smut :3

Read it MONTHS ago. Was bringing it up to @empressofthewind a couple days ago and decided to draw one of the scenes. Wildly over my skill range, but ahhh i think I learned a lot? Sorry for never leaving a comment Ricky, I’ll try to make it up to you once I’m out of the headache trenches! 🫣

Your back sinks into the mattress. Your body aches—legs sore, hands calloused—and there’s still more to do.

His warm limbs usually wind around you like ivy. Not this morning.

You turn to reach for him, then stop. You don’t want to wake him.

When you had more time, Sam trying to train chickens to jump through hula hoops for Vincent used to make you laugh. Now it stresses you out instead. Guilt pinches you. You hate thinking that way. But a few weeks ago, he had the chickens racing each other. They got so stressed they stopped laying eggs.

You miss when things were simpler.

One of the things you love most about him is how he makes you slow down and appreciate the small things. Even if you could, you wouldn’t change a thing about him. It’s easier to encourage him to spend time with his family or work on music than risk growing frustrated with him on the farm. He’s never been much of a farmhand.

You’ve been so busy the little routines you shared have started to slip away. When you come home at night, he’s already asleep. Dinner waits in the fridge, suffocated by tinfoil and cold to the touch.

The mornings you woke with him holding you tightly were the last signs of life in your marriage.

You need to hire a reliable farmhand. You’ll tell Sam today. Finish the harvest before dinner. Eat together. You close your eyes. Imagine it all. Inhale deeply, exhale. Let it go. It’s time to focus. Get up.

The bed shifts. He opens his eyes and watches you move to get up. He could let you go. Instead, he reaches for you.

His arms find your waist. He already struck a deal with Marnie and Shane. They’ll help you harvest today, and he’ll spend the next few weeks babysitting Jas in return. He gently pulls you back beside him for a little longer. He’d tell you now, but figures you could use a surprise after so many exhausting days.

Tonight, you’ll have dinner together. He’ll tell you about watching Jas and see if maybe you’d want to join them sometime. Because he wants kids. He wants that life with you. But things need to change. He’s rehearsed what he wants to say, even though he knows he’ll forget it. Plans fall apart. If the world worked the way it should, there’d be no reason to say any of this. But it doesn’t. And it’s not your fault or his.

He thinks of his mom. How everything she does revolves around him, Vincent, and their dad. How even her love carries resentment sometimes. There was nothing he could do for his mom. He was just a kid. When he got older, he tried to help however he could. But by then, her resentment had become her purpose. Taking that away from her felt like telling her they never needed her at all. So he helped, but not too much. Sometimes he’d even ask her for small things he could’ve done himself, just to remind her she was needed.

There’s no way he’s going to let you do the same thing to yourself. He’s not a helpless kid anymore.

He imagines his mom holding his future child, tears in her eyes, seeing something beautiful come from all the years she spent giving pieces of herself away.

The sheets rustle as he pulls you closer, his hand splayed just below your chest. Your breath moves beneath his palm. His thoughts drift away. He finally has you here with him.

He presses his lips to the arch of your neck. Heat blooms beneath his mouth. A deep longing moves through him. He’s missed this more than he wanted to admit.

“Sam.” Your voice is hoarse with sleep.

Is this the part where you tell him you have to go? His arms tighten around you without thinking. You move, and for a moment he really thinks you’re going to leave.

You don’t leave. You turn in his arms to face him. Your eyes meet.

You reach for him, fingers brushing his bottom lip.

A grin spreads across his face.

“I was starting to think you loved the cows more than me,” he says.

You laugh. It comes out sharp and abrupt.

It was supposed to be a joke. But afterward, heat flushes his cheeks. Maybe some ugly part of him wants you to feel guilty. A helpless sort of vulnerability settles across his face. Like he’s not sure if he’s done something wrong, or how to fix it if he has. All he knows is he’d do anything for you.

“I didn’t mean it—“

“It’s alright,” you say softly, reassuring him.

His shoulders relax. He hadn’t even realized they were tense.

You trace the faint wrinkles on his face with your eyes. Warmth floods your chest at the familiar lines beside his mouth, curved like commas. The creases on his forehead come from how often he lifts his brows, his eyes wide and bright whenever he asks about your day. Even the smallest things you love about him have become part of something larger, a love that keeps growing and reshaping you.

You try to focus on him instead of the urgency screaming inside you. Pushing. Only one more day to harvest. To smother it for ten—maybe twenty—more minutes with your husband.

