This is the radio edit. For the explicit love scene, please see the work Soundcrush Explicit, same chapter title.
A view of the cabin where Leed takes Ashlynn
Leed
It takes nearly an hour and half to reach our destination, because Ashlynn insists we stop for food. I don't think she was a bit hungry, but she knows I needed an insulin pill this morningâthanks to MJ's constant baking habit and my weakening will powerâ and in her gentle way, she's making sure I eat before my blood sugar plummets. Neither one of us want to waste time in a restaurant, so we break the fifty at an Earth Fare, and get some sprouted grain bread, natural cashew butter, almond milk, veggies, hummus and some flavored sparkling waters. Ashlynn feeds me while I drive. We drink out of the milk carton.
It's the sweetest picnic I've ever known, licking Ashlynn's fingers clean as we move higher into the North Georgia mountains. We leave the lighted roads behind. I put the old car into low gear as we grind up a gravel road and the headlights pan across nothing but woodsy switchbacks.
When we finally arrive at our destinationâa tiny cabin overlooking Tallulah Gorge State Parkâ I'm pleased to see that cabin looks just like the pictures. I've been to this spot many times, but the micro-cabin is new. It's a minimal living design designâmodern, simple, no more than a rectangle with a glass room projecting off the front. The kitchen, bathroom and tiny table occupy the non-glass portion of the cabin, and the large platform bed occupies the entire glass roomâwhich even has a glass roof.
Vivi went all out, getting it ready for us. She's got the bed strung with fairy lights and swathed in gauzy canopy curtains. Flameless candles bathe the interior and spread warm glow through the glass. There's also a deep soak tub on a separate deck. It's filled, heated and lit, the warm bubbling water steaming into the chilly mountain air.
When I switch off the headlights, the effect of the tiny glass bedroom, lit up in the dark quiet wood, is very romantic. I sneak a look at Ashlynn's face. Her eyes are soft, her lips parted slightly in wonder.
"Thoughts? Like maybe about how wonderful your boyfriend is?" I tease her.
She cuts that adorable grin at me. "This place is...magical, and you are wonderful, but you are also cheating at your own game. This is not a fifty dollar date."
I grab the bags that the driver transferred from the other car, and walk around to open her car door. "Am not. This place didn't cost a dime to rent."
She squints at me. "Because you own it?"
"No. It's just borrowed for a couple of days."
"Oh." She sounds disappointed.
"Would you like for me to own it? I can try to buy it, but I sort of doubt Vivi will sell it to me."
She doesn't answer, because now that she's stepped out of the car, she's heard the waterfalls. We're parked at the side of the cabin and she follows the trail around until she's standing in front of the glass bedroom, which is set back slightly on this cliff. There is a large rock overhang several steps down from the front of the cabin, with man made stone steps added. She skips down the steps and I find myself hissing in alarm, dropping the bags and rushing to follow her, wrapping my arms around her tightly. She maybe doesn't realize how small the overhang is, how close to the edge of the plummeting gorge she is.
"Don't jump of the cliff, Sunshine, I'd hate to have to follow you," I murmur, panning my phone flashlight to show her the edge, about ten feet from where we are standing. She gasps slightly and snuggles into my arms, but she doesn't seem scared. She's amazed at the sight of one of the largest gorges in the Southeast, sprawling below us. I turn off the flashlight and we stand still, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the moonlight, watching as the canyons gray-green foilage takes shape in our expanding night vision. The river and cascading falls catch the moonlight and snake like liquid silver down the gorge.
It's cold and quiet and all we can hear is our breath and the distant rumble of the falls. I wonder if Ash, like me, can hear her own heart beating.
"I've stood right where we are standing so many times. I always feel so...free here. And hopeful. Like it's the jumping off place for some great big adventure. Like the best is yet to come. It's why I wanted to bring you here."
"It's so beautiful, Leed. The place...and what you just said."
"Have you been here before? To Tallulah Gorge?" It's not far from Atlanta, and a common weekend getaway. Still, it's a special place for me, and I wanted to bring her here.
"Yes, but never like this. Never on top looking down, never at night, never at a full moon. Never in a romantic cabin. Most importantly never with you," she says sweetly and plants a kiss on my cheek.
"My dad and Vivi used to bring Mac and I here when we were kids. This piece of land has been in her family for a couple generations. Back then, we camped. The cabin is new...a rental thing."
"Vivi is stepmother number...?"
"One."
Ash bites her lip trying to piece together random references she's heard Mac and I make over the years.
"The piano teacher?"
"No, the dance instructor. Elaine was number two, the piano teacher. Michelle was number three, the florist. Now my dad is married to Rachel." I think. "She makes soaps and lotions and shit and sells them at farmer's markets."
"You still keep in touch with all of them?"
I shrug. "Well...yeah. They were good to me, they just couldn't hang with my dad's delusions of grandeur. But," I pull Ashlynn's oversized scarf from her neck and wrap it around her waist. "I don't really want to do the family history thing tonight. Tonight, I want to focus on me and you. It's our December Dawn, remember? Actually, let's make it Christmas morning."
