Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Emily
“Easy. Left side down first. Go slow, or you’ll drop it.”
The two crew guys grunt as they tilt the moving-blanket-wrapped desk off the four-wheeler wagon.
The thing weighs a solid two hundred pounds of solid walnut, and I stand back with my hands shoved deep in my jacket pockets, staying out of their way as their backs bend and their faces strain red in the cold afternoon air.
“Couldn’t you have built this thing in pieces, boss?” Luis, the taller one, heaves his side of the desk higher and winces. “Jesus Christ. What’d you use for this, railroad ties?”
“Walnut,” I say, and leave it at that.
The other guy, Tony, swears as the desk wobbles. “Door’s gonna be tight. Real tight.”
“Door’s only tight if you two can’t walk a straight line.”
I built the damn door frame, so I’m well aware of exactly how much room we have to carry the desk inside.
I peer back toward Grady’s cabin, and my stomach turns over in a slow, sick roll. The desk has been sitting in my shed since before Grady left for Connecticut, the legs sanded smooth, the drawer pulls waiting in a paper bag on the workbench.
The week I finished it, he told me he was going back east, so I decided to hold off on the gift. I didn’t want to give it to him once he announced his departure, because I didn’t want it to appear as if I was trying to bribe him into staying.
Now, he’s chosen Misty Pines, and as Luis and Tony wrestle with the thing, all I can think is that I might have misread the timing again.
It’s a fine line between celebration and pressure. Maybe I should have held on to it for a few more weeks, until after we had our family talk.
Before I can second-guess the decision and tell my guys to load it back up, the front door of Grady’s cabin swings open, and he steps out onto the porch, cane in hand. He’s wearing the burgundy sweater with patches at the elbows that I like.
He stops short when he spots the moving-blanket bundle sitting in front of his cabin, his free hand braced on the railing. “What’s this?”
“Delivery for you.” I pull my hands out of my pockets and gesture at the desk. “Had some wood lying around, so I threw this together.”
His mouth opens, then closes. No words come out.
I take the steps up onto the porch two at a time and hold the door open. “Watch the frame, Tony.”
As the guys tilt the desk vertically, a blanket slides to uncover a corner of walnut. Luis grunts and backs his way into the cabin, his shoulders hitting the door frame, and Tony follows with his end lowered, muttering about his lower back and his wife’s foot rub.
Grady stays on the porch, watching the proceedings with surprised confusion.
They wrestle the desk through the cabin and into the downstairs office. Late afternoon light pours through the glass across the bare floor where Grady’s boxes still sit half-unpacked along the wall.
Good, he hasn’t set up that piece of particle board he calls a desk yet. That saves me from having to move it first.
I direct them on where to place it, and once it’s settled, I pull the moving blankets away before I step back.
The desk sits solid in the center of the room, the walnut oiled to a deep amber glow, the grain rippling across the surface in waves of dark and light. Brass pulls catch the light from the window on the two drawers built into the left side, and the beveled edge on the top ensures a smooth touch.
Grady, who had trailed after us, goes still in the doorway. As he takes in the desk, I watch for any sign that I overstepped. His eyes brighten, and he turns his head to swipe the back of his hand across his face as he pretends to adjust his glasses.
“I built this for you, because I believe this cabin is where you’ll build the next chapter of your life.” I fold the blanket and shove it at Tony. “Whatever shape that takes.”
Grady moves closer and extends his hand toward the desk.
His fingertips find the surface and trace the grain, following a dark curl of wood from the edge toward the center.
His thumb brushes the bevel, testing the smoothness, and his breath comes out in a quiet exhale that eases my worry about the gift.
When I designed the desk, I made sure there would be generous legroom so his bad knee would never have to sit at an uncomfortable angle.
The drawer placement on the left side means he’ll never have to twist his torso to reach them.
The broad surface offers enough space for a laptop, with plenty of room for sprawling notes and research.
His fingers stop on the edge of the padded footstool I tucked into the knee space to give him a place to elevate his leg on bad days. The top is upholstered in the same gray flannel I used for the armchair still in my shed. His fingertips trace the fabric, and he can’t hide the tears this time.
