We’d driven just outside of the city proper to the more rural area where my family’s land was located. It’s where I’d started my first foray into farming the hops that had made my beer a household staple in homes across the globe.
I couldn’t wait to show Savannah everything. Experiencing the world through her eyes, or while standing by her side, made everything more special. More unique. She carried an inner lightness and untainted view of things that was becoming commonplace for me. Before, coming home was an exercise in pleasing my mother and father, but now I looked forward to introducing them to the woman I’d chosen as my own. Sharing them and their love with her and seeing her flourish under their attention would make me happy.
I chanced a glance over at her as we rolled down the long, winding driveway to my familial home.
“You live here?” she gasped and sat up straight, her eyes wide and her nose almost touching the window.
“My parents own the home and this land in particular. Since I’m an only child, I try to come and stay with them as time permits. I have other homes in and around Norway and Europe that I will be happy to show you in the coming weeks.”
She nodded avidly.
“I’d love that. I’ve never traveled, but I’ve always wanted to. I can’t believe I’m in Norway, half a world away from Montana. It’s truly hard to believe how much has changed in a few short days.”
I reached out and took her hand as I followed the road until we reached our home. I clicked the button that opened one of the garage doors and pulled inside. “Do you regret what you’ve committed to?” I stopped the car, removed my seat belt, and turned to face her.
She shook her head and removed her belt. “No. When I make a decision, I do so without fretting over what could have happened if I’d made a different one. Life is filled with a series of endless paths. Every choice we make will lead us down a specific route. Hopefully it’s the one we’re meant to go down. We don’t know if it’s going to be the best decision of our lives or the worst. All we can do is work toward making those choices positive ones. I do not regret you.” She lifted her hand and cupped my cheek. “Every moment you’re sharing something of yourself makes me like you even more. Are we a love match? I don’t know. That will take time…”
She looked down and away, twisting her fingers together in her lap. A nervous habit I’d seen her do several times already.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I don’t expect you to look into my eyes and fall in love with me. All of this happened so suddenly… I, too, wasn’t prepared for the shock of it.”
That admission had her smiling softly and looking back at me with those bright blue eyes. Her fiery red hair was a halo of curls around her pale face and rosy cheeks. She was an angel come alive.
My angel.
Looking at her made my heart double in size. There was so much pumping through my veins, scratching at the surface of my skin to get out. It had been over two years since I’d felt anything. Joy, happiness, contentment, feeling alive—all of that left me the day the accident happened. A piece of me disappeared that day, and I’d been searching for it ever since.
When Savannah and I made eye contact across that dark auction room, the switch had flicked back on. Out of nowhere I was “feeling” things again. Deep, gut-wrenching feelings I’d shoved down and away for over two years. I’d tried to get that feeling of being alive back again, doing crazy shit that frightened my parents and made my best friend, Jack, who was also the head of my company, worry endlessly.
Still, I hadn’t been able to shake the fear. The torture of that experience. To this day, I woke at night with sweat running down my temples and chest as flashes of the accident flooded back from wherever I’d locked them away so I was able to trudge through the waking hours. I hadn’t felt a sense of peace since. Until her. Savannah’s presence calmed that ugly place inside me that I’d been hiding from for years.
“Being near you, spending time together, it feels…right. And I hope over the next few weeks, you’ll start to feel the same. ”
She reached out and took my hand once more. “In case I forget, or don’t tell you enough, thank you for everything. For choosing me. For bringing me across the world to experience new things. For being kind and patient as we figure all of this out together.”
Then she leaned forward and placed her cool lips to mine in a sweet kiss.
Her wild berry scent curled around my senses, and I tilted my head, breathed her in and then took her mouth in a deep kiss. She was tentative at first, unlike our kiss on the plane, but the moment her tongue touched mine, I couldn’t help but groan and press closer, growling into her mouth wantonly. Her responding mewl sounded like a kitten pleased that she’d gotten her cream.
For minutes, hours, forever it seemed, the kiss went on and on. The car was fogged up from our heavy, heated breaths, and I ran my hand down the back of her jacket to her waist where I could tease the bare skin I found there. I snuck both hands under her shirt, and she arched against my chest, trying to get closer as buttery soft skin teased across my fingertips. I moaned into her mouth, biting down on her bottom lip as her hands fisted in my hair.
I ripped my mouth away and sank my teeth into the column of her neck, tasting her skin voraciously while sliding my hands up the front of her shirt and cupping her breasts. She had been gifted with far more than a handful, generously filling even my giant paws curving around each lace-covered globe.
I ran my thumbs over her nipples through the fabric, and she gasped and cried out, so I did it again and again. She was vibrating with need, her skin flushed as I ran my tongue down her skin to the scoop neck of her shirt. Her breasts were heaving, plump in my hands as I lifted them and tongued between the fleshy bits not covered by her undergarment.
Things were getting out of hand and a little wild when a loud knock banged against the car window.
Savannah screamed and clung to me, crushing my hands to her breasts while looking over her shoulder.
Two individuals stood next to the car, my mom’s blonde locks glistening off the garage lighting as she waved.
I removed my hands and rested my head against Savannah’s shoulder as the laughter took over.
“It’s my parents, elskede. They must have been overly excited to see my car come up the drive. Come, let’s meet them.” I kissed her forehead, discreetly removed my hands from underneath her shirt, then turned and shoved open the car door. I made my way out and around the boot of the car before my mother tackled me in a hug.
“Min s?nn!” My son! my mother exclaimed as she tucked her head to my chest. “You have been missed,” she continued in Norwegian.
“S?nn.” My father approached, his deep kind voice a balm over the chaos that had been the last few days. “Velkommen hjem.” Welcome home, he said as he cleared his throat, his words carrying a note of deeper emotion within them.