"Christmas morning?" she asks smiling up at me.
"Yeah. I want to see you wrapped up in the scarf and nothing else, cause if you are giving yourself to me tonight, you are by far the best gift I've ever gotten."
Her smile fades. She reaches around my waist. "I'm a little nervous. It's been awhile. And it's been...a long while since...you know..."
"Since it felt good?" I ask gently.
She nods.
I kiss the top of her head. "We'll go slow."
She beams up at me, her face full of trust and love. I lead her into the cabin. The tour takes thirty seconds because the place is so tiny, but she exclaims over every thing. The hippie chic in her loves this tiny boho haven, just like I hoped she would. I pour us some sparkling waters and garnish them with limes while she goes to freshen up in the bathroom. I notice she takes the scarf.
I strip down and put on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, put on some music, lie back on the bed, trying to enjoy the sceneryâimpatient for the beautiful view I really came here to see.
She's in the bathroom a long time, and I'm starting to worry that she's having an anxiety attack or second thoughts or something, but finally she floats out of the door like a vision, her long golden hair brushed and loose and swinging about her shoulders, the scarf worn like a halter dressâwrapped around her neck, covering her breasts and stomach, trailing across the tops of her thighs and barely covering her sex.
I rise from the bed and flip off the fairy lights, so that we are left in the shadow of candle flame. My playlist is slow and sexy. I hold out my hand to her. "Dance with me, Sunshine?"
She comes into my arms and I wrap her in a slow dance for the very first time. We dance for songs and songs, her head on my shoulder, me breathing her in. Occasionally we'll kiss, and each time the kiss feels more and more charged. Slowly, I trail my hands up her thighs, teasing her bare sex with the backs of my knuckles, moving slowly-so fucking slowly-up her hips, to her waist, up her sides. Never pausing when I hit the scars on her left side, moving smoothly to cup her bare breasts beneath the scarf. I reverse the process, trailing my hands back down her body. Over and over, I move my hands over her, paying no special attention to her scars, but not avoiding them either, until they don't feel foreign to me and my touch on them doesn't feel foreign to her.
When neither of us can stand it any longer, I push my pajama pants off and stand naked in front of her. She's seen me naked many times over the last couple of weeks because I'm not shy, but this is different. This is me, giving myself to her like I want her to give herself to me. She surprises me, and accepts the gift. She walks around and around me, thoroughly examining what's hers.
When she makes several full circuits, she traces my profile, my Adam's apple with a feather light touch. "You're magnificent," she says. She reaches for my hands and puts them where her scarf is tied behind her neck.
"Time to open your gift," she whispers. I deftly work the know.The scarf drops gracefully away, leaving Ashlynn in her skin a pair of ornate bohemian earrings. She bends her left arm, automatically covering her scar. I reach for her hand, stretching her arm away from her side, kissing her knuckles as I say, "There is so much more to you than that. Let me see how beautiful you are."
There's a moment in which she wavers, but then she lifts her chin. "I do feel beautiful when you look at me." She raises her arms above her head and twirls for me very slowly.
Her body is stunning. She's toned and tan and to be honest,I am hardly aware of her scars. Her naked glory completely overwhelms them, especially in the soft light.
I absolutely adore this woman and her body is the temple where I want to worshipâindefinitely.
I'm walking her to the bed, laying her down. She raises up on her elbows, watching me as I inspect her, taste her.
I peak up at her as I work. Her head is thrown back looking at the stars open. When I stop to admire her abandon, she moans in disappointment. "Make me come like that," she whispers. "I've never..."
"You will. You'll come every way there is to come with me before we are finished in this place, this weekend. I promise. But right now I want you on your knees in the middle of the bed."
She climbs to her knees slowly, her eyes dark and wild and never leaving mine as she complies, and that's when I know what I already suspectedâ she likes being told what to do in bed. She needs it. She doesn't need pain, but she needs mastery. She's never had what I can give herâthe perfect balance.
I circle the bed, looking at her from every angle. She's watching my reflection in the glass, watching me prowl around her. I use the remote to extinguish the flameless candles, killing her ability to see me so clearly. I pace, watching her squirm a little on her knees, eager for me to come to her.
"Be still," I growl and she freezes, but she can't still her her excited breath. It's gorgeous, her anticipation, her love of being my prey.
I crawl behind her, very very slowly, making sure she feels my weight approaching across the bed. She whimpers as I lightly scrape my teeth on the back of her neck.
I pull her roughly back against my chest as my hands begin to explore her rubbing, pinching, invading. "Are you ready to be mine?"
ââââââââ-
Ashlynn
"Yes," I whisper.
We're completely surrounded by windows, the dark wild world enveloping us, the full moon lighting our skin, but I can still see our reflection in the glass, because of a dim light at the back of the cabin. It's the most erotic moment of my life, feeling Leed at my back, watching him kiss my shoulder, lick and bite and my neck, seeing how perfect we are together as his hands caress me in long strokes over my breasts, down my belly, over and between my thighs-mostly soft touches, but occasionally punctuated by a sharp nip of pleasure that makes me whimper.
