Ripening

Rachel watched them, her gaze flitting between moments like a vulture above a battlefield. The two fumbled through their days with the clumsiness of lovers who thought others didn't see them. Lila moved through her home wrapped in a cloak of guilt and desire. Everything she did was intended to appease her husband's watchful eye. He never noticed how her hands shook as she prepared meals, nor how she had to stop from time to time when a memory of Fenn's body ambushed her. Rachel saw the way her lips parted in absentminded yearning while her husband, oblivious, sat at the table and barked commands.

In the dim light of the afternoon, Fenn worked with the other farmhands. His muscles straining as he lifted, dragged, and shoveled, but there was a fire behind his eyes. Every time he wiped his brow, his thoughts were of Lila. He could still feel the curve of her body. Her skin was so much softer than a man's. He stole glances toward the master's house, and each one tightened the knot. He grit his teeth palpable in every glance.

They no longer needed Rachel's manipulations to move them to union in the night. The moment she left the house, Lila's facade would crumble, and Rachel watched with amusement as she transformed into a woman of passion. Her hands were steady and her steps quick. And there he would be, waiting like a beast for its prey. ****, reckless need moved them. Rachel felt it through the string she'd tied between them. When they collided in the darkness, tearing at clothes, Rachel would close her eyes to soak in the unrefined greed between them. It sustained her.

Fenn pushed Lila against a tree, her back arching as he kissed her neck. Her nails dug into the bark. The sin of it all made them strong. Lila's gasps and Fenn's grunts crackled in the air between them and Ughelor. Rachel's breath mirrored theirs as she watched, fingers tracing the air in time with their frantic movements.

When they finished, panting in the grass, Rachel looked away. The seed she'd planted was growing with each day. The most delicious thing wasn't the sex, but the quiet agony in between. It ate at them in the daylight hours and made them reckless. They tried to hide it, but there was no hiding the truth, from Rachel or anyone else. Though their friends and loved ones might not have known the name they moaned in the night, they wore the obvious glow of new and consummated love.

Lila slipped into bed beside her husband. He would stir, reaching for her, and she would pull away. His touch had become abhorrent. Her body still hummed with the memory of the tryst. Under the sun they exchanged glances that were meant to be discreet. Fenn's eyes would darken every time the butcher came near her. Lila's smiles were **** and her laughter too bright. They were too far gone to turn back. Their lives were slowly unraveling, but they believed it would go on forever.

Rachel whispered to them in their sleep in the wind that rattled the leaves outside their windows. They woke up more **** than the night before, willing to risk everything just for another stolen moment. It was all coming to a head.