“Boss, we heading back?” Luis asks, rolling his shoulders to ease the stiffness.
I wave them off. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
They file out, their voices carrying down the path toward the four-wheeler, their complaints about the heavy desk fading into the distance.
Grady’s hand stays flat on the desk surface, his fingers spread, and he shifts to his good leg with a slight wince.
“You should sit,” I say.
He doesn’t look at me. “I’m fine, Emily.”
I give him a flat stare.
His lips tighten, then soften into a small, embarrassed smile that squeezes my heart. The cane taps as he crosses to the narrow couch along the office wall and settles onto it with a careful exhale.
I crouch in front of him on the hardwood and take his leg in both hands.
His soft jeans are worn thin at the knees where I roll them up to expose the joint.
My thumbs find the kneecap and apply slow pressure to the ligaments on either side.
The stiffness is there, not too severe, but still more present than I’d like.
“I know you can look after yourself and understand your own limits,” I murmur. “But I want to be there for you when I can. That’s all this is.”
His leg relaxes as I work the joint, thumbs circling the kneecap, fingers finding the muscle above and below, reading the tension and easing it away. His skin is warm, and from where my thumb rests on the inside of his knee, his pulse quickens.
I raise my head to find him watching me with a vulnerability I’ve never seen before as he reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Is this your way of proposing?”
I swallow past the sudden tightness in my throat. “If you want to take it that way. And if your answer is yes.”
“No one has ever…” He blinks away fresh tears. “Fuck, Em, how am I supposed to resist you?”
“You’re not.” I set his leg down with care and rise on my knees, my hands bracing on his spread thighs. “Don’t resist me at all.”
We move forward at the same time, our lips colliding, and his breath catches. His hand comes up to my wrist, fingers circling the bone, moving my hands higher up his thighs as his muscles tense.
His mouth opens under mine, and coffee lingers on his tongue, faint and warm. When I break the kiss, he stares up at me with a dazed expression, eyes half-closed, lips parted, and a flush spreading across his cheekbones.
Heart racing, I guide him back onto the couch cushions with a hand on his chest, my mouth moving to the hinge of his jaw, the pulse point beneath his ear, the curve of his throat where his skin is warm and stubbled.
He lets out a sigh, and his free hand finds the back of my neck, fingers threading into the hair at my nape.
I take my time. My lips trace his collarbone through the burgundy sweater, and soon, his breathing becomes uneven.
I grip the hem of his sweater, pull it up, and he lifts his arms, breaking the contact between us.
The fabric slides over his head, and I toss it somewhere behind me as my lips find his once more.
My hands map the planes of his chest, narrow but well-defined, the muscle lean beneath warm skin. My thumbs find his nipples, plucking them into hard peaks, and he arches into my touch with a moan. I follow the contour of his ribs down to his stomach, and my fingers find his belt.
I undo it, my mouth still busy at his sternum, and the leather slides free.
His zipper follows, and I drag his pants down his hips enough for my lips to follow the golden happy trail below his navel.
As my mouth drags lower, Grady gasps, his hips lifting with desire.
I plant my palms high on his thighs to still him.
“Em.” It comes out rough, wrecked already, and the sound of my name undoes me.
When I check on him, his head is tipped back on the couch, his throat bared, his chest rising fast, and desperation flashes across his face.
My own breath catches. I strip his jeans the rest of the way down, mindful of his knee, lift his leg free, and lay him bare before me.
His lovely body sprawls across the cushions, his cock hard against his stomach.
I stand and strip out of my clothes with far less care than I showed for him. He tracks every movement, dark and hungry, and when I step out of my underwear and stand naked, his hand reaches for me.
I return to straddle his thighs, careful to keep my weight entirely off his right knee, and take him in hand.
His warm length fills my palm, and I stroke him, relishing the way he pulses beneath my fingers.
He sits up, drawing my breast into his mouth, and he sucks me into his wet heat with a groan.
His tongue alternates between quick flicks and flat strokes as he worships my breast before switching to the other, giving it the same attention.
