Chapter 11
Eleven
D elaney
I'm barefoot in Jack's shirt again—no bra, hair a mess, skin still warm from sleep and something deeper.
I’m sore. It’s a comforting feeling now. I don’t wince with every step, but it’s a reminder.
Along with the mess he’s left me with yet again.
I pad into the kitchen. Jack stands at the stove, bare-chested, jeans riding indecently low on narrow hips. His back is a roadmap of muscles that bunch and shift as he flips pancakes. Without turning, he reaches one arm back, fingers finding my hip the second I come within range, pulling me to him.
"Morning, baby girl." His voice is morning-rough, a sound that sends fresh heat straight between my legs.
"Morning, Daddy." The word feels natural now, sweet on my tongue as his fingers slip beneath the hem of his shirt, tracing the curve of my ass.
He turns, flipping the two pancakes from the griddle onto a plate, then crowds me back against the kitchen island in that way he does—taking all the space, all the air, until there's nothing but him. His hands bracket my face, thumbs stroking my cheekbones.
"Last night," he says, his large hand coming up to grip my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. "Look at me, baby girl."
I freeze, caught in his intense blue gaze.
"I am so fucking proud of you," he says, each word deliberate and heavy. "Standing up to him like that. Not hiding. Not running."
Something melts inside me, a warmth that starts in my chest and spreads outward until my knees feel weak. No one has ever said those words to me before. Not my father. Not anyone.
"I had backup," I whisper, blinking against sudden tears.
His thumb brushes my lower lip, his grip on my chin still firm. "You didn't need it. You're not some victim I rescued anymore. You're steel now. My steel."
“Thank you.” I smile and I see how it melts him.
“Come. I’m going to feed you my famous Flap Jacks .”
“I can feed myself.”
He answers with a swat on my ass. “Sit. I’m feeding you. It makes me hard.”
I snort. “Shocking.”
We finish breakfast and I clear the table, my belly full of five pancakes he fed me, when he comes up behind me.
"Got something to finish," he murmurs, his body caging mine as he presses his lips to my neck. "Won't be long."
I lean back against his chest, my hands still soapy. "I'll be here."
He squeezes my hips once, hard. "Damn right you will."
Then he disappears down the hall toward his shop. I dry my hands, pour another cup of coffee, reminding myself we need to get some juice or something from town, and pad around the cabin, letting the silence thrum with comfort.
I ease down the hall, remembering when I first walked in his shop, watching him work himself up and down, because of me.
I listen at the door to the rasp of sandpaper. The thump of solid wood on workbench. A low hum under his breath. Bob Seger on his classic rock playlist belting out, “Against the Wind”.
The door is partially open, a shaft of sunlight cutting across the wooden floor from the windows that line three walls.
He's there, shirtless, as usual, back taut and glistening as he leans over something curved and smooth and dark.
A rocking chair.
No, not just any rocking chair. Something special. The arms curve gently, the seat wider than normal, the back angled in a way that looks intentional. It takes me a second to realize what I'm seeing—it's made for a woman holding a baby. A nursing chair. I've only seen them in old movies, but this one is beautiful. Real.
I stop in the doorway, breath caught. He hasn't seen me yet.
His hands are steady. Gentle. Sanding a carved swirl into the armrest like it matters. Like it means something. Next to the chair, half-hidden by a tarp, I glimpse the beginning of something else—curved slats, small enough for a cradle.
"You made that?"
He turns slowly. Doesn't flinch. Just nods. "Been working on it since before you showed up."
He runs his palm over the seat, checking for snags. "Didn't know who it was for until last week."
My throat goes tight. "It's beautiful."
He shrugs one shoulder, like it's nothing. But I see the truth in his eyes.
"I like working with my hands. Keeps me still. Gives me something to leave behind." He pauses, thumb dragging along the edge of the wood. "Didn't always. I used to build things just to feel useful. Like maybe if I made enough, I'd earn the quiet."
I know what he means without him having to explain. I've felt his body jerk beside me in bed, heard the rough gasps when the nightmares come. The way he thrashes until I curl against him, until my weight anchors him back to reality.
"The dreams," I say softly. "The ones that wake you up."
He nods, something vulnerable crossing his face. "PTSD, if you want to give it a name. I saw some shit I will never talk about, baby, so don’t ask. But since you came, I don't get them as much anymore."
“I hope someday there are no more.”
His eyes meet mine, raw with honesty. "I earned my quiet, baby. Just not the way I thought I would."
I step through the dust on the floor just like that first day. The air smells like sawdust and lemon oil.
"And now?"
He doesn't look at me right away.
