Farmhouse

It was all set up as John had instructed before he left. Dinner was steaming hot and on the table when he walked into the mud room. Anna knelt before him, pried off the boots still smelling of horse and mountain pines, and slid his slippers onto his socked feet.

At the table, she loaded his plate for him.

After 6 years together, she knew what he liked. Moist pot roast with sides of his homemade barbeque sauce and a dash of horseradish. Loaded baked potato with a healthy glob of sour cream on top. Asparagus with salt and olive oil, roasted perfectly in the oven.

Without a word she piled his plate, filled his wine glass with a tall serving of the red that had been breathing on the table for a while, and then knelt beside his chair to wait, fanning her cotton dress printed with big sunflowers out around her legs.

Sometimes, in these moments of their games, he just wanted to snatch her up, carry her to the bedroom, and make gentle love to her while telling her everything he adored about her. His wife was gorgeous, with her tall, lithe frame, wavy brown hair and dancer’s grace, but that was only one small part of what he loved about her.

John adored the way she laughed easily and with her whole body. Every new baby on their farm was met with the same teary wonder and more than once he’d found her in the barn or a field, snuggling some lamb or calf. He even loved how she merely tolerated his hunting, accepting that it fed them, knowing he shot well and with mercy, but unable to bring herself to help process anything he brought home.

“Wine,” he said, and slid his glass over. She hopped easily to her feet and, keeping her eyes downcast, refilled his glass before kneeling again.

Lord knew he would have married her even if their kinks hadn’t aligned, forgoing that part of himself just for the privilege of loving this woman all his life. And yet, miraculously, they were perfectly matched even in that regard.

He must have done something right earlier in life to be this fortunate now, but he’d be damned if he knew what.

Once he’d finished eating she swept his plate away and delivered a slice of apple pie, made from apples picked fresh from her little orchard behind the house. It was topped with the heavy cream they skimmed from the milk Tallula, the dairy cow, gave twice a day.

Another splash of wine in his cup and she disappeared down the hall, as he’d asked her to this morning.

Every bite was a new delicacy. For years he’d urged her to enter one of her pies into the county fair but she refused. Anna wasn’t much of one for the spotlight, and she’d definitely be in it if the judges tasted one of these. He took his time, savoring each bite, and sipping wine in between. These nights, these games, were like the pie. Better savored, and less rewarding if rushed.

 The timing was perfect. He’d just popped that last bite of crust into his mouth when her footsteps echoed in the hallway. His plate was swept away, then his glass when he tossed the rest of the wine down.

“Is it ready?” he asked, in that tone she once said drove her wild.

“It’s like a command and a threat and a promise to make good on that threat all in one,” she’d told him while giggling after a scene one night.

Tonight, however, she just kept her eyes down and answered softly, “Yes, Sir.”

She led the way down the hall to their master bathroom, a room he’d redone just for her before they’d moved into the old farmhouse. He’d enlarged the space to make way for a deep soaking tub, installed a small wood stove and, hidden behind a towel closet on secret hinges, a small bookshelf that he’d stocked with candles, bath salts, body scrubs, and copies of all her favorite novels.

She’d screamed with delight and jumped into his arms when he’d shown her, and they’d fucked against the fresh white walls and stacks of moving boxes.

Now the fireplace had a low glow, just enough to warm the space against the chilling fall air. Steam rose from the tub, and she’d lined the window seal and counter tops with candles.

All those candles and all that wax, he thought, and tucked that idea away for later. They weren’t there yet and he was intent on enjoying this moment right here

His first inclination something was wrong was when she undressed him. Anna kept her eyes obediently down, but that hint of a smile was missing from her lips. Instead of this being part of the game, she undressed him as a matter of purpose, no lingering fingers on his chest, no pressing in as close to him as she thought she could get away with. Just functional undressing-buttons, zippers, utilitarian touches meant only for the purpose they served, nothing more.

There was something removed about it he’d never felt before, and when he wrapped a fist in her hair, yanking her head back and kissing her hard, she returned it with the same perfunctory obedience with which she’d undressed him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, still holding her hair, making her struggle to avoid his eyes.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” she said, and no more.

John sighed and stepped into the bath. He’d been in and out of the saddle all day and he was sore down to his marrow. Before now, he’d been certain he enough left in him for their plans tonight. That confidence was rapidly fading.

Then it fled entirely when she knelt and started washing his back. Her strokes were tender, but one look at her face told him she was a somewhere else entirely in that moment.

He rubbed a hand across his face and sighed again.

“Stop.”

Anna jerked her hands away, pulled back to the moment and suddenly unsure of herself. True to form, however, she didn’t speak a word until he asked, “Anna, what’s wrong?”

He almost laughed at how surprised she looked, just for an instant, before she tucked it away and settled back on her heels. One hand still clutched the wash rag over the edge of the tub, white knuckles squeezing the water out of it.

