Love in Plane Sight - Bonus Scene

Today is Shawn's birthday, and so far it is going great. True, he is only five minutes into being awake for it, but that's not important. What is important is his bed, that he is in, has another utterly perfect person in it.

Darla Cornfield.

His lovely, adorable cactus.

Shawn never had any previous interest in cacti, but when he was seventeen, he picked his sister Beth up from Cornfields Diner to take her out for mini golf, and there she was. His sister of course, but right next to her: his cactus. Shawn didn't know his sister’s friend was a cactus at the time. He had yet to feel the addictively sharp prick of her spines. What he did know was that she was braiding his sister's hair with skilled fingers, while humming a blink-182 song, and had a smear of flour on her cheek.

"Have you met Darla?" Beth had asked when she caught sight of him lingering in the doorway. "She's my best friend."

Shawn had frowned more dramatically than needed because he liked a little drama. "I thought I was your best friend."

He expected Beth to giggle, like the girls in his school did when he teased them about being their favorite. Shawn liked making his sister laugh.

But Beth stared up at him with big worried eyes. "I'm sorry. Of course, you are. You’re my best friend."

"No. He's not." The girl, Darla, snapped, her pale cheeks flushing, eyes sparking as they threatened to eviscerate him without a single touch. "You're her brother. That's what you get, Newton. She's my best friend."

Darla looked ready to fight him. Ready to stab his confidence with a fork until he popped like an overfilled balloon.

That's when he knew she was a cactus.

"You have flour on your face," he told her.

Her stare narrowed. "I want it there."

And that's when he decided he liked cacti.

A few years later, when he got home from college and a grown up Darla told him that his attempt at growing facial hair was worse than an underwatered chia pet, he realized he had a crush on a cactus.

But right now, in his bed, on his birthday, as he watches Darla sleep next to him, tangled in his sheets and wearing one of his T-shirts, he knows that he loves a cactus.

"If you keep staring at me, I'm going to bite you," she grumbles.

Shawn grins. "Promise?"

She squints her eyes open to glare at him and the expression reminds Shawn so much of the girl he met all those years ago that he can't help but risk leaning in to kiss her snarky mouth.

Darla growls.

Then she melts, because somehow, someway--don't ask him for a map because he could never recreate the route if he tried--Shawn found a path past her spikes.

"You're so annoying," she gasps as he kisses down her neck.

"Keep talking dirty to me," he begs while settling himself between her thighs that conveniently spread for his shoulders.

"Anyone who smiles before ten AM deserves life in jail,” Darla moans as she fists her hands in his hair. “No parole."

"Would you be my conjugal visit?"

There it is. A little snort of a laugh. He's almost got her.

“Write me letters? Talk dirty to me through a glass partition?” He kisses the soft skin on the inside of her thigh. Shawn loves every inch of Darla, the hard shell and the tender spots underneath she guards viciously. “Would you wait for me?”

That last question comes out a little too desperate. A little too real.

“No.” Darla’s nails drag over Shawn’s scalp, and he shivers even as his heart clenches. But then the woman he loves so much he thinks he might die of it says, “I’d break you out.” She guides his mouth exactly where she wants it. “Because you’re mine.”

Shawn decides if he does die of his love, it would be a good way to go. But he’s going to try to suffocate himself between her legs first.

Darla tastes like nothing else. No food can match her, and he’s dined at the best restaurants the world has to offer. Shawn licks her clit, her folds, dips his tongue as deep inside her as he can, ravenous for more. Never satiated. He knows he wants her for forever.

But he doesn’t know how long she’ll want him for, so he takes every scrap she offers and isn’t ashamed to beg for more.

“Fuck. Baby, yes.” Darla only calls him that–baby–when she’s too close to her orgasm to notice her words turning soft. The endearment has Shawn’s hips driving into the bed. Hands cradling her ass cheeks he sucks hard on her bead of pleasure until she gasps and her body clenches in the rapid pulse of her release. A moment later Darla sighs and goes completely lax.

Shawn licks his lips then kisses her belly. Noses her belly button. Plots how to convince her to never leave him.

In a viper-quick movement Darla sits up and shoves Shawn off her. Onto his back. She straddles his hips, grips his rigid cock, and pauses with him poised at her entrance.

“Brace yourself,” she tells him, but Shawn has never been able to with her. It’s a wonder that he doesn’t come immediately when she sinks down, taking every inch into her warm body.

“Oh God,” Shawn only prays when he’s with Darla. “I love you.”

It’s not the first time he said it. Shawn told Darla he loved her on the first outing she agreed to call a date. She told him love was easier to say and harder to do. He thought that was pretty profound.

He also suspected Darla thought she was hard to love.

But he’d never found anything so easy.

“You’re so sappy when I’m fucking you.” She smirks as she taunts him. Shawn rears up and sucks on one of her tight nipples just to have more of her.

Darla gasps, and laughs, and maybe he did die because this is heaven.

She rides him hard, then slow, tormenting him with pleasure. Every rock of her hips is a gift he doesn’t deserve but will horde like the spoiled boy he is.

He’s right there. Right. There.

“Come with me,” Shawn asks for more because he’ll never have enough of her. His hand is between their bodies, seeking out her clit again, and she spreads her legs wider so he can reach. Touch her in the way she likes because he made sure to memorize exactly what makes Darla call him baby.

“That’s it,” she sighs, thrusting in time with Shawn’s strokes. “I made you something.”

“W-what?” All his blood is south, his brain only online enough to keep his organs functioning.

“For your birthday.” Darla leans in, licking up his neck then whispering in his ear. “I made you a gift.”

He comes.

So hard he blacks out momentarily.