"Now I want to make things that last. Things someone keeps. Because they matter. Not because they're owed." His eyes lift to mine, unexpectedly vulnerable. "Things for you. For our kids."
The casual way he says it—our kids—like it's inevitable, like it's already written in stone, makes my belly tighten with want.
"Jack," I whisper, my hand on his arm. "I want that too, but what if I want other things?"
His eyes darken, molten blue. "What do you want, baby? Anything, remember, you tell me everything."
He sets down his sandpaper. Walks to me, slow and solid, until I have to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. His massive frame blocks the light from the door, casting me in his shadow.
"What do you want, baby girl? Beyond this. Beyond me."
I open my mouth. Close it. No one's ever really asked me that before.
"I told you I was studying geology before my dad got sick," I finally say, the words coming easier than expected. "Only a couple classes at the community college. Had to drop out to take care of him." I run my fingers along the grain of the wooden chair. "I love learning about the formations, mineral compositions. The way mountains are born and die."
I look up to find Jack looking at me like I’m telling him all the secrets of the world.
"These mountains," I gesture beyond the workshop walls, "they're perfect for field research. The rock formations here are some of the oldest in the country." A smile tugs at my lips. "I want to finish my degree. Maybe work with the university's research team. There's a field station about forty minutes from here. But, I want to be a mom, too."
The certainty in my voice surprises me. I hadn't realized how much I still wanted this, how the dream had just been sleeping while I survived.
"You can do both. I’ll make sure. I’ll be Mr. Mom. I’ve already watched a YouTube video on the best way to change a diaper. I’m even taking notes. Oh, and this, did you see this?" Jack asks, surprising me with the change of subject. He reaches behind some tools, pulls out a folded newspaper. "They found the oldest known rock in America up in the U.P. last week."
My heart nearly stops. "What? Where?"
"Northern Michigan," he says, handing me the paper. The headline jumps out at me: 'Ancient Gneiss in Upper Peninsula Named Oldest Rock in United States.' "Scientists dated the zircon in it. Beat out rocks in Minnesota and Wisconsin that everyone thought were older."
My fingers trace the grainy photo of the banded metamorphic rock, excitement building in my chest. Gneiss—pronounced "nice"—with its distinctive mineral bands, formed under intense pressure and heat. This was exactly my field of interest before Dad got sick.
"You know what gneiss is?" I ask, looking up at him.
The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Only that the reporter called it 'the nation's oldest nice rock' before correcting himself. Thought of you when I heard it on the radio."
He's been paying attention. To what I love. To what matters to me.
"I want to make something that lasts," I say softly, looking up from the paper. "Maps of what's beneath us. Knowledge that matters. Something that's mine."
His thumb brushes beneath my chin.
"Then that's what you'll do." His voice wraps around me, firm and safe. "You stay here, or you don't. You paint, or write, or plant a goddamn orchard—I'll build the shed, I'll fund the dream. Just tell me what it is, and it's done."
"You believe in me that much?"
He leans in, lips brushing my jaw.
"No, baby girl. I believe in us."
He slides his hands down to my hips, lifting me easily onto the workbench. I gasp as he steps between my thighs, hands tangling in my hair.
"You think I'm just some caveman who wants to keep you barefoot and pregnant?" he murmurs, lips trailing down my neck. "I want you full and happy and mine, but that doesn't mean small."
His hands tighten on my thighs, pushing them wider as he presses closer.
"I want to watch you grow. In every way." His voice roughens. "Want to see you round with my baby, yes. But also fierce with your own purpose."
My heart stutters. My hands find his shoulders, feeling the solid strength there.
His cock is inside me again, pushing me to the heavenly place I never want to come back from.
When we’re done, he puts himself back in his pants, striding toward his desk against one wall of the shop, beckoning me to follow him.
"Come here a second, baby girl."
His voice is low, steady. The kind of voice you follow. I hop down, legs wobbly, walking until I’m next to him as he holds up a folder.
"What is this?" I ask, fingers brushing the corner.
His eyes don't leave mine.
"It's yours."
I open it, my eyes scanning, fingers starting to shake.
Deed papers. Bank accounts. My name. My name next to his.
"What, this is the house—"
"The house," he says, voice rough. "The land. The accounts. All of it."
My eyes blur as I flip through the pages. He's put me on everything he owns. "Jack, I can't—"
"You can. You will." He steps closer, hand sliding to cup my face. "You understand what this means?"
I shake my head.
"Means if I piss you off, you get half my mountain," he says, a rare smile touching his lips. "Means I trust you with everything I've built. Means we're in this together, for real."
"Half your mountain?" I whisper, unable to fathom the enormity of what he's giving me.
