Chapter Sixteen
WILL
Patching Ceremony
I wake before the alarm.
That’s how I know today is different, because my body has always known things before my mind catches up, and right now, at six in the morning with pale light seeping through the curtains, every nerve ending is already firing.
It’s patch day.
The thought sits in my chest, something warm, restless, and too big to contain. I lie here for a moment with my eyes on the ceiling, breathing, letting the weight of it settle over me before I swing my legs over the side of the sofa and pull myself upright.
The house is calm, but not in the way that means everybody’s still asleep.
I can smell coffee.
I can smell butter, something sweet, and something that pulls me across the room before I’ve even had time to think about moving.
Millie is at the stove when I reach the kitchen doorway, still in her pajamas, the soft blue ones with the tiny white flowers that she probably doesn’t realize I’ve memorized.
Her hair is loose around her shoulders, dark, thick, and falling forward as she tilts over the skillet, and there’s a small furrow between her brows as she concentrates, the way she always concentrates when she’s cooking, like she’s putting something of herself into it.
Jonas sits at the kitchen table with his mug, his folded newspaper, and that expression he’s had every morning since I arrived.
The look of carefully stored memories, boxed up, labeled, stacked, and kept for later.
When I step into the doorway, he looks up at me, and there’s something in his eyes that immediately puts me on edge.
The look a man gets after he’s already made up his mind about something and accepted whatever fallout comes with it.
He nods once.
I nod back.
He grabs his mug, tucks the newspaper under his arm, and heads out of the kitchen without any rush at all, moving with the kind of deliberate timing that tells me this exit is absolutely intentional.
The screen door creaks open, then shuts behind him, leaving me alone with the sound of the skillet, Millie moving around the kitchen, and this strange pressure in my chest that feels way too big for something as simple as an ordinary morning.
She turns and sees me standing there, and for a moment neither of us says a word.
I cross the kitchen to her, and she tips her face up to me, and I cup her jaw in both hands, feeling the warmth of her skin against my palms, her lashes dark against her cheeks as her eyes drop closed for just a second before she opens them again and looks straight into me.
“Hey,” she says softly.
“Hey,” I say back, and it means everything.
My hand slides from her jaw to her wrist, and she turns with me when I pull her the two steps into the butler’s pantry, this narrow room between the kitchen and the side hall, all wooden shelving and the smell of flour.
The door swings most of the way shut behind us, and the world reduces to this, to her, to the way she’s already reaching for me before I’ve even started reaching for her.
I press her back against the countertop, and she grips the edge, fingers curled over the lip, her chin lifted, and her eyes dark and knowing.
There’s a confidence in her now that wasn’t there at the beginning of us, something that has settled into her posture, into the way she looks at me like she already knows what’s coming, and she wants every second of it.
“Dad is literally on the porch,” she whispers, and there’s laughter threaded into the words.
“Then you better be quiet, Brightside.”
She bites her lip as her fingers tighten on the countertop.
I drag the hem of her pajama pants down just enough to get my hands on the warm skin of her waist, her ribs, feeling the places I’ve already learned, the slight dip below her ribs, the way she shivers when I press my thumbs into the curve of her hips.
I slide her pants all the way off, and they fall to the floor between us, but I don’t bother with her top.
There isn’t time, and the urgency of that, the hot, compressed urgency of having her right here and not a single goddamn minute to waste, makes this feel different from the first time.
It’s like we’ve moved past the part where we’re discovering each other and arrived at the part where we’re claiming each other.
Her panties come down easy, soft cotton, pale pink, and I tuck them into the front pocket of my jeans before she can say a word about it.
“Will.” Her voice is barely above a breath.
“Good luck charm,” I tell her, and the smile that breaks across her face is worth every single thing I’ve had to wait for.
My hands are on her thighs, urging her up onto the edge of the counter, and she goes easily, her legs wrapping around my hips as I rip my jeans open and shift between her knees.
The first press of my cock against her pussy pulls a sound out of her chest that she catches behind her teeth, that soft, ruined little sound I’ve grown a little too attached to for my own good.
Her forehead drops forward against mine, and she breathes me in.