I arch into his touch, rubbing his shaft between my swollen folds, my thumb circling his head to smear a pearl of pre-cum over the sensitive crown. His hands find my hips, urging me forward.
I rise higher on my knees, position him at my entrance, and sink onto him in one slow roll of my hips.
We both go still.
His breath leaves him in a ragged exhale, and his fingers tighten in warning. I wait for him to adjust, relishing the stretch and the heat of him inside me, and for a long moment neither of us moves.
His forehead drops to my collarbone, his breath hot puffs on my skin. I roll my hips, testing the angle, and a broken, almost whimpering sound breaks free from Grady.
I set a deep, unhurried rhythm at first, my hands braced on his shoulders, my body doing all the work.
I control the angle, the depth, watching him as I sink down, noting the way his eyes squeeze shut when I shift forward.
I adjust until I find what turns his breathing ragged, and he grips me harder.
When I lean forward, changing the angle, he drops back onto the couch, and his grip tightens to the point of pain. I quicken my pace, my thighs working, each stroke deeper than the last, and when he groans my name, I lower my mouth to his throat and bite down softly.
His whole body tightens beneath me. He thrusts upward, his hands clenching, and he shudders through his release with my name still on his lips, his cock pulsing inside me in rhythmic waves, and my orgasm crests.
I pull off him before my lock swells, using my fingers to bring myself that last step over the edge, my inner walls clenching and swelling around emptiness. Falling forward, I shudder through it, my forehead resting on his shoulder and his arms wrapping around my back to hold me there.
We stay tangled together and breathless for a long time as his heartbeat slows, and mine answers.
In the aftermath, we lie together on the narrow couch, Grady’s head tipped back on the armrest, my body half-draped across his chest. His heartbeat has settled into a slow, steady rhythm beneath my ear, and his hand rests on the small of my back, fingers tracing idle patterns over my skin.
And when he shifts with discomfort, I sit up and draw his right knee into my lap. The joint is a little swollen, and I work my thumbs into the ligaments with slow, careful pressure, checking for new stiffness the same way I checked before.
The muscle yields under my hands, and he sighs in relief as his body sinks deeper into the cushions.
Grady curls one arm behind his head, relaxed with satiation. “Yes.”
My head snaps toward him. “Yes?”
“Yes,” he repeats.
My thumbs smooth over his knee. “To what, exactly?”
“The Wright Pack. The children. The future you described.” He gestures toward the desk. “Everything.”
I keep my hands moving, the joint warmer, looser, the inflammation already responding to the pressure. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s not just post sex euphoria?”
He chuckles as his hand finds mine, and his fingers curl around my wrist, not stopping me from what I’m doing, but holding on nonetheless.
“It’s not just post-sex euphoria. But do you want to join the Wright Pack?
I’m with you even if you don’t. We have time.
I can wait to join the pack you want to call home. ”
My hands slow to a stop. “My pride gets in the way.”
The admission costs me. A familiar tightness banding around my ribs, born from all the years I’ve spent building things with my own two hands and never asking for help.
“I can’t give you what the Wrights can. Not right now. Not a pack structure or the legal protection, or even insurance and stability. I built a cottage and a garden and a life after Auren, and it’s solid, but it’s not enough.”
I work my thumb into the hinge of his knee until the joint yields beneath the steady pressure. “Taking help feels as if I’m admitting I failed to do it myself. That’s the truth.”
Grady’s hand tightens on my wrist to communicate his understanding.
“But I don’t want to wait, or keep you, Jared, and Leif waiting.” I look at the desk I built for him. “Joining the Wrights is better for everyone. I’ve come to terms with not having to do everything myself. Taking help doesn’t mean I’m weak. It means we can all be stronger together.”
I meet his eyes again. “So, yes. Jared and I will join the Wright Pack, if you will, too.”
Grady leans up to cup my cheek, his fingers warm on my skin. He kisses me, not with hunger this time, but with a promise.
When he pulls back, he repeats one last time, “Yes.”
I stare at him, naked and bathed in late afternoon light, and realize that, for the first time since Auren, the future is no longer my responsibility alone.