Bloom of love, p.10
Bloom of Love, page 10
Except she was lucky enough to breathe it in, not just look at a still photograph and imagine.
The Payette Beardtongue – a brilliant blue flower that was often compared to snapdragons – was in full bloom. It was one of her favorite wildflowers, and watching them sway lazily in the light breeze made her inordinately happy. A ring of grand fir trees encircled the meadow and she could hear the mountain stream they’d crossed over several times on the hike bubbling past. Over it all was the buzz of industrious bumblebees as they flew from flower to flower, and birds serenading them with a mountain love song.
If someone combed the world for a year for a more gorgeous place than this, she was sure they’d come up empty-handed.
“I found it while out hunting in high school.” His voice was quiet as they took in the scene. “Here, I’ll show you my tree.” He tugged her towards an older pine tree, listing to its left, the bark rough and seeping sap. He pointed to a spot that Carla first mistook for simple damage to the tree’s trunk until she looked closer.
CP + LS
“Do you remember Laura Smith? My girlfriend in high school?”
She hadn’t, until that moment. Laura, who was a year ahead of Christian, was thus two years ahead of Carla, and so they hadn’t had much reason to hang out together. A pretty smile? Carla couldn’t remember much else.
She nodded anyway.
“After I found this place while hunting, I brought her back here and carved our initials in the tree. I really thought…” He laughed a bit – not bitterly, but the kind one lets out when thinking back to a naïve, younger version of themselves. “She was the one for me.” He winked at Carla. “Ah, the stupidity of youth. After she graduated, she wasn’t about to wait around for me to finish high school, and was married before Christmas break of my senior year. She broke my heart, but I still consider this to be my tree.” He reached out and ran his fingers lightly over the rough bark.
“Have you dated anyone since then?”
“No.” He looked up from the tree trunk and smiled at her. “Not until I decided one day to pick up flowers for my mother for Mother’s Day.”
He pulled his oversized backpack off and set it on the ground, pulling a blanket out first and spreading it out. After he helped her settle in, he began pulling dishes out of the apparently bottomless pit of a backpack.
“You never did tell me that story,” Carla murmured as he continued to pull items out. How on earth had he stuffed so much into one pack? “I don’t remember seeing you that day. I’m sure I would’ve remembered if I had.” It’d been busy that day at the shop, but not that busy.
“I don’t think you did,” Christian admitted with a sexy grin that made her want to kiss him. Everything made her want to kiss him, but that grin in particular… “I came in, took one look at you helping some old man pick out a bouquet, and fell head over heels in love.”
“You did not,” Carla protested with a laugh. Men did not fall in love with her at a single glance. That was something that happened in fairy tales, not in real life. And especially not in Carla’s life.
“I did too,” he countered. “I was so smitten with you, I accidentally bought a Congratulations on the New Baby! bouquet that day. Didn’t even notice until I got back out to the truck. I only had eyes for you. You were swamped and you never even noticed I was there. Your high schooler helped me instead. Blond gal. Big brown eyes.”
“Oh yeah. Valrea. She helps me when I know it’ll be a busy day.” Carla plucked the stem of a wild blue flax and brought it to her nose to smell it – no scent – and then twirled it in her fingertips. “A new baby arrangement?” she asked, not sure if she bought this story. After weeks of dates every weekend and sometimes during the week, she’d finally convinced herself that Christian really did like her – something that was mind-blowing, to put it mildly – but a guy coming into her store and falling in love with her on the spot…
If he were telling this story about falling in love with someone else at a single glance, she would’ve eaten it up with a spoon and sighed over the romance of it all. But after many years of singledom – 37 years, in case anyone was counting – she just couldn’t believe it was true.
“Yup. For a baby girl, by the way.” He handed her a plate and began filling up one of his own. “I pulled the ‘Congrats!’ balloon out and the little pink baby rattle off before handing it to my mother. Can you imagine what she would’ve thought if I’d given that to her for Mother’s Day?”
