“You doing okay, cariad?”

At least he sounds winded too, gritting the words between clenched teeth. That’s a relief.

“So good,” I tell him. “So, so good.”

There’s a grunt of agreement, and I freaking love this man’s grunts. Then he’s fucking me harder, pounding me into the table just like I begged, and my legs are twitching and my cheeks are hot and I’m sweaty and sticky and flying.

“Rhys!”

Another spank, another hot cascade of sparks against my ass, and that’s what sends me over. What has me shuddering and crying out, face pressed into the table, thighs shaking as my pussy clamps down on the blacksmith like I’ll never let him go.

And behind me, Rhys curses loudly, gripping my hip hard enough to bruise, and then he’s swelling inside me. Growing impossibly bigger before he floods me with spurts of wet heat.

I catch my breath after several minutes. Every part of me aches, and something sticky is trickling down my thigh. “Rhys?”

He pulls out slowly, rubbing my back when I hiss. It burns, even as his cock is softening. “Easy, cariad. It’ll be sore for a little while. Let me take care of you.”

As if I’d ever say no to that. And with Rhys, ‘taking care’ apparently means a warm, damp cloth dabbed between my legs, then a hot, soapy bath and a mug of peppermint tea. And he’s with me the whole time, stroking my cheek and fiddling with my hair, and it’s so much. More overwhelming than the sex, even.

I scratch his bearded chin where he kneels at the bathside, suds dripping off my elbow onto the mat. “You could come in, you know.”

Rhys wrinkles his nose at the scented water. “There’d be a tidal wave.”

Yeah, now that I look at him again, he’d never fit. He’s too big, too brawny, all hard muscle and heavy bone. All man.

All my man.

“You’re looking very smug.”

I grin, grabbing a sponge off the edge. “I’m feeling it, too. This has been a good day.”

“Yes,” Rhys agrees quietly. “It has.”

And peeking at my blacksmith out of the corner of my eye, I know there are many more good days ahead. Days of teasing and blackberry picking and getting fucked over a flat surface until I’m cross-eyed.

Lucky me.

Nine

Rhys

Five years later

Autumn is a busy time of year for my wife. It’s the last push, the final stretch before the winter slowdown. When we saw this patch of land five years ago, searching through the mountains for a place to settle, the first thing Gwen said was: “Oh, a picking farm.” Then, her tone rueful: “I’ll be so busy.”

Because she’s made a kingdom of it. A Pick-Your-Own paradise, with strawberries and apple trees and blackberry bushes and pumpkin patches and more, the offerings changing with the seasons. Any time I glance out of the windows in my forge, I see dozens of visitors strolling through our fields with big wicker baskets.