Chapter 5
Blakelyn
It starts with a storm.
Not rain. Not thunder. Not even wind.
Just pressure.
The kind that builds in the sky and under your skin. That crackles in your bones before anything even happens. The kind that makes animals go quiet and trees hold still.
That’s what I wake up to.
Still tangled in my sheets. Skin sticky with sweat and memory. Thighs pressed together like they remember the weight of his body, even if my brain’s still catching up.
Gruene.
I didn’t dream about him. Not last night. Not that I can remember… but I feel him everywhere.
Between my legs, though he hasn’t touched me there. On my lips. Under my fingernails. Every place he did touch me still thrums. And I want more.
Not just his body. His weight. His breath. His everything. But more than that… I want to be inside whatever that moment was. That charged, trembling space where neither of us could look away as I came undone in his lap, and then, he followed… and we didn’t even have sex.
That’s what scares me.
That wasn’t just lust . It felt like ruin .
By midday, the heat is unbearable, and the portable A/C and fans can’t keep up. The cicadas scream in the trees like they’re trying to split the air in two… and I can’t sit still.
I pull on a bra, a white tank top, and faded cutoffs, shove my sunglasses on my head, and slip my feet into flip flops before marching down the path toward the tubing shack, needing to see him.
But the shack is empty. The bay doors are rolled up, the fans humming, but Gruene’s nowhere in sight. Reece is by the loading dock, throwing towels into a storage bin next to stacked tubes and kayaks.
“Hey,” he calls, wiping sweat from his brow. “He’s upriver. He headed out for a supply run.”
I nod, feeling dismal that he isn’t here and getting pissed off at myself for feeling that way. “Thanks.” He nods and continues stacking rafts before walking into the shed.
I should turn around. I should go back to the cabin.
Instead, I do something reckless. Something stupid because my head is not right.
I walk to the edge of the dock, grab one of the single tubes, and push it into the water, and then, I climb in.
I have no drinking water. No sunscreen. And no plan.
Just the river and the burn and the aching space between what I want and what I’m afraid I’ll never be allowed to have.
The current is soft at first.
Gentle. Lazy.
It’s relaxing and peaceful.
But halfway around the first bend past the cabins, it hits small rapids and picks up.
I don’t panic. I know this water now.
I’ve watched it. Walked it. Touched it.
But I don’t know it. Not the way he does.
The tube jolts suddenly, catching on a limb under the surface that I didn’t see. I lurch sideways, one hand flying out to steady myself. The other grabs for the edge of the tube… too late.
I fall. Hard. My hip slams into a boulder, also hidden underwater. I gasp as pain shoots up my side, and then, the water swallows me whole.
The shock from the coldness of the water hits first. Then, the silence. Then, the instinct.
I kick, breaking the surface. I gasp.
The current’s stronger now. Not dangerous. Not deadly. But fast enough to drag me a few feet farther before I get my bearings.
I sputter, tread, then grab the tube and try to swim to the bank—thank God it flipped with me— My feet slip on the river rocks as I get closer, but I manage to haul myself and the tube onto the bank. I flop back with my legs still in the water.
My hands are shaking. My breath saws in and out of my chest.
I’m fine. But I’m not. Because something inside me just cracked.
Something old, scared, and small. And that’s when I hear him, “ What the fuck?! ”
I turn my head.
He’s running. Not walking. Not striding.
Racing down the embankment like the devil himself is behind him.
His eyes are wild. His voice ragged. He hits the edge of the water and doesn’t stop—just wades in, yanking me and the tube fully onto the bank. Throwing the tube with all his might, he leans over me. “What the hell were you thinking, Blakelyn?!”
I scramble to my knees. “I?—”
“No vest? No call? You didn’t even tell Reece that you took a tube! You just got into the fucking river alone and went ? I told you no one goes in alone? What the fuck is wrong with you?” He’s raging, pulling his own hair, pacing.
He did tell me that. I knew I shouldn’t have.
Poor Reece.
Shit! I hope I didn’t get him in trouble.
“Gruene, I was fine?—”
“You flipped!” He screams.
I flinch, “I’m okay?—”
“You could’ve died, Blakelyn. If you’d gone under and no one knew you were out here, you could have fucking died !” The words fade out and he stops. Like the words physically hurt.
His chest heaves. His arms drop to his sides. His fists unclench, and then, clench again. “I watched you go under.”
Oh my, god.
I blink and open my mouth, but he doesn’t let me talk.
“I saw your head disappear under the water and I—” He chokes on it. “I felt it .”
