Chapter 32
Scottie
BIG BED
Gavin bought the lake house.
The sale is still pending, but it’s a done deal.
For a minute, I thought Maggie and Carl might revoke the offer after everything with Andy went down—but no. They kept their word. I think they realized what we already knew, which is that their son is a total piece of shit.
Sometimes good people raise terrible humans, and that’s all I’ll say about that.
We made it back to the house just in time for Gavin to practically rip my dress off and fuck me against the wall in nothing but my heels.
Jealousy does wonders for his sex drive.
He mumbled between grunts something about another man touching what’s his and how he’ll kill him the next time he sees him—and any other man who touches me—while absolutely fucking me into oblivion.
I have no complaints.
Ten out of ten, highly recommend.
In fact, I’m almost tempted to hire some poor unsuspecting soul to flirt with me in front of my husband just so he’ll fuck me like he owns me again.
The following morning we left Wallula Lake and made our way back to Red Mountain.
As soon as Gavin pulls up to the house, my shoulders settle. We were only gone two nights, but it feels good to be back.
It’s funny how quickly this place has become more than somewhere I’m staying.
Even my parents’ condo never felt like a home—just a place to sleep. But here?
This is the closest I’ve felt to home since I was a kid.
Gavin hesitates after he turns off the ignition. Instead of exiting the car he stays seated.
“Are we camping out in the car?” I ask slowly.
He turns in his seat to face me with a spark in his eyes. “Lily won’t be home until the weekend.”
I’m not sure what he’s trying to say so I stay quiet, letting him fill in the blanks.
“What would you think about spending the night with me? In my bed.”
When I don’t answer right away, he continues, backpedaling this time. “Only if you want to. You probably need a little space and some time to yourself after all that—”
“You’re very handsome when you ramble,” I tease.
“Is that a yes?” There’s so much hope in his voice it warms something in my chest.
I lean over the console and kiss him—soft, slow, like the only thing that matters in this moment is him. Because it’s true.
“Yes,” I whisper against his mouth. “I would love to sleep with you.”
He exhales a laugh. “That smart mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one of these days.”
“You going to punish me for it?”
He swallows, his eyes flaring like he’s imagining it. “Your ass would look pretty great with a red hand mark on it. That fair skin of yours marked red.”
Just thinking about him bending me over his knee and spanking me has my thighs squeezing, pussy clenching.
I’ve come to realize I’d let this man do just about anything he pleases to me.
“You can spank me,” I say around a giggle. “You’ll have to catch me first.” I run out of the car toward the front door, but he’s already on my tail.
It was silly to think I even had a chance.
Gavin reaches me in two strides and throws me over his shoulder like I’m a sack of potatoes, giving my ass a smack as he walks inside.
I squeal and pound my fists against his back—not because I want him to stop, but because it feels good to pretend I’m not already completely at his mercy.
“Put me down!” I half-laugh, half-yelp as he carries me through the entryway.
“Not a chance,” he says, like it’s a promise and a threat all in one.
He kicks the door shut behind us and strides straight up the stairs, not even winded. Show-off. He tosses me onto his bed and I bounce once on the mattress, hair fanning across the pillow.
He stands at the foot of the bed, chest rising and falling, eyes locked on me like he’s deciding whether he wants to kiss me soft or ruin me again.
The air inflates. That warm, buzzing, charged kind of silence hums between us.
I sit up slowly, sliding to my knees at the center of his bed.
His eyes track the movement, his eyes growing darker, hungrier.
“Come here,” I murmur, but he doesn’t move.
He just watches me, jaw flexing, and for a moment I think he’s going to pounce.
Instead, he takes a slow breath and climbs onto the mattress, kneeling in front of me. Our bodies aren’t touching, but the heat radiating off him is enough to make me shiver.
“You know,” he says, voice low “You look so sexy on my bed.” He comes closer, but still not close enough to touch, until I feel the tip of his nose draw a line down the column of my neck, his breath dusting against the delicate skin.
“I like you here.” It’s a whisper, one, I think with more meaning behind it than just this.
My heart does something stupid and soft and irreversible.
I place my hand on his cheek, thumb tracing the stubble along his jaw. “I like being here too,” I say quietly.
“What did you think about our trial run?”
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s asking.
Somewhere along the way, I forgot we were still testing the waters.
Everything has felt so easy—so seamless—that it makes me wonder how we managed to go this long orbiting each other without ever colliding.
Until now.
“I think,” I say with a breath. “That I don’t want to stop.”
His eyes go soft at the corners, his smile disarming.
“I don’t want to stop either.”
The week flies by.
Too fast for my liking. I needed more time before reality set back in.
It’s honestly a little scary how easy it was to fall into a rhythm with Gavin.
Mornings where he makes my coffee just how I like it, then sits with me on the couch while I doom scroll—my legs draped across his lap, his hands gently massaging my ankles like it’s second nature.
Afternoons of him texting me to make sure I ate, asking how my blood sugar was doing.
By Wednesday, he got tired of asking and instead wanted to know if he could use the app too.
It happened to be time to change my CGM anyway, so we did it together.
I walked him through it, reassured him it doesn’t hurt. I’m still not sure he believed me.
It’s the first time anyone outside of my parents has helped me monitor my blood sugar.
And I didn’t realize how intimate that would feel until I was standing there letting him see that part of me.
Evenings were him cooking dinner while I sat at the island, talking about everything and nothing. He’s a surprisingly good cook—and even though he hasn’t admitted it, I know he’s been researching meals for type 1 diabetics, because everything is suspiciously low-glycemic and balanced.
And then the nights.
After we ran out of our second box of condoms, we talked about it, and decided to rely on my pill since we both have clear bills of health.
And the first time Gavin took me raw all the way and came inside me, he turned absolutely feral.