Carla burst out laughing. “I think she would’ve had some questions,” she said dryly.
“Her and me both,” Christian grumbled, and then shot Carla a wink.
Maybe…
Maybe it really did happen that way.
She’d never caught Christian in a lie before now. She didn’t have any reason to think he was lying today. Only that the idea was so bizarre; so strange for someone like her. She was the one who watched everyone else fall in love.
What was that saying – always the bridesmaid, never the bride?
Not, of course, that Christian was proposing marriage to her. But still…
“This food is amazing,” she mumbled around a mouth full, making the conscious decision to decide on the truthfulness of his story later. For now, she was going to dig in and enjoy the food. She’d long ago given up eating like a bird while on a date, pretending that she wasn’t hungry and then eating again when she got home. It wasn’t like she was fooling anyone anyway. She was fat, but somehow Christian liked that about her, and she was ready to just own it already. She swallowed some potato salad. “Don’t tell me you made all of this.”
She’d thought her tractor date and the picnic spread she’d brought that day was pretty good, but looking at this one…
She’d been beat but good.
“Oh hell no,” Christian said with a laugh. “I can cook okay – I haven’t starved to death yet, anyway – but this is all the work of Carmelita. Do you know her? Stetson’s housekeeper?”
“Of course!” Carla said, slathering a homemade roll with thick huckleberry jam. “A real sweet lady. Loves Stetson like her own son, from what I can tell.”
“And now, Stetson’s son, Flint. I watched them together the other day – Carla, you should’ve seen it. I don’t know if Flint has Carmelita wrapped around his little pinky, or if Carmelita has Flint wrapped around her little pinky. Maybe they’re just wrapped up together.” He laughed. “Carmelita keeps dropping not-so-subtle hints to Jennifer that they should have another kid. A girl, if she wouldn’t mind. Jennifer keeps telling her that that part’s up to Stetson.” He laughed again, harder this time. “There’s little Carmelita, barely coming up to Stetson’s shoulder, giving him his marching orders. She told him the other day that she is getting too old to take care of babies, so he better get to it. God bless anyone who dares to stand between Carmelita and what she wants.”
They laughed together at that – the diminutive housekeeper ruled the Miller home, and everyone knew it.
And better yet, no one seemed to mind. Jennifer was happy to have the help with the household, considering how busy she was with the accounting firm, and Stetson wouldn’t know how to cook anything beyond toast if his life depended upon it.
But if Jennifer does get pregnant…oh, what that would do to Iris’ heart.
Iris was married to Stetson’s older brother, Declan, of course, and for her sister-in-law to have not one but two kids when Iris couldn’t even manage to get pregnant the first time…
Iris would be happy and pretend everything was fine, but it’d kill her to do it.
“—Carla!” Christian snapped his fingers in front of her nose, and she blinked, startled. “There you are,” he said with a chuckle. “You disappeared on me.”
“I…I did?” She hadn’t meant to.
“Yeah. What were you thinking about?”
“I…I can’t tell you.” He looked at her, surprised, one eyebrow cocked. “It’s nothing to do with you,” she hurried to assure him. “It’s a client-florist confidentiality issue.”
“A client-florist confident—” He cut himself off and began to laugh. “You mean like what lawyers have, but with florists?”
Her back stiffened and she glared at Christian. Maybe he thought this was funny, but she did not.
“Exactly like that.”
He stopped laughing.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” he started out weakly. She could tell he didn’t really mean it, though. He genuinely thought the idea was a joke.
It was not a joke.
“As a florist, I know everyone’s business in town. Who’s sleeping with who; who got promoted; who’s retiring; who’s sick; who’s pregnant; who’s in huge trouble and sleeping on the couch.” She gave him a pointed look at that. If he kept this bullshit up, that’d be the only place he’d sleep at her house. “If I walked around and told everyone everything that I knew, how long do you think I’d still be the town’s florist? No one would trust me to keep their secrets.”
