32. Wes
WES
The engine bay is a cavern of shadows and low, humming light.
The trucks sit like sleeping beasts, their chrome dulled by the dim fluorescents overhead.
During the day, this place thrums with life—shouts, the clang of metal, the hiss of the air brakes.
Tonight, the silence is a physical weight.
My boots echo on the concrete, each step an intrusion.
I pace the length of the bay, from the massive roll-up doors to the entrance of the locker room, and back again.
The quiet usually settles me. It’s the space between calls, a reset button. Tonight, it just feels empty.
I replay the last twelve hours on a loop, searching for the exact moment the ground shifted.
It wasn't one thing. It was a thousand small tells.
The way Tate watched her when he thought no one was looking.
The fractional pause before she pulled her hand away from his.
The easy rhythm they fell into when talking Brody through a wave of noise.
It clicked together with a quiet finality that set my teeth on edge.
He knows. He knows I see it. He just doesn’t care.
When the fundraiser wrapped, I watched him drive off, not toward his place, but toward hers.
The certainty of it settled in my gut, cold and hard.
He didn’t come back here. The cot in his bunk is still made, the sheets pulled tight and untouched.
Something happened tonight. Something I wasn't there for.
I stop in front of the engine, tracing a line through the day's dust on the fender. It’s not just about her.
It’s about the kid, too. The way Brody looked at me when I showed him how the K-tool works, his small fingers tracing the steel.
A flicker of trust from a kid who trusts no one.
A quiet understanding. You don’t talk too much.
We built that. Tate and I. We made this place a sanctuary for them.
Now, it feels like Tate just walked into that sanctuary and claimed the main altar for himself.
He drew a line I didn't even know existed, and I’m standing on the wrong side of it.
The silence in here isn't peace. It's the sound of a door closing somewhere I can’t reach.
The burn in my legs from pacing finally pushes me toward the locker room. I need a shower, need to wash the day from my skin. Need to reset. But as I pass the office, a slice of yellow light cuts across the dark hallway floor. The door is ajar. My steps slow.
Through the gap, I see her. Jordyn stands behind the old metal desk, stacks of fundraiser receipts and cash bags spread out in front of her.
Her fingers line up a stack of wrinkled bills, but her gaze is fixed on nothing.
She’s a statue carved from exhaustion, held together by sheer will.
Her hair is down, damp around the edges, and the hoodie she wears is one I haven’t seen before.
It’s too big. It’s probably his. The thought lands like a punch to the jaw.
I push the door open. The hinges groan, loud in the silence. Her head snaps up, and the change is instant. Her shoulders straighten. Her hands drop the money. Her eyes, hazy a second ago, sharpen into two points of flint. She braces herself.
“You gonna pretend that nothing's happening?” The words are rough, scraping the quiet from the air.
A mask of polite confusion slides into place, but it doesn’t fit right. It’s cheap and thin. “I’m just dropping off the final earnings from the fundraiser. Tate said I could leave them on the desk.”
“Bullshit.” I take a step into the room, letting the door swing shut behind me. The space shrinks. “He didn't go home last night, Jordyn.”
I see the exact moment she decides to lie. Her chin lifts, just a fraction, and her fingers curl into a loose fist against the desk. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tate’s personal life isn't my business—or yours."
"Cut the crap." I take another step, my boots heavy against the floor. "I saw the way he looked at you. The way you didn’t look at him after."
She flinches. It’s small, but it’s enough.
"Wes, this isn’t—" She shakes her head, reaching for the cash again, deliberately avoiding my gaze. "We were just making sure Brody was settled after the fundraiser. That’s all. Just came to check and see that everything was ok."
A dry laugh tears out of me. "You know I can smell when someone’s lying to me, right? Comes from growing up with brothers who could bullshit like it was an Olympic sport."
For a second, she just stares at me. Then something in her snaps, lines of tension giving way to something hotter. "Fine. You want to know? Yeah, Tate stayed. Because Brody was exhausted after the fireworks, and I—" She cuts herself off, jaw tight.
"You what?" I step around the desk, closing the gap between us to less than a foot. Her breath hitches. "You needed him? More than you’ve ever needed me?"
Her eyes widen. "What? That’s not?—"
"Don’t." I’m crowding her now, close enough to see the pulse jump in her throat.
"You don’t get to stand there and pretend you don’t see it.
The way I watch you. The way I can touch this close to the line and never cross it—because that’s what you needed, right?
Boundaries? Space?" My voice drops, rough. "But Tate walks in and suddenly you’re bending so hard, I’m surprised you don’t break. "
Her lips part, her chest rising fast. "It wasn’t like that."