We’re basically insatiable at this point.
Every night. Multiple times a night.
It’s ridiculous in the best way.
So yes—I’m happy Lily is coming home. Especially because I know how much Gavin misses her.
Every night since she’s been gone, they talk on the phone at least once.
He tries to sound upbeat and excited for her, but I can see the sadness in his eyes.
He wants her home. And so do I. But there’s a little ache sitting between my ribs, knowing our special week is ending.
Knowing I’ll be back in the pool house. Gavin didn’t say I have to go back, but I can’t imagine he’d risk Lily overhearing us or—God forbid—walking in on something when we’re not even supposed to be together.
He hasn’t said I have to go back.
But he hasn’t said I don’t, either.
We don’t talk about it as we pack the car to go pick her up.
We still don’t talk about it on the drive to Seattle either.
When we pull up to Wayne and Shannon’s house, Lily is already outside. She’s sitting on the porch swing with Shannon, a pink suitcase beside her, her legs kicking back and forth in that excited-little-kid way.
The moment she catches sight of the car, she springs up. “DADDY!”
We hear her through the windows, the excitement vibrating in her voice.
And Gavin is a total goner. His whole face opens up with a joy so real it steals the air right out of me.
“She hasn’t called me ‘daddy’ in a while,” he says quietly under his breath.
And my heart constricts hearing the wonder and sadness wrapped together in his voice. A father longing for the little girl who’s growing up too fast for him.
I swallow and blink rapidly, clearing my throat a few times. It’s that, or I’ll cry.
Gavin barely has time to open his door before she’s sprinting down the walkway. He meets her halfway, scooping her up and spinning her once—like he’s been waiting days just to do exactly that.
She clings to him, tiny arms locking behind him. Gavin folds around her, chin tucked over her hair. Her eyes are shut tight in that way little kids do, like she’s afraid he might disappear.
I have no defenses for that. And neither do my ovaries, which explode like confetti.
Eventually they pull apart, and Lily spots me over his shoulder—she waves so hard her whole little torso wiggles with it.
“Scottie! You came too!”
“I promised you I would,” I tell her, smiling so wide my cheeks ache.
She lights up, then suddenly her arms are around my waist, her head tucked against my stomach. My hands move on instinct, wrapping around her, fingers threading through the ends of her hair.
Wayne and Shannon join us on the walkway with warm smiles, but very tired eyes. They look like they could use a vacation to recover from their vacation.
As Wayne helps Lily with her suitcase, Shannon steps close and gives Gavin’s arm a quiet squeeze.
“Congratulations on the house,” she whispers, keeping her voice low so Lily won’t overhear.
He’d been waiting until everything was finalized before telling her.
Once Lily’s buckled in and her suitcase is tucked away, we don’t linger. We exchange a few quick goodbyes, and then we’re back on the road, pulling away from the curb.
Lily is full of energy, telling us all about her trip, the rides, how she ate a giant turkey leg all by herself.
About her cousins and the games they played.
Lengthy descriptions about her outfits and swimming in the hotel pool.
She’s so excited, she trips over some of her words, stuttering adorably.
I can’t remember the last time I was ever as excited as her about anything. Makes me ache for the past, for the kind of unguarded joy only felt in childhood.
Gavin listens to all of it like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever heard.
He tells her about the house. Once she understood it didn’t mean she’d actually be moving, she seemed excited about it, though I don’t think she’ll fully understand until Gavin shows it to her in person.
And I listen to both of them as my heart is does something new and alarming behind my ribs.
We don’t break into song this time, Lily having worn herself out and falling fast asleep half-way through the drive.
“I wish I could sleep that hard,” I muse, my eyes flashing to the rearview mirror at a snoring Lily.
Gavin chuckles. “That’s the kind of sleep you get when you don’t have a worry in the world. No bills, no responsibilities.”
“I guess that means you’re a good dad. Not all kids are lucky enough to live without worry.”
The words linger between us. Gavin doesn’t answer right away, instead, he reaches over and threads his fingers with mine, his thumb brushing slow circles over my skin.
“You amaze me,” he says, voice low. “Everything you’ve gone through—most people would’ve shattered. But you didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone as incredible as you.”
I swallow around the growing lump of emotion in my throat and fix my gaze blankly out the window for moment, trying to hold back the flood about to break behind my eyes.
There’s a raw sort of ache in my chest, like I’ve never been so exposed—so seen. My instinct is to fold in on myself, to hide, to make myself small. But with Gavin, that’s impossible. He sees everything—even the parts of me I keep tucked in their dark corners.
This conversation took a turn I’m not prepared to deal with so I let out a weak laugh—more breath than sound.
“You really know how to ruin a girl’s mascara.”
It’s a joke. A deflection.
And we both know it.
His fingers tighten just slightly around mine—like he heard the truth under the words.
By the time we get back to Red Mountain, the sun is dipping low and golden across the vineyards. Lily unbuckles out of her booster in the driveway and turns to me.
“Dad said you’re staying in the pool house.”
I steal a glance at Gavin before nodding slowly. “I am. Is that okay?”
She nods vigorously. “Yes! But if you get lonely you can sleep in my room. Or Dad’s. His bed is bigger than mine.”
It takes everything in me not to break my smile, even though I’m sure my skin is flaming red. Gavin chokes on a laugh, the kind he tries to swallow and absolutely fails at.
“I think we’ll stick to our own beds for now, bear,” he says gently, reaching over to ruffle her hair.
She shrugs, completely unbothered. “Okay. I’m just trying to be a good host.”
I meet Gavin’s eyes over the roof of the car as Lily skips toward the door.
“You like my big bed, don’t you, baby?” he murmurs, just for me.
I bite back a laugh, rolling my eyes.
“I like your big dick too.”