another soft slap.

I had to get a hand up to try to jerk myself off, which he of course wouldn't let me, swatting my hand away.

"Can you come just with my cock inside you? Does fucking do that to you? "

"Yeah. If it's the right cock," I mumbled. I was so fucking close, and my ass was empty. At this point, he could've stuck his little finger back in there and I would have shot my load.

"Okay," he said softly. More lube. "Sure about the no condom?"

"Hell, yes." I wanted to shout at him that I didn't need more lube. That all I needed was him. That I needed calm in this chaotic world and for him to put everything right. Fuck me until I didn't need to think anymore.

I could feel the head of his dick against my hole, pushing gently.

"Ned, just take my cock, okay? Lean back. Let me see you swallow me up."

Fuck. I was wrong about the fucking, as my dick spasmed, some white stuff hitting the sheets underneath me.

"Come on. Lean right onto that big fat dick."

Teddy!

He was right, though. I was a complete slut for things like this. His surprising confidence in bed and having to…hell. Damn. His dick was perfect, creating a slow rising burn as I impaled myself on him, his hands steadying me on my hips.

"Good boy," he whispered. "Sit back on that cock."

"Does this turn you on?" I managed to ask because fuck, I was not going to make it.

"Yeah. This okay?"

"Hell, yeah."

"Hard and fast?"

I didn't reply to that. Just breathed myself through the last inch or so until I was fully seated. Impossibly full. My nerve endings singing as he shuffled into position, my body screaming with the need to release. Anything. Please.

He pulled out and roughly slammed back into me as I finally let go. That was all it took. Him fucking into me, every slam inside making my dick pump out my release, over and over again, until I was so exhausted I could barely hold myself up.

He came just as fast, holding me hard in place as he filled me up.

His skin against mine. My insides full of him. No rubber between us .

I was so fucking pleased he'd not used one.

Fuck.

His teeth bit down on my shoulder, his cock still inside of me. Arms and legs. The weight of him. Everywhere. Warmth.

"That okay?"

"How can you even ask that?" I smiled drowsily into his mouth.

Kisses. More kisses. I needed all the kisses.

"It's a love thing."

I watched him say it, his face blooming pink, and it was hard to take it in, but I said it back because I felt it too. I always had.

"A love thing."

And there it was. That small, embarrassed smile that brought out his dimples. The love thing indeed. I'd once had so much love for the boy who lived down the lane. Now I had so much love for the man.

"Teddy?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really happy."

"Good."

"Good."

I smiled. Then I laughed, turning around underneath him as he reached for the spunk towel and gently wiped my ass.

"Dude. The condom thing."

"Dude?" He raised an eyebrow. "Last person I slept with was you, and Flora forced me to get tested afterward because she's like that. So I know I'm okay. I'm not going to put you at risk, and I'm not going to use condoms with you, and I know it's a shit thing to say, but I've always been careful. Tested. I hope you have too. If it would make you feel better, then we'll both go get tested again. Get ourselves sorted. What do you say?"

"I'll say…well, I want more of what just happened here, and I got tested after this summer too. I think we're good. I would never put anyone at risk."

"Well, that's it then. You need to know I mostly bottom. I'll expect servicing. "

"Servicing we can do, but yeah. Mostly top here, but I never say no to a good fuck."

"Sorted then."

He awkwardly shook my hand, then swatted the spunk towel at me.

"Teddy?"

"What now?"

"I need to eat before I pass out. Can we please fucking eat?"

I smiled. He did too because we were actually both happy. What a weird feeling that was, but I loved it. So bloody much.