My breath catches and my heart shatters.
“I ran because I thought—” His voice breaks. “I thought I was too late, again.”
And suddenly it’s not about the raft or the river or me being careless. It’s about them. It’s about him . And the way he hasn’t forgiven himself for surviving.
“I’m sorry,” I brokenly whisper. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
He doesn’t answer, just stares at me with this raw, gutted look. Like I peeled something back he wasn’t ready to show.
I hate that I hurt him. Even accidentally. It was selfish.
Climbing to my feet, dripping and barefoot and wrecked, I step toward him, wincing as my hip pulls from where I slammed into the underwater rock.
He doesn’t back up, but he doesn’t reach for me either. He’s taking deep, gutted breaths with his hands fisted so tight his knuckles are white at his side.
So, I reach for him. Laying my hand on his chest, I whisper, “Feel that?” His eyes close.
“I’m still here, Gruene. I’m still here and I’m sorry I scared you.
I—I have to tell you something. My name…
my name is Blakelyn, but it’s not Vaughn.
It’s Walker. My name is Blakelyn Walker.
I want you to know who I am. Who I really am. ”
He opens his eyes. Then, we’re crashing into each other like the tide just came in.
His hands dig into my hips, pulling me to him like he’s waited too long to do it gently, and I give in—completely. My mouth opens under his, desperate and searching, our breaths ragged, bodies slick with river water and heat and something electric humming between us.
We fall into the grass, tangled and wet, our legs slipping against each other, his thigh pressed between mine. He moves like he can’t get close enough, like he needs me under him, over him, around him just to breathe.
And I let him. Because I need it, too. Because this isn’t about slow, it’s about real .
“Jesus, Blakelyn,” he growls, pressing his forehead to mine, his fingers biting into my waist so hard I’m going to bruise. “Tell me to stop.”
“No.” I slide my hands under his shirt and tug the wet fabric up. “ Don’t stop. Don’t you dare. ”
Tearing the shirt off over his head, he tosses it behind him. I run my hands over the scars that map his chest, his ribs, his side—every raised line a story he never tells. I don’t flinch. I don’t hesitate, I kiss them. Every single one.
He makes a sound deep in his chest—broken, low, hungry.
“Damn you,” he whispers, gripping the hem of my saturated tank top. “You undo me.”
“Then, let me. Take me.”
He yanks my shirt off, eyes locked on my chest. My bra is equally soaked and see-through.
The second the air hits my nipples, they tighten beneath the soaked material.
His gaze drops. Darkens. He groans like it hurts and peels it off of me.
His pupils dilate as he stares at my bare breasts.
“Fuck,” he rasps, lowering his mouth to a nipple.
The heat of his tongue, against my cold flesh, makes me gasp.
He sucks gently, then harder, his hand kneading the other breast like he’s memorizing the weight of it in his palm. I arch under him, my fingers fisting in his hair. My legs wrapping around his hips.
“You’re gonna ruin me,” he mutters against my skin.
“You’ve already ruined me,” I breathe, grinding my hips against the ridge of his cock through his soaked jeans. He’s hard— so hard—and I feel it everywhere. My clit throbs with each drag of denim against it, my body clenching with every shift of his hips.
“I need—” I choke out.
He doesn’t wait.
He slides down the waistband of my shorts.
Popping the button, he manages to yank the wet denim off.
His finger slips beneath the see-through pink cotton of my panties.
He watches his hand find my dark curls through the nearly invisible fabric.
I watch with him, parting my thighs. He groans when he feels how wet I am.
“Christ. You’re soaked.”
“For you,” I gasp.
One finger slips inside of me, and I moan, my head falling back, my mouth parting on a moan.
Then, two fingers glide in and out.
They curl deep, precise, relentless, while his thumb finds my clit. He fingers me and toys with me, and I shatter .
“Gruene,” I cry, my voice breaking on his name as my orgasm rolls through me, fast and devastating, wringing every nerve from the inside out. My fingers dig into his forearms as he continues to finger me through my climax.
He watches me fall apart like it wrecks him.
“I’ll never get enough of you,” he growls. “Never.”
When I stop spasming, I yank at his jeans, fumbling with the button. “Off. Please— off. I want you inside me.”
His hands move fast, unzipping, shoving them down. I have no idea how he gets the wet denim and boxers off in one motion, but within seconds, he’s nude. His cock springs free—thick, flushed, and veined. My mouth waters and I lean down, wanting to taste him.
“No time,” he mutters, eyes wild. “Next time, you can have it in your mouth. But right now, I need to feel you.”