Chapter 24
I hold Sam Jr. in my arms, nestled against my chest, and shake my head in awe. “How has he gotten so big?”
Charlie smiles, her hand resting over the gentle swell of her belly. “I ask myself that every day.”
Her face is soft, glowing even in exhaustion
“How are you feeling this time?” I ask, brushing a wisp of hair from Sam Jr.’s face.
“Better,” she says, then tilts her head, half-laughing. “But also worse, if that makes sense.”
I glance up, and her smile is tired but real.
“The morning sickness is brutal,” she admits. “Tish is absolutely convinced it’s a girl this time. Says I’m too moody for it to be another boy.”
“That would be so precious,” I say, meaning it.
Charlie watches me for a beat, eyes a little too perceptive. “How have you been? I feel like I only ever see you in passing. And hear from you in emails.”
I glance down at Sam Jr., suddenly fascinated by his tiny fingers. “I’ve been good. Busy.”
I try to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach. The guilt creeps in like smoke under a door.
We’ve still been writing our columns. Our joint pieces have gained traction, enough that we’ve even tossed around the idea of opening a small newspaper shop downtown.
But I’ve been distant. No late-night edits, no shared coffee runs, no laughing on Charlie’s couch while we figure out who we should interview next.
Because I’ve been with Will. Hiding away in his bed, his arms, his voice like the rest of the world stopped existing.
And maybe that’s the problem.
“I miss you,” she says gently.
I look up, throat tightening.
“I miss you too.”
And I do.
But I also don’t know how to explain that I’ve fallen headfirst into something I can’t quite control. That every moment away from him feels off now. That I've built my days around the shape of Will’s body beside mine and forgotten how to share space with anyone else.
Changing the subject, she says, “There’s a new foal in the barn. One of Mary’s.”
I grin. “Well, now I’ve got to see her.”
I’m still smiling when I step outside. Sam, Liam, and Will are working on fences around the ranch, and part of me hopes I’ll run into Will.
The barn smells like hay, sweat, and summer heat. The kind of scent that settles in your skin and doesn’t let go. But then I turn a corner near the tack room and run right into Will.
He catches me by the waist, steadying me, eyes already dark as he glances over my shoulder toward the house.
“Careful, sugar,” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear. “Someone might think you’re sneaking out here to find me.”
My pulse spikes. “Aren’t you supposed to be fixing the fence?”
His mouth curves. “We are. Just needed to grab some more barbwire.”
I step back. Try to. But his hand catches mine, pulls me behind the row of stalls, out of sight.
“Will—”
“Shh.” He presses me back against the wooden beam. The air is thick with heat and dust. “You gonna tell me you don’t want this?”
“Sam’s out there! And Liam,” I hiss, barely able to finish the sentence before his mouth is on mine.
It’s hot. It’s desperate. It’s wrong.
And I am all in.
He kisses me like he’s starving, like he doesn’t care if the whole damn ranch hears us. His hands slide under my shirt, gripping my waist, dragging me closer until there’s not an inch of air between us.
“You’ve been teasing me all day,” he growls. “Wearing those little cutoff shorts, smiling like you don’t know exactly what that does to me.”
I gasp as his hands slide lower, gripping my thighs. “I wasn’t teasing—”
“Oh, baby, you were.” He lifts me effortlessly, spinning me so I’m bent over a haybale, lips finding my neck. “And now you’re gonna take what you’ve been asking for.”
He pushes my shorts down, his fingers finding me already wet, already pulsing.
“You get like this just from being around me?” he mutters, breath hot. “You’re soaked.”
“Will, someone might come out here—”
“Let them,” he all but purrs. “Let them see what a good girl you are for me.”
He frees himself with one hand, the other wrapped around the back of my neck as he lines up and thrusts into me deep and hard.
I cry out, because it feels so good.
He grunts, holding still for one breathless beat. “Want me to put a baby in you, Phern? Fuck you so good out here in the baby makin’ barn?”
I dig my fingers into the hay.
“Please,” I beg.
He pulls back and slams in again. “Hold on, sugar. I’m not taking it slow.”