Something pleading flickers across his face before resolve sets in. He leans closer, your body blanketed in his heat, and kisses you with all the tenderness and care that’s been missing.

You want to show him how much that means to you. How much he means to you. You kiss him back, sharing breath the same way you share a life together. Your lips move slowly, thoughtfully. Tongues shy. Touching once, twice. Retreating. Then finding each other again.

He slips his hands under your shirt. His tongue presses against your neck as his thumb grazes your nipple. Heat floods through you. Then his hand glides over your lap.

You take his hand. He looks uncertain, like he thinks this is where things stop. But before that fear can deepen, you place his hand against your cheek. You kiss him, then climb onto his lap, his bare chest warm beneath you. His mouth parts as he lifts the hem of your shirt. You help him pull it off.

He rubs your hips slowly, brows drawn together as he unabashedly stares at you, pressing himself between your thighs. Gripping your hips, he lets out a breathy, frustrated sigh, like he’s offended there are still clothes between you.

“Babe,” he murmurs, the word sounding like a question as he reaches for your pajama pants.

You intertwine your fingers with his before pressing his hand down near his head. You lean over him as you kiss him slowly, mouth lingering first on his lips, then along his neck.

He squeezes your hands impatiently, like he’s pleading with you to let him touch you.

You let go of his hands and guide his thighs apart with your knee. Kneeling between his legs, you lean down to kiss the hard outline pressing against his boxers.

He cups your face. There’s so much longing in his eyes it nearly breaks you. His thumb strokes your cheek, then traces the edge of your mouth.

He runs his thumb across your bottom lip before easing it into your mouth. You hear his breath catch when you start to suck. He reluctantly pulls his hand away and tilts your chin upward. He wants you to look at him.

“Are you sure you want—“

“You’re all I want,” you say, slipping your hand beneath the waistband of his boxers and pulling him free.

The thought of being inside you and the feel of your hand around him make his thoughts blur together.

You take him into your mouth slowly, deliberate in every movement.

Pleasure pulses through him in warm waves. Your touch is like a map guiding him home.

He doesn’t mean to come so fast. Once it starts, he can’t stop it.

You swallow.

Lying beside him, you watch the steady rise and fall of his chest as he settles back into himself. After a few breaths, he turns toward you and moves over you gently, kissing you as he helps undress you. An ache twists low in your stomach.

His head between your thighs. You feel his mouth on you, the slow roll of his tongue. Each touch draws more pleasure from your body. Heat floods your skin. Your legs tremble as you come.

He lies down beside you and gathers you into his arms, his hand resting against your chest.

You trace the peak of his knuckles. Dappled sunlight sways across the back of his hand in a slow, trance-like rhythm. You sink deeper into the sheets, limbs heavy, ready to drift back to sleep. But then you remember the work waiting for you and force yourself awake.

You don’t want to leave. One more day, you tell yourself. Just one more day.

“I have to get up,” you whisper.

Disappointment flashes in his eyes and fades just as quickly. He hums softly in acknowledgment.

You don’t move. Silence stretches between you.

He leans forward to brush his lips against yours. Pauses to share a breath with you. Like he might break something, he pulls away.

“I can pick up dinner from Gus’s tonight,” he offers with a shy smile.

“Sounds good,” you say, reluctantly untangling yourself from his arms.

“What do you want?”

“The usual,” you tell him, shuffling off the bed.

Uncertainty tightens his shoulders at the thought of telling you he wants kids. He scratches the back of his head.

“I was thinking we could have dinner tonight and talk about some stuff.”

Panic flutters in your chest at the thought of him telling you how unhappy he is.

“I’m hiring a farmhand,” you confess, deciding it’s better he knows now. You pull your pants up your legs and button them.

“Yeah? They better not be prettier than me.” He tries to tease, but his body stays tense.

You glance at him, an uneasy grin on his face. When you smile back, his grin softens into something joyful, instantly putting both of you at ease. It says everything’s fine, even if it’s not.

“No one’s prettier than you.”

A quiet chuckle rumbles in his chest.

You stretch across the bed to kiss him goodbye.

And all too soon, the door clicks shut behind you.

You step into the day already planning how to make things better. Tonight, you’ll finish early and sit down together. No more tinfoil. Just the two of you.

Behind you, he lies back against the sheets, staring up at the ceiling. He goes over the words again—the ones he’ll say tonight. The future he wants with you.

He exhales slowly, steadying himself.

It’ll be different now.

It has to be.