She folded her arms across her chest and scowled at him.
“Oh.” He paused for a moment. “I never thought of that. I’m sorry I laughed.”
And this time, the contrition was real.
She nodded, accepting the apology, and let her body relax. No one took her seriously when she first mentioned the client-florist confidentiality agreement. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Christian hadn’t either.
Turned out, she wasn’t quite ready to let it go, though. “The reason you never thought of it,” she said quietly, “is because I don’t share secrets. No one in town even thinks to question how much I know, because I never let anything past my lips. If I started spreading gossip around, it’d be damn quick that people would start to think about how much I know.”
She sucked in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, determined to let the topic go.
Perhaps if she told Christian about the Declan and Iris in super general terms, it wouldn’t be bending the rules too much. Sometimes, it was hard not to have anyone to share the burden with.
“Just now,” she said, starting out slowly, trying to decide just how much she could say, “I was thinking about a client. Well, a husband and wife. They’re trying for kids, and every month, he’s sending her flowers when her period starts. It’s been going on for months now. You talking about Jennifer and Stetson having another kid…it just made me think about this other couple. They would do almost anything for a baby. It makes my heart hurt.”
She felt her eyes tear up just a bit and wiped frantically at them, hoping Christian hadn’t noticed. What a boob she was, to tear up over something like this.
“I want to help, but all I can do is send the most beautiful flowers I can get my hands on.” She spread her fingers out in the dappled sunlight beneath Christian’s tree, stained and calloused from years of thorns and more flower bouquets than she could ever hope to count. “When I was a kid,” she mused, “I liked to do my fingernails – I’d even do manicures on my friends. If I didn’t become a florist, I definitely would’ve become a beautician. If 10-year-old me could see how beat up my hands and fingernails are now, she’d scream in fright. It’s a small price to pay to deliver love as a job, I suppose.”
It was Christian’s turn to kiss her knuckles. He looked up at her through thick eyelashes that would make any model jealous, and smiled. “I love every damn part of you, but most especially your hands,” he whispered. “They show how hard you work, and how much you care. You give with your whole body. These fingers,” he held up her hand in the air, her skin clearly stained a muted brown and green from the countless flowers they’d handled over the years, “are just one of the things that make you beautiful.”
He popped the tip of her finger into his mouth and began to suckle on it.
“Oh!” The explosive bit of breath puffed past her lips, and she felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest. The warmth and moisture of his mouth combined with the feel of his tongue against her skin sent lightning bolts down her arm and straight to her heart.
They were alone.
Well, of course they were alone, but…
Ever since their tractor date, Carla had wanted to go back to his place and see about making it to at least second base, but he’d demurred every time, instead wanting to go to her house.
Her house. Ugh. If she had a house, she’d gladly show it to him. But the little tiny attic space above the shop probably wouldn’t even properly fit the two of them in it. It wasn’t a place she showed anyone – not even Michelle, or Autumn, or Hannah.
It was a little crazy how over the years, she’d always managed to casually meet people at the shop, or go to their house for a party, or meet up at a restaurant. No one seemed to question where it was that Carla the Florist actually lived.
This had put a damper on her and Christian’s relationship, but finally, right now, they were alone. In the mountains.
And she very much wanted to get to second base.
Chapter 15
Christian
There's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.
~Westley in The Princess Bride
As Christian worked his way up Carla’s plump arm, nibbling and sucking on her sweet skin, he mentally pinched himself. Was someone as gorgeous as Carla really wanting this?
He gazed up at her face even as he gently turned her arm to bare the inside of her elbow to his tongue and lips, and saw that her eyes had drifted closed and her lips were in a perfect O as she leaned back on her other arm, her tits unconsciously thrust forward.
The thrill shot through him and straight to his dick as he kissed the rapid heartbeat in the crook of her elbow. She did want this.