"Then what was it?"
Silence.
I reach out before she can turn away, fingers brushing her wrist—not holding, just there. Her skin is warm under mine. "You think I don’t want you? That I haven’t been fighting that down every damn time you walk into this station?"
She stares at my hand, then up at me. Her voice is barely there. "Wes?—"
I don’t let her finish. I kiss her. Hard.
I don’t give her time to think. The second my lips hit hers, everything in me ignites.
She gasps against my mouth, a muffled sound I swallow whole.
My hands are already moving—clamping onto her hips, hauling her into me.
Her body molds against me like she was made for it, like she’s been waiting for this just as long as I have.
And fuck, have I waited.
I back her into the desk, scattering paperwork, cash, everything. Doesn’t matter. Nothing else exists right now but the heat of her, her scent of arousal, the way her breath shudders when I yank her hoodie over her head. His hoodie. It hits the floor with a vengeance.
“Wes—”
I shut her up with my tongue. She tastes like coffee and exhaustion and something sweet I can’t name.
Her breasts press against my chest, her heartbeat wild under my palm where I’ve pinned her.
Her leggings tear when I drag them down her thighs—no time for finesse, no time for anything but marking what’s mine.
She hooks her legs around my waist before I can blink. Smart girl. I lift her, slamming her onto the desk. The metal groans under our weight. Her thighs part for me, her head tipping back as my mouth trails hot down her neck.
I’m not Tate.
I don’t ask permission. I don’t ease her in. My tongue licks a brutal stripe down her stomach, lower, lower—until her fingers knot in my hair and she jerks against my mouth.
She’s slick, swollen, perfect.
I devour her like I’ve been starving. Her thighs tremble, her moans sharp and bitten-off like she’s afraid someone will hear. Too late for that, sweetheart.
“Let go.” My voice is wrecked. “Come for me.”
Her back arches off the desk.
I don’t let her breathe before I’m dragging her to the edge, swallowing her climax with my mouth still pressed between her thighs.
I am still licking the taste of her off my lips when I find her mouth again, swallowing her whole as I press the hard length of my throbbing cock into her swollen flesh. She groans, pulling me in and wrapping herself around me as if her life depends on it.
"Wes, take me." Her voice is a small, broken cry that undoes me completely.
Her nails rake down my back, dragging raw fire across my skin.
The pain barely registers—everything in me is locked on the way she's clenching around me, tight and wet and fucking mine.
I drive into her harder, the desk screeching against the floor with every thrust. The rhythm is brutal, raw, barely controlled.
Each snap of my hips slams her body against the desk, her breasts bouncing with the force of it.
She gasps my name like a prayer, legs locking around my hips to pull me in further.
"Look at me." I growl the words against her mouth, forcing her glazed eyes to focus. "You take every fucking drop." Her lips part in a soundless cry as I piston into her faster, harder. The desk strains under us, groaning as I fuck her past sanity.
I feel it building—the coil in my gut tightening until my vision whites out. She feels it too, her body clamping down on me in a vice grip as she comes again, back arching off the desk."Wes?—!"
Her orgasm triggers mine. I bury my cock to the hilt and let go, pulse after pulse flooding her as I swear through gritted teeth. "Fuck. Fuck." My hips stutter against her, milking every last drop until we're both shaking.
For a second, there's nothing but the sound of our ragged breathing and the scent of sex thick in the air.
I pull back—salt and need and something bitter I can’t name.
My fingers tremble where they trace her collarbone, skimming bruises already darkening under her skin.
I should walk away. That’s what men like me do—take what we want and bail before dawn cracks the sky.
But her breath hitches when I drag her torn leggings back up her thighs, my hands lingering too long on the curve of her hip.
"Look at me."
She does. Her eyelids are heavy, her mouth swollen from my teeth. There’s fear there—fear of what this means, fear of what comes next. I know it like I know the weight of an axe in my palm.
But I don’t step back.
I press my lips to her pulse, slow as I hand her back the hoodie. "You don’t get to shut me out either." My voice is rough but quiet, stripped bare. No accusation.
Her hands lift, shaky, to tangle in my hair. A weak laugh escapes her. "That’s rich, coming from you."
I don’t smile. I kiss her instead, deep and unhurried, tasting the remnants of us both. When I pull away, I press her palm flat to my chest—right over the scar from the warehouse fire. Her fingers flex against my skin.
"You feel that?"
Her throat works.
"That’s yours." I don’t let her flinch. "Has been since the first time you snapped at me for swearing in front of Brody."
Her lips part, but I shake my head.
"No take-backs." I smooth her hair behind her ear, thumb catching on the shell. "No pretending."