“It’s nothing,” she said, and added a quick, “Sir.” As if to prove it, she sat back up and resumed soaping his shoulders.

John grabbed her wrist. He pried the washcloth out of her fingers and leaned his face towards hers.

“What. Is. Wrong?” He used the tone she loved so very much, but now she just turned her head away.

“Nothing,” she said softly.

“Fuck it,” he grumbled, and she jumped at the profanity. Not out of offense, but because he rarely cussed. “Prius.”

Anna’s eyes widened and a shocked giggle escaped her lips before she could press the back of her free hand to her mouth. “That’s my safe word,” she said.

He let go of her wrist to cup her face, dribbling water across her dress where it rested on her thigh. The flash of humor was gone and she visibly struggled to keep her face neutral, looking everywhere but at him.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head, eyes starting to glisten. “I didn’t want to disappoint you,” she whispered.

“Get in the tub,” he ordered. When she stood, then balked, he rose from the water and bodily lifted her over the cast iron lip of the bath. He sat her across from him, then pulled her down into the water by her hands. The sunflowers on her dress floated up and he couldn’t help but smile as she self-consciously tucked it under the water to cover herself.

His plan had involved tying her, buck-naked and spread eagled, for as long as he could resist her before fucking her through the mattress, and here she was modestly covering her sex as she sat in the bath in her dress.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

Her hands intertwined under the water and she stared at them as hard as she could. “I’ve ruined tonight.”

Just a simple statement, and it broke his heart enough that his chest physically hurt.

“You didn’t ruin anything. Tell me.”

She looked up long enough to give him a half-smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “You said the safe word, no more orders.”

“Please?” he asked, and watched one tear roll to the tip of her nose and fall with the tiniest splash into the water.

He let her have the silence. Her dark places, he knew, could be so deep and consuming it took her a while to battle back to the surface, even to answer a question. It wasn’t a fight he could help with other than to be there when she emerged.

“Toby called.”

That was all he needed. John leaned forward and pulled her into his lap, cradling her and kissing the top of her head.

Toby was her stepfather, and the only father she’d ever known. Knowing the bastard had not only tracked them down and found their number, but that he had the audacity to call at all, made John want to get his gun back out and start driving. His rage was near-blinding, filling him with heat so great that the bath water felt cold.

Yet none of that was the answer, and he packed that anger down as fast as it had risen. Instead he squeezed Anna to his chest, cradling her head and kissing her forehead as she silently cried. The tears hit his chest, warm splashes on his skin, and rolled to join the bathwater.

“Is your mom okay?” he asked, the only topic he could forgive the man for calling about. Anna sniffled and nodded against his chest. “Do you want to talk about the call?”

She shook her head and gave a quiet, “No.” A long moment, and she added, “I’m sorry. I thought it would distract me, if I stuck to the plan, but I just—“

The rest of the words were cut off as he clamped a hand over her mouth. “Don’t you dare apologize for that. And you know better. We don’t play when we’re upset.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled against his hand.

“Apologize again and I will beat you.”

“Is tomorrow okay for that?”

He chuckled and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll check my schedule and let you know. Come here now…” He mumbled the last few words as he easily maneuvered her, setting her in his lap, putting her back to his chest and slinking down until both their shoulders were under water. He leaned his head over until she could rest hers beside it on the bath lip. She took a deep breath, and relaxed her whole body against his as she closed her eyes.

John placed a soft kiss on her neck, loving the little shiver she gave every time his whiskers tickled her neck.

“How was hunting?” she asked.

He gave a dramatic harrumph.

“That good?”

“It’s hard to shoot the old bucks, they run this forest.”

“You’re getting soft.”

He poked her in the side with one finger. “Keep it up and I’ll show you how hard I can get.” Her giggle soothed a little more of his rage and worry, and the way she wriggled as if to press even tighter against him broke the rest away and set it adrift. “It was good for Loki to ride pack all day at least. Forced him to be patient because when he wasn’t, Foxy kicked him.”

Again she giggled. She’d named the little black foal days after he’d been born when he’d kicked her, leaving her doubled over and laughing in the straw. Anna had not a single piercing or tattoo, and yet she claimed she’d been sorely tempted to get the tiny purple hoof print bruise on her thigh inked in permanently. He’d lived up to his name as a trickster god, opening gates and jumping fences, but had proven to be just as clever. Foxy was aptly named, too, and never tolerated his shit.

Also, John had sworn she wasn’t allowed to name the horses any more, as they always took on the personality she ascribed them and it made more work for him.

“I missed you,” she said, and nuzzled his neck.

“Liar,” he said, and willed himself, unsuccessfully, not to get hard as she nibbled on his ear. “You let Casey and Banjo into the house and fed them scraps.”

Anna let go of his ear to laugh and he used the distraction to put a hand across her throat and turn her face away.

“How did you—ah!” She squirmed as he bit her neck then kissed along her jawline. “What gave us away?”

