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  I only have to hang on for a minute, my fingers on my clit while he steps out of the shower, and when he returns and sees me touching myself, he groans. "Fuck, Red," he says.

  "What?"

  "If I weren't so worked up already, I'd make you do that a while longer, just for me."

  He's behind me, the way we were a moment ago, and when he enters me, I'm already swollen with arousal. "Keep doing it," he whispers. "Keep touching yourself while I fuck you."

  "Do you like that?" I ask, as he fucks me, his movements perfect, bringing me higher and higher so quickly it takes my breath away. "Me touching myself?"

  "I fucking love it," he says.

  So I tell him how I’ve touched myself, how I’ve fantasized about him, sliding my fingers inside me while I’ve thought about what I wanted him to do to me. He growls, spinning me around and lifting me up to impale me on his cock, my back against the shower wall. I wrap my arms and legs around him, clinging to him as he thrusts inside me.

  And begging him to fuck me harder, whining for it. Desperate for it.

  "I had to see the look on your face when you came,” he says. “I can't get enough of it."

  "Shit, Luke, I'm so close.”

  "Tell me what you thought about when you touched yourself," he says, his words punctuated by thrusts inside me.

  "I thought about you," I say. "I thought about your cock."

  "Tell me what you thought about exactly, sweetheart," he says. “I want to know.”

  "I thought about your cock in my mouth," I tell him. "I thought about sucking you."

  "Oh shit," he groans, thrusting inside me, and I'm so close. "You thought about me coming in that sweet mouth of yours?"

  "I thought about you fucking my mouth," I say before he brings his mouth down on mine again.

  "Shit, Red," he says. "I can't get enough of fucking you. I can't get enough of this tight pussy."

  "Oh, God." I'm slipping against the cold shower tile, water and shampoo running down my face, but all I can think about is how hard Luke’s cock is inside me, how swollen it feels, like it’s ready to explode.

  He takes my lip between his teeth, biting down and sending a pang of pain through me, bringing me even closer to the edge of oblivion. "Oh hell," he says. "Are you going to come on me? I want you to come on me, baby."

  He doesn't even finish the sentence before I let go. My orgasm triggers his, and I can feel him explode into me, shuddering as I cling to him, consumed by my own pleasure.

  "Fuck," he says, looking up at me. My heart is still pounding in my chest, my breath short. "Some friend you are."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Luke

  I lie on my stomach in Autumn’s bed, recovering from the last round of sex with her. Her hand traces lazily along my back, fingertips brushing the scar. I don’t know why I even told her about it. It’s a part of myself I keep hidden away, locked up from anyone who knows me.

  But Autumn...there's something odd about the way I’m so quickly comfortable with her. It’s easy being with her, which is fucking strange because she’s probably the most tightly wound chick I’ve ever met. But hell, I’ve never stayed in someone’s bed like this, fucking and hanging out and talking, without wanting to get the hell out of as I was finished getting off.

  "Did you always want to be a smoke jumper?" she asks, her voice soft.

  “Not really,” I say, looking at the small painting that hangs on the opposite wall, palm trees and water and bright colors. I wonder if she lies here at night, looking at it.

  “Not really?”

  “Nope.” How do I explain that I never imagined myself doing anything -- being anything? The Saint family’s name was shit in this town, and we weren’t supposed to amount to anything. We were always outsiders here, and that was only worsened by my father’s shittiness. "I just needed a way out of this place. I like being outdoors, working with my hands. I like the land. And the rush. I always liked being on the edge.”

  I leave the second half of that sentence unspoken -- because when you grow up the way I did, you never know if the next breath you take is going to be the last. There’s something about that fact that just sits with you. You get used to it. And that’s how you live.

  I don't say that part, because I think that part is pretty fucked up, and Autumn isn't the kind of person who would understand my particular brand of fucked up.

  “You were running away,” she says. When I roll over, she’s lying on her side, her head propped up on her hand.

  I’m not sure if she’s talking about when I first left West Bend, or every day since then. “I guess.”

  “I ran away, and found this place,” she says.

  “Who runs away to West Bend?" I ask, shaking my head.

  She shrugs. "It was an accident," she says. "I didn't go out looking for West Bend."

  "You threw a dart at a map or something?"

  "Almost," she says, laughing. "I ran out of gas."

  "You ran out of gas, so you decided to stay?"

  "I had kind of a meltdown," she says.

  "A mid-life crisis, you mean."

  "Shut up," she says, punching me in the arm. "I'm not middle aged."

  "Hey, you're the one who keeps going on and on all the time about how old you are," I say.

  "I was having a shitty week," she says. "Not a mid-life crisis."

  "Must have been some week to land you in West Bend."

  She laughs, but there's no joy in the sound this time. "You could say that."

  Then she tells me about her ex-husband, and how she walked in on him and his secretary, the same day her father died. When she was going to tell him about her pregnancy. And all I can think about is what a total asshole that guy must be, how fucking blind and stupid you have to be to miss what you have right in front of you when the woman with you is someone like Autumn.

  "I just walked out," she says. "I didn't have a plan. Everything in my whole life has been planned out – the right schools, the right experiences – and I've never deviated from it. That was the first time I've ever not had a plan." She looks at me for a long moment. "Except for now."

  I've never had a plan for jack shit in my life, and Autumn was sure as hell not a part of my non-plan. "Why the hell did you buy an orchard?" I ask.

  "I ran out of gas right now the road from here," she says, grinning. "And June, this girl – she owns a bed and breakfast right near here – gave me a lift down to the gas station. When I saw the orchard, I made her pull over."

  "So you just up and bought an orchard," I say.

  "Well, when you say it like that, it sounds crazy," she says.

  "You're slightly more spontaneous than I thought you were."

  "Thanks," she says, her tone sarcastic. Then she's quiet for a minute. "I needed a change. My father left everything to my brother and I – my mother passed away a couple of years before. We didn't agree on how to run the company anyway. I let my brother buy me out. He thought that my coming out here meant I'd really had a nervous breakdown or something, that I'd honestly lost my damn mind."

  "Do you regret it?" I ask.

  "Coming here?" she asks. "No. I don't know anything about cider, or about orchards, not really. But my whole life, I never took a leap of faith before that. I'd never had to close my eyes and just jump."

  Close your eyes and jump.

  "Besides, this place just gets under your skin after a while."

  I look at her for a long time, before I reach out and brush a piece of auburn hair off her shoulder. "Yes," I agree. "You try to get away, but it never leaves you."

  Autumn laughs. "That just sounds creepy."

  "It can go either way," I say. "Good or bad."

  "I don't know," she says. "I like it here. So many people are leaving, getting their properties bought up by that mining company, you know? I thought about leaving, taking Olivia and going back to Kentucky. But this place feels like my home."

  "Yeah, they tried to buy my mother's property too," I s