“Look at me,” I tell her, low and rough. “Mills… look at me.”
She lifts her eyes and holds mine, and the trust in her face guts me every single time. Wide open, no armor, nothing held back. She’s the only person in my life who has ever looked at me like she already knows the worst parts and has decided that they don’t matter.
I thrust inside her slow and steady, feeling every inch of her body adjusting to me, watching the way her lips part on a silent exhale, and her thighs tighten around my hips, and her hands finally release the countertop to grab my shoulders instead.
The countertop creaks, a faint groan of wood.
We both freeze for half a second, listening, and then I hear Jonas still on the porch, and her whole face cracks into barely suppressed laughter at the exact same moment mine does.
“This is insane,” she breathes.
“You love it,” I tell her, and roll my hips, and her laugh disappears on a sharp, swallowed moan.
I set a pace that is fast, deep, and entirely focused on her, my forearm braced on the cabinet above her head for leverage, my other hand gripping the curve of her thigh, holding her exactly where I want her.
She is flushed from her collarbone to her cheeks, one hand knotted in my shirt at the shoulder, the other pressed over her own mouth to keep herself quiet, her eyes squeezing shut and then flying open like she can’t decide which is better, the darkness behind her eyelids or the sight of me above her.
“Eyes on me,” I remind her, and her gaze snaps back to mine, glassy, blown wide and beautiful.
“Will.”
My name in her mouth has always undone me, but like this, fractured, breathy, and private, it undoes something structural, something load-bearing, deep in my chest.
“I’ve got you,” I tell her, because I do, because I always will, and I grind deeper, working her toward the edge with the steady, deliberate pressure of my body against hers.
I can feel the moment she stops trying to hold back, the way her breath goes ragged, her thighs tremble, her grip on my shirt goes white-knuckled, and I chase it with her, working harder, driving her higher.
“Come with me,” I murmur against her temple, lips pressed there. “Give it to me, Mills. Right now.”
She fractures beautifully and silently, head thrown back, teeth sunk into her lower lip hard enough to leave a mark, body clenching around me in long, rolling waves that pull every rational thought right out of my skull.
The feeling of her coming apart around me is staggering.
It reaches down into me and yanks something loose, primitive and mine.
I follow her over the edge with my face buried in her neck and a low, controlled groan pressed into her skin, my whole body shuddering through the release, my hips jerking deep, pleasure burning out from the base of my spine in overwhelming pulses until there’s nothing left.
“Fuck,” I growl through gritted teeth, trying to keep my voice quiet.
We stay there for a long moment, both breathing hard, both wrecked.
Her fingers have moved from my shirt to the back of my neck, and she’s tracing slow circles, soft and absentminded, the way she always touches me when the urgency has burned off and what’s left is just this, just us.
“Hi…” She giggles against my cheek, in the same way she did the first time we did this.
Something enormous moves through me, and I smile at her, then lean in, pressing my lips to hers. “Hey.”
“Your breakfast is burning out here,” Jonas yells from the kitchen.
Millie’s eyes widen, her head dropping into the crook of my shoulder as we both try to contain our laughter.
“Coming right out,” she calls as I pull out of her.
Jonas doesn’t answer, but we both smirk as I reach for her pajama pants and hand them to her. She smiles at me, sliding them back on, her face turning bright red with embarrassment.
“He knows,” she whispers.
I lean in, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Yeah… he knows. He kinda left the room so we could, Mills.”
Millie grimaces, placing her head in her hands. “We didn’t use a condom,” she whispers.
I inhale, shaking my head at how fucking stupid I was. “Shit, sorry. I got caught up. After the ceremony, I’ll take you to the pharmacy.”
She nods. “I think I’d better get on the pill or something.”
“Yeah, probably a good id—”
“This shit is going to turn nuclear if you don’t get out here soon, Millie!” Jonas yells.
We both chuckle, and Millie leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips. She turns to walk out, but I grab her hand, stopping her. She furrows her brows, but I smooth her hair down for her, making sure she is respectable before she heads out.
He knows what we were doing, but he doesn’t need to see the evidence.