Leed pulls my hands back behind me, putting my palms flat against my lower back, capturing them between us. He tips me forward, slowly, slowly, one hand against my chest, one hand sliding down there. I'm at the tipping point...completely at the mercy of his balance. He works me higher and higher and I find myself smiling and giggling and gasping. The sensations, and the sense of being on the edge of falling forward get me higher than I have ever been.
"I'm going to come," I whisper.
"Not without me," he growls back. He presses over me, and I collapse all at once onto the bed, his full weight bearing down on me, enveloping me. One hand is underneath me, and his now familiar fingers are sliding into me. I grind against them, moaning in pleasure as he curls them inside of me.
"Oh baby, you are so ready aren't you?" he whispers.
"Yeah," is all I can manage.
His weight is gone. He flips me over so fast it's thrillingâlike a spiral in a roller coaster. He's between my legs and for a second I tense, thinking that his own control is gone, and that he's going to slam into me and it's going to hurt, because he's so, so big. But he doesn't.
He crawls over me, his hands warming my skin, easing the tension in belly. "I'm not going to hurt you, Ashlynn. I promise." His voice is as sweet as the kisses that follow it. We spend a long time kissing, touching, moving.
Leed plants his elbows beside my head, and staring, searching my face. "I never knew it could be like this until you. I never knew love until you."
I put both of my hands on his face. His eyes are vivid and clear and beautiful. "I have never known love like this," I promise him.
"Take me," he commands, and I arch up, accepting him as he pushes in.
Leed filling me inch by inch lights me up like I've never known. It's a surrender. It's a high to top all highs. It's...like...becoming whole.
"Oh god, Leed," I grip his arms as he begins to rock with excruciating control. Each time he fills me, the tight, exquisite resistance is the same, but he's relentless in his slow, maddening pace. He takes my hands and traps them above my head, pressing his lips to my lips in stillness.
"Mine," he whispers against my lips. "Mine to love. Mine to protect. Mine to cherish."
"Yours," I promise him.
He puts his hands to my back and raises me up so that I'm straddling him. I gasp at the depth of his penetration. He stills, letting me get used to the new depth. "Okay?"
"Don't stop," I plead and he grabs my ass and begins to move me on top of his lap as he lavishes my breasts with attention.
Leed makes love to me forever. Our bodies are strong and flexible and I've never had anyone move me like this, so effortlessly, each position more intimate than the last. After the first few times he backs us off orgasms, I realize I don't want to come yet. This precipice of pleasure is just like standing on the cliff outside...it's exhilarating. There's more transitions and touching and teasing and licking and exploring than I've ever been subjected to and there are so many times I think my heart will burst from the intensity. He's all over me, everywhere in slow sensual increments.
Every single second of it is heaven.
I find myself...free. Every thing we do to each other is right and good and love.
Finally, we find ourselves face to face again. He picks up the pace as he presses himself close, using friction to work me higher and higher. We are so deep in each other it seems impossible that we wouldn't come together. We watch each other's faces for as long as we can, until we both break into the blindness of ecstasy.
He drops his head to my chest, his weight holding me down as I stare into the dark sky above, sure that I belong up there. "I love you so much, Ashlynn." His words are simple and sincere.
"I think you must, because that was amazing."
He chuckles, and I love the vibration. I kiss the head resting on my chest. "I love you too, Leed."
We drift off, exhausted. Some time later, I wake. Leed has covered us to the waist and positioned us in our normal sleep position, spooning. It's even brighter outsideâthe full moon is at its zenith. The gorge is gorgeous, and Leed is awake, staring out into wild night as his pointer fingers skims my right side. At first I think he's waking me for round two, but when I try to turn around to meet him, he whispers. "Be still."
His finger is making a pattern on my unmarked side.
"Is this a game?" I ask.
He doesn't answer at first. "It can be," he finally says. "What letter am I making?"
I smile as he repeats the motions of the letter slowly.
"B," I whisper.
"That's right. Keep going."
"E...A...U...T...Y."
"That's what you are," he tells me. He traces more words. GRACE. LIGHT. LOVE. MINE.
DON'T CRY, when my tears start falling.
"I can't help it," I murmur, turning over and wrapping myself around him in a hug. "You're too much, Leed Lawson."
Finally, he does what I was expecting all along. He lowers his head to my scar and wordlessly seals every single letter with butterfly kisses. What I wasn't expectingâit doesn't bother me at all. There was much more power in the words he traced than the one he's trying to erase. I pull his head to my stomach and say, "Thank you, it's all better now."
"Sleep, love. I didn't mean to wake you," he says.
My tears start fresh as I realize that his tracings were never meant to be a romantic gesture. He was trying to implant the words into my subconscious, into my soul.
I really like the end. I hope it came across as powerfully as I felt it. Thoughts?