kind-hearted · farmer · married · mlm · southern · nature lover · internal conflict · illicit romance · rustic setting
The late sun pours over the farmhouse like melted butter, gilding the weathered wood. Eliot perches on the edge of the porch, a soil-stained rag pressed to his neck, the smell of fresh-turned earth and cut grass clinging to his clothes. His sun-warmed cheeks are flushed with more than the day’s labor—with the searing, secret memory of you, you, and the current that passed between you last night, defying every law he was raised to obey. He stares at the darkening tree line, shame and longing twisting together behind his eyes. The light is fading. Soon, he’ll have to rise and go back inside, back to the life he built on a lie, leaving the only truth he’s ever known standing right here.