Not one to question extraordinary luck, he focused on not giving her a chance or a reason to change her mind. It’d been a long dry spell – longer than any red-blooded male should have to endure – but that was about to come to an end, and with one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met.
If he wasn’t busy trying to undo the buttons on Carla’s shirt, he would’ve dropped to his knees and thanked God on the spot.
“Oh…” Carla breathed as he was finally able to pull her shirt away, bearing her chest to the gentle breeze, and to his gaze. He stroked his fingertips over the tops of her breasts and listened with satisfaction to the quick intake of breath.
With a bit more fumbling than he liked to admit – it’d been a while since he’d undone the clasp of a bra – he slid her shirt and her bra down her arms and into a pile on the blanket. He’d been a tit guy from the first day he’d had a rush of teenage hormones hit, and Carla’s were magnificent. He cupped one in each hand and motorboated between them, sure that he’d died and gone to heaven. Carla laughed at his antics, and he looked up at her with a naughty grin.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. I could die happy with my face buried in your chest.”
“You’re a boob guy?” Carla asked, and he couldn’t help his laugh at the question. Somehow, he hadn’t thought she’d know about that kind of thing.
“I mean, I like all of your curves—” he nipped playfully at her breast, “—but your tits are definitely at the top of the list.”
“That’s good,” she said breathlessly, “because it’s not like I’m running low on them.”
“No, no you are not,” he breathed, deciding that it was time to show her just how much he loved her tits. If she was talking in complete sentences, he wasn’t doing his job.
Cupping her breast in one hand, he bent over and began suckling on the rosy pink tip. “Oh!” she gasped, her voice a full octave higher than normal. “Ohh…oh, Christian.” She’d wrapped her fingers in his hair and was tugging him closer, her breath rapid. “Yes. Oh. I…”
She wasn’t making a bit of sense.
Good.
He switched to her other breast, the tip just begging for his tongue as she squirmed and panted beneath him. It pebbled in his mouth as the pitch of her cries increased.
“Chri…ohhh…yeesss…”
Forget full sentences – she wasn’t even saying his full name.
He laid her the rest of the way down and then made his way to her slacks. A little fancier than people normally wore on a hike up in the mountains – no doubt his fault for not specifying what they were going to do on this date – but right now, all that mattered was that they contained heaven. Working the button and zipper with trembling hands, he pulled them down and mostly off, getting stuck on her flats but at least he could now see her in all her glory.
And oh, what glory it was. His eyes skimmed her body, her lush curves like those in old paintings, before society decided that broomsticks were in fashion. He hesitated, hardly knowing where to start. His mouth over her mound? Peel her underwear off and bare her fully to his gaze? Suck on her pink toes one by one? Kiss his way up her thighs? Or he could—
“It’s okay,” she said, jackknifing into a sitting position, scrambling for her clothes, her hair falling forward into her face, hiding it from view. “You don’t— I didn’t— it’s okay. We can just—” She was shoving her arms into her shirt but her bra was tangled up in the mess and she wasn’t making any progress.
Which was good, because it took Christian a stunned moment – or ten – to register what was going on.
“Hold on! What’s—what are we doing here?” he sputtered, curling his fingers around her arms, arresting her movements. His dick, near to bursting just seconds before, began wilting.
“You don’t want me, and that’s okay,” she said, looking past him, over his shoulder, refusing to meet his eye. “I knew it was too good…I just…did you have to wait until I was naked to figure out I’m fat?!” She was trembling all over but she shifted her gaze to look straight at him. Her blue-green eyes had gone steel gray; all of the color drained out of them by the hurt that was clearly overwhelming her. “I’ve been fat all this time. It isn’t like I gained 50 pounds in the last five minutes. You know what?” She stabbed him in the chest with her index finger. “Next time, when you want to just stare at a lumpy chick, try some porn!” She was shouting now, and the agony in her voice tore through him, slicing him to pieces.