When he regains consciousness, his cock is still emptying inside Darla as her body milks him with her own orgasm. Shawn groans and wraps his arms tight around her. The rhythm of their pants match.

Too soon Darla untangles her limbs from Shawn’s.

"Stay," she tells him, and Shawn does, even though it's hard keeping still watching her walk away.

He hears the sink in the bathroom running and thinks about the second sink surrounded by her products. Ones he didn’t have to buy because she brought them over herself.

Of course Shawn immediately stocked the cabinets with extras of everything, so Darla would never run out.

Darla leaves the bathroom and he reaches for her, but she shakes her head and walks out of the bedroom, calling over her shoulder “Stay!” As if she could sense he’d moved to follow her. Shawn collapses back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, straining to hear what she might be doing in the other room.

With women he’s dated in the past Shawn never felt on sturdy ground, always wondering if they were only interested in him for his money. With Darla he never feels on sturdy ground because the moment she senses him start to get comfortable, she shoves him off balance on purpose, enjoying the way he flounders.

But she always tells him the truth, harsh as it is sometimes. Shawn grounds himself in that, and finds joy in the way she torments him.

When Darla arrives back in the doorway she's holding a pie with a candle in it. She bites her lip, face scrunched in concentration as if worried she might drop her precious load. And fucking precious it is. Shawn doesn't think he's seen anything better in his life.

"You made me a pie?"

"I made you your favorite pie," she corrects, holding the confection in front of his face. "Blow."

"And singing happy birthday--"

"Is not going to happen. Make a wish and blow before I give this to your neighbor."

Shawn growls in mock anger, cupping her bare thigh as if to keep her in place. Darla knows he hates how the lobbyist who owns the other penthouse stares at her whenever they share an elevator. "Blow," she insists.

"Yes, mam." He murmurs. With a quick exhale the flame is out.

Shawn wishes that there's never another birthday without his cactus.

Darla settles in the bed beside him and offers a fork.

"Pie for breakfast? In bed? After a quicky?" Shawn scoops up a massive forkful. "I'm a lucky bastard."

Then he bites down and almost cracks a tooth on what's supposed to be a silky smooth lemon meringue. Shawn can't fully cover a wince but tries to make it into a smile. "Yum," he says while rooting his tongue around for whatever rock just threatened his filing.

"Fuck." Darla steals his pie and fork, jabbing around in the creamy creation. "You bit it, didn't you? Don't swallow!" She drops the food on the mattress and reaches for his mouth.

"You put a rock in my pie on purpose?" Finding the obstruction, Shawn spits it into his hand.

"Not a rock," Darla mutters.

And she's right. This most definitely is not a rock. The round metal object looks more like ...

"A ring?" Shawn wipes away the spit and pie remnants, finding a thick gold band. "Is this a ring? For me?"

Darla huffs out a sigh. Then she crosses her legs and faces him head on. "It is. A ring. A ... pre-engagement ring." She waves a hand through the air like the word annoys her, and she wants to swat it away.

Shawn doesn't move a muscle, bracing for the punchline.

"I'm not asking you to marry me." Darla clarifies. "I'm just giving you the ring so you know–in the future–if you felt like you might want to propose to me, I wouldn't chuck the ring back in your face. Which is a very me thing to do." She holds his eyes now, her fingers twitching as if the sincerity makes her itchy. "And I'd sign a prenup or whatever. Because if I marry you it'll be because I love you. Not for your money." She smirks in the evil way that makes Shawn's blood turn to lava. "Though I do like spending your money on ridiculous things."

Shawn is terrified he's dreaming. He has dreamt of this before. Not this exactly, but him asking Darla to stay with him forever and her saying yes. Then he would wake up, and he'd lie in bed and breathe through the pain that came with realizing the exchange was all in his head.

But this feels different from the other times. His tooth hurts more for one thing.
Darla's smirk melts away the longer Shawn struggles to say words. She moves her attention to the mutilated dessert. "I knew I shouldn't have put it in the pie," she mutters.

Shawn is horrified to see a sheen in her eyes as she blinks.

Not a dream. It's not a dream.

Shawn lunges for his bedside table, rips the entire drawer out, half the contents spilling onto the floor. He manages to scoop up the velvet box before it falls.

"Marry me, Darla Cornfield." Shawn tosses the useless drawer beside the pie and scrambles to pop the box open. "Please God, be with me forever. No prenup. Steal all my money, I don't care."

Her eyes widen at the sudden appearance of the wedding band.

"When did you get that?"

"When you agreed to be my date to Tasha and Annabel's wedding."

She looks at Shawn like he's a puzzle she doesn't know how to solve. Like he told her the rules but they make no sense.

Then she holds out her left hand.

With shaking fingers, Shawn slides the ring in place. He cradles her hand, staring at the diamond and platinum band that fits perfectly. With a light tug, he has her in his lap, in his arms, and he holds her tight.

"To be clear, without a prenup I wouldn't be stealing your money. I would be receiving proper compensation for the time I managed to spend married to your needy ass." Darla explains this between kisses against his racing pulse.

"Well deserved.” Shawn’s heart beats so loud it’s hard to hear. “I'm a terror."

There's a tug on his hand and he glances down to see Darla slipping the pie ring on his finger.

"This isn’t real gold.” She strokes his knuckle and every inch of his body eases. “You should probably get tested for lead poisoning."

"What if I had swallowed it?" He presses his face into her hair and breathes deep. She smells like happiness. And pie.

Darla shrugs. "You would have found out about the pre-engagement when I took you in to get your stomach pumped."

Shawn hums happily, kisses her head, then reaches for the fork with one hand while keeping the other arm wrapped around his cactus.

"Best birthday ever."

​

THE END