He pounds into me, the hay rustling beneath us, the sound of skin on skin echoing through the barn like a warning shot. Every thrust is harder, rougher, riskier.
“If Sam catches us—” I start, voice shaking.
“I’ll tell him I couldn’t help myself.” Will thrusts again. “That you were too sweet. Too tempting. That you begged for it.”
“Oh, god—” I pant, my body betraying me as it clenches around him.
He brings me right to the edge, fast and hard and wild, and when I fall, I fall hard, legs buckling, and his name ripped from my throat. He follows with a deep, guttural groan, hips jerking as he spills inside me, leaving both of us shaking.
We stay tangled, breathless.
Until we hear a screen door slam in the distance.
Will pulls back with a grin, tucking himself in, helping me redress with hands that are anything but calm.
“Think they’re looking for us?”
I swat him. “You’re terrible.”
He kisses my cheek. “You love it.”
And, damn it, I do.
I sneak back into the house after that, cheeks flushed and body still humming from him. Will heads out to help with the fencing, leaving me to tiptoe through the kitchen like a teenager caught after curfew.
Charlie barely glances up from the coffee she’s pouring. “What did you think?”
I freeze, heartbeat stuttering. “Think about what?”
She lifts an eyebrow, amused. “The foal.”
I exhale too loudly, then play along. “It’s adorable. Have you named her yet?”
“Sam thinks we should call her Mary Magdalene.”
I snort. “Fitting.”
There’s a pause that’s just long enough to make the air feel heavier.
Then Charlie says casually, “You have hay in your hair.”
My stomach drops. I reach up, fingers brushing through the tangled strands.
My face burns, but she just grins. “Relax. I’ve been there before, which you know all about.” Her eyes flick toward the front door before softening. “Just don’t let Sam find out on his own. He’ll never forgive you. Either of you.”
My throat tightens. “How long have you known?”
She shrugs. “Suspected it for a while. Definitely since Liam and Olive’s wedding. The way you looked at each other changed.”
I nod, barely.
She studies me for a beat. “Are you happy with him?”
I don’t even have to think. “So happy.”
She touches my arm, grounding me. “Good. You deserve someone who looks at you like you hung the damn moon.”
I swallow hard. “Do you think anyone else has noticed?”
Charlie laughs softly. “Definitely not my sweet, but oblivious husband, if that’s what you’re worried about. Honestly, I don’t know how he doesn’t see it. The way you two look at each other? It’s not just lust. It’s love.”
Love.
The word lands like a lightning strike. Bright and sudden and impossible to ignore. I blink, stunned. Charlie just watches me, calm and steady. No judgment. Just quiet knowing. And that’s the moment I realize she’s right.
The rest of the evening is a blur. Around nine, Will and I slip outside unnoticed by everyone. The moment we’re out of the house, I breathe easier.
Charlie’s words still echo in my head, soft but heavy: It’s not lust. It’s love.
Love.
God.
I’m not even sure how we ended up out here. Just that Will caught my hand while everyone else was distracted and tugged me around the side of the barn, then toward the gravel driveway where his truck sat half in shadow, half in moonlight.
“Come on,” he murmurs, voice rough and low.
We slip into the back of the cab like thieves. The doors click shut, the air thick with summer heat and tension. He slides across the bench seat and grabs me like he can’t wait another second. Our mouths crash together, all lips and teeth and need.
“Been watching you all night,” he growls, dragging his hands under my shirt. “That little smile like you don’t know what it does to me.”
“I know exactly what it does,” I whisper, straddling him.
He groans when I sink down onto his lap, our mouths finding each other again, sloppy and desperate. His jeans are rough beneath me, my panties already soaked through from just the look in his eyes.
“You always get like this around babies?” he teases, voice thick.
My body jolts.
Because seeing him holding Sam Jr broke something open inside me.
And now I’m here, grinding against him in the dark like I can’t help it, because I can’t.
“You looked good with him,” I whisper before I can stop myself. “I keep thinking how you’ll look with our baby.”
Will stiffens under me, just for a second. Then his hands tighten at my waist.
“You trying to kill me, sugar?”
“No,” I murmur. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
I nod. “Feels like everything with you is.”