"The view's fucking epic," he says with that dangerous half-smile. "But the neighbors are assholes."
I laugh, the sound choked with tears. "Jack—"
"I watched him pull up in that fucking car," he cuts me off, voice suddenly intense. "Thinking he could take you back. Made me realize I'd burn down this whole goddamn mountain before I'd let that happen."
He pulls something from his back pocket. Small. Wood-grained. A ring.
It's carved from walnut. The same walnut he’s making the chair from. And the cradle.
He doesn't get on one knee. He grabs my chin with one hand. “Hold up your hand.”
I do, and he slides the wooden ring onto my finger, then uses his teeth to tug my bottom lip into his mouth, biting down just hard enough to make me gasp.
"Mine," he growls, hand spanning my throat possessively. "This isn't a promise," he murmurs, thumb tracing my lower lip. "You're not a debt. You're not a good deed."
My mouth trembles. My heart stutters. I look down at the ring—imperfect, handmade, real—and I can't hold the tears.
"Yes."
The word leaves me on a breath, barely more than a whisper. But he hears it. He feels it.
Because he pulls me into his chest with a sound like he's been holding it in for years.
"We've got that dinner tomorrow, at Colt's place. My family." He tips my chin up. "Beau's already met you. Colt's the quiet one. Cade’s the baby. They'll all be there. I get to introduce them to my fiancé."
"For your mother's memorial."
He nods, something flashing across his face too quick to read. "Five years. You'd have liked her. She'd have loved you."
“I love her already.”
"Let's go make it official."
And I know exactly what he means.
Because this man doesn't need vows or paperwork.
He needs heat. He needs skin. He needs to claim and mark and fill. He needs to show me in the only language he speaks fluently.
Possession.
He lifts me into his arms, carrying me to our bed, dropping me onto the mattress with a primal sound that makes every nerve ending I have stand at attention.
His jeans hit the floor. His cock stands thick and hard, no evidence that he just unloaded inside me minutes earlier, already dripping for me. He strokes himself once, twice, drawing my eyes to the veins that road-map the thick shaft.
He tears my panties off with one rough pull, throwing the scrap of fabric aside. His eyes fix on my core, exposed and already wet. “All fours. Daddy wants in there deep.”
“Like a dog?”
“Yeah, baby, like daddy’s good little bitch in heat. Ass up, face down, no more talking, I need my little sex toy quiet so no one can hear what Daddy does to his princess in the dark when no ones watching.”
I flip, pressing my ass high and my face down. He holds his cock in one fist, guiding it to my entrance, pausing just at the edge of where I need him.
"I'm going to fuck you until the only word in your head is 'Daddy.’”
"Please," I whimper, lifting my hips, trying to take him.
Thick fingers dig into my ass. “I said be quiet. Put your face in that pillow if you need to, baby. Daddy’s not gonna be gentle.”
He drives home in one brutal thrust, filling me completely, stretching me to the point of sweet pain again.
His thumb finds my clit, circling rough and fast. "This cunt is mine. These tits are mine." His hand slides up to squeeze my breast, fingers pinching my nipple. "This heart is mine."
The dual assault—his words, his body—pushes me over the edge faster than I thought possible. I shatter around him, biting the bedding, walls clamping down, milking him as pleasure whites out my vision.
He follows me over, slamming deep and stilling as he empties himself with a roar that vibrates through my bones. I feel each hot pulse of his release, marking me from the inside out.
After, when we're tangled in sweat-damp sheets, his massive body curved protectively around mine, he traces patterns on my stomach with gentle fingers. The tenderness after such delicious violence makes my heart twist.
"Tomorrow," he murmurs against my temple, "you meet the rest of the family. Sunday dinner's a tradition. Even with Mom gone."
I nestle closer into his warmth. "And if they don't like me?"
His laugh is soft against my hair. "Then they can get the fuck off my mountain."
"Our mountain," I correct, holding up my hand where the wooden ring catches the late afternoon light.
His arms tighten around me, pulling me impossibly closer.
"Our mountain," he agrees. "Though you should know—" his voice drops, rough with emotion and desire both, "—I'd follow you anywhere. Cabin, city, fucking moon. Doesn't matter."
“The city? Really?" I ask, even though I already know.
His lips find my temple, pressing a kiss there that feels like a brand.
"Yes, really. Because home isn't this mountain, baby girl." His hand spreads over my stomach, large enough to span it completely. "It's you."
And for a girl who spent her whole life belonging nowhere, to no one, that's better than any fairy tale ending I could have imagined.
I've found my mountain. And I'm never coming down.