“I told you,” he said in between kisses and nips at her flesh. “I can smell those damn hounds from a mile away.”

“Ah,” she said, and relaxed her head back against the hand on her throat, giving him better access to continue his torment.

“Plus,” he said, lips whispering against her ear, “you left their bowls down in the kitchen.” She began to laugh but gasped as he sank his teeth into the meat of her shoulder. “And for that you’ll be punished.”

“But you said—“

“Hush, wench. Do you want me to stop?”

“God no.”

“Good. Put your hands on the edge of the tub. Now spread ‘em.”

She obediently looped her legs over his, and gasped as he pinned her knees with his against the side of the tub. Slowly he undid the bow behind her neck that held the dress top up and slid it under her breasts. Anna kept her head back but mewled as he ran his rough, calloused fingers down the sides of her full breast. When he cupped one to knead it and pinched the nipple of the opposite, she gave the smallest moan and tried to wriggle, only to find herself pinned in place.

“Don’t move,” he warned. Just scrapping his rough fingers across her tender nipples was enough to make her wet most nights, the barest hint of pleasure coupled with the flash of pain from his sandpaper flesh. Dedicating his left hand to continuing that torment, he used the right to yank the hem of her dress to her hips. Shattering that modicum of modesty she’d tried to maintain as she crawled in the bath was so delicious his cock twitched against her ass and he had to slap one breast when she ground down against it, making her yip.

“Stop it,” he growled, and tugged at one nipple to reinforce the order. Then he resumed dragging his rough palm back and forth across the very tips, as if it were a bow making the lightest contact with a string. It would make them the tiniest bit raw and more sensitive by the second, and she’d confessed before how wild it drove her.

He slid the fingers of his right hand softly down her slit, running them up and down along the very edge until she whimpered. Slowly he parted the folds and teased her at her entrance while he brought his thumb down on the hood of her clit.

“John,” she whimpered, fruitlessly pulled on her legs, trying to leverage herself against his hand.

“Ah-ah,” he correctly softly, and pulled his hand away. “Don’t move.”

Anna groaned in frustration but lay still all the same, and he put his hand back at the cusp of her, working his thumb over her clit and starting to slip two fingers inside of her.

The sounds she made at the back of her throat drove him wild. This beautiful woman, so brave, so full of love and laughter, who’d had a call from her darkest demon and had still been ready to give herself to him, was in his arms and he was making her make those noises.

Moments like these he loved her so much it almost hurt.

“Don’t wait,” he whispered before sinking his teeth into that spot that drove her wild, right in that spot where the neck curves out to become a shoulder. At the same time he drove his fingers in deep and sped up his thumb.

Anna bucked under it all. Her wrists pressed hard against the rim while her fingers curled so hard in the air that they shook. Breath coming quicker now, she undulated her hips to meet his pumping fingers. He felt her whole body tense as she took a gulp of air and pressed, hard, into his hand.

She came with a shuddering cry and shook in his arms with each wave of the orgasm, bucking her hips less with every whimper. John slowed everything down and kissed up and down her neck, brushing the tender flesh with his moustache until she giggled and tried to wriggle away.

She always giggled after she came. He could spend the rest of his life coaxing that sound from her.

He planned to.

When he finally stopped, she leaned back into him and John dropped his chin on her shoulder.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said.

“Mmm?”

“Flannel pajamas.”

“Ooh.”

“Those thick fuzzy socks you love so much.”

“They’re so soft, it’s like having one of the lambs on my toes.”

“Weird, but okay. Then hot chocolate.”

“God I love you.”

“And I’ll pick three movies so you only have to choose one.”

“You’re nicer than I deserve,” she said and leaned her head against his.

“I love you,” he said simply. “I’d shoot that man to the moon with half a year’s oxygen and nothing to do just so he was bored before he died if I thought it would make you happy, but I know it wouldn’t. So hot chocolate and sheep socks it is.”

Anna opened her mouth, shut it, and stared at their entwined legs a long moment before speaking. “I’m worried you’re disappointed. That… That I ruined everything.”

“You ruined nothing. I would have been upset anyway if we’d gone through with this and I’d found out what kind of day you must have had after the fact.”

“Upset… with me?”

“With myself. For pushing you through that when the moment was wrong. For… Not being careful enough with you.”

“I’m not going to break, John.”

“Baby, I don’t want you to even bend for me.”

“Liar. You bend me over all the time.”

He shoved her off his lap and unwove their limbs so he could crawl out.

“Knock that off woman.”

“Or what?”

“There will be no marshmallows in your hot chocolate, for starters.”

“Tomorrow?” she asked, suddenly timid. “If I feel better?”

“Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Next millennia. I’ll be here for you whenever you’re ready, until the world ends. Now-stay!” he said, pointing at her. “I’ll towel off and get your pajamas.”

“Yes, sir,” she said with a smile. Anna closed her eyes and sank up to her chin in the still-steaming water while he watched, feeling as though he were falling in love all over again.