He slips one hand down my shorts, under the lace, fingers dragging through heat and slick.
“And yet, you keep coming back.”
I roll my hips, moaning softly.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “I do.”
The words are right there pressed against the back of my throat like they’ve been waiting for their moment.
I love you.
I open my mouth to say it.
And he thrusts his hips up against mine, grinding hard, swallowing my gasp with a kiss.
“I want you to come like this,” he mutters against my lips. “On top of me. In my truck. While your skin smells like my sweat and your thighs still shake from the last time.”
We make quick work of pulling my shorts and panties down, so he can slide into my heat. My head falls back as I move faster, chasing that edge. His hands guide me, his mouth moving across my throat, biting, sucking, marking.
“I’ve got you,” he rasps. “Let go for me.”
I do.
I fall apart with a broken moan, slumped against his chest, and he holds me there, breathing hard, hands still gentle on my back.
The silence after is thick.
He brushes my hair from my face, searching my eyes.
“Phern…”
I open my mouth. But I don’t say it. Not yet.
Instead, I press a kiss to his jaw and whisper, “Take me home.”
He nods. But the way he watches me the whole drive back tells me he felt it, too. Even if I didn’t say the words.
By the time we step inside my house, the air between us is already charged. The door clicks shut behind us, and Will crowds me against it before I can even turn the lock. His hands find my hips, his mouth brushing my ear.
“You’ve been killing me all night,” he murmurs, voice thick with heat. “Every second you weren’t at my side was torture.”
I tilt my head back just enough to meet his eyes. “So do something about it.”
He does.
The kiss is molten. His mouth crashes to mine like he’s starving for it, like he’s wanted to devour me since the second he saw me, and now he’s finally allowed to. His hands roam up under my shirt, rough palms skating over my stomach, up to my bra.
He spins me, walks me backward down the hall with lips trailing fire over my neck.
Every few steps, we shed something—his shirt, then mine.
I reach for his belt as we hit the bedroom, tug it free with a satisfying clink.
His jeans hang low on his hips when he kicks his boots off and closes the door behind us. My shorts are next.
He looks at me like he’s two seconds from ruining me.
“Get on the bed,” he says, voice rough, commanding.
I do.
Slowly.
Lying back on the sheets in just my bra and panties, I watch him step out of his jeans. He crawls over me, heat rolling off his skin, mouth hovering over mine but not quite kissing.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he breathes.
His hand slides between my thighs, pressing against the wet lace already clinging to me. “This is what I’ve been thinking about all day. You—spread out, desperate, soaked for me, and full of my come.”
I moan, hips shifting under his touch.
He pulls my panties aside and drags two fingers through the slick mess he’s made of me, groaning low. “Fuck, sugar. You’re dripping.”
“I want more, Daddy.”
That lights something behind his eyes. His mouth crashes to mine again, and then he’s lining up, pushing inside slow. Deep. Thick. Stretching me until I’m gasping into his kiss.
Will holds still, buried to the hilt, forehead pressed to mine.
“This what you needed?” he asks, breath ragged.
“God, yes.”
He moves slow at first. Like he’s savoring every inch, every moan, every stutter of my breath. Then he picks up the pace, grinding into me, one hand gripping my hip while the other wraps around the back of my neck like he can’t stand the idea of being too far away.
His voice turns to gravel at my ear.
“Gonna make you come just like this,” he growls. “My cock deep in you, my name on your lips. No hiding. No pretending.”
I arch into him, chasing that sharp edge as he thrusts harder, rougher, perfectly filthy.
“Will—”
“That’s it. Say it again.”
“Will—please—”
He fucks me through it, holds me tight when I come, clenching around him, legs wrapped around his waist, nails dragging down his back.
He groans, low and broken, and finishes with a deep, punishing thrust, burying himself as far as he can go and staying there, gasping against my neck. We lie there, tangled and breathless, sweat-slicked skin pressed together. And in the quiet after, his thumb brushes over my cheek.
“You feel it too, don’t you?”
I nod. And for a second I almost say it. But instead, I kiss him slow and deep.
And I know he hears it anyway.