Chapter Nineteen
My small house is my sanctuary. The one place I can really be myself and not worry about what anyone else thinks. Having Wes here, waking up with him, is even better than I could have imagined.
“Morning, beautiful.” He flexes his hand where it rests on my stomach and pulls me tight into his chest. One of his thighs is between mine, crisp hairs tickling my soft skin.
“What time is it?” I ask with a yawn, flexing my hips in a slow, teasing roll.
There’s a pleasant soreness between my legs along with a faint burn on the inside of my thighs from Wes’s facial hair—a delicious reminder of exactly what we got up to last night.
And again at some vague early hour, half asleep and languid as we moved together.
Wes maneuvers me under him when I start to reach for my phone, his expression sleep-hazed and delightfully rumpled. “We have time.” He rocks his hips, his half-hard cock rapidly rising to the occasion. “Want to find out how many orgasms are too many?”
My laughter gets swallowed up by a moan as he lavishes attention on one of the many spots he found last night that drive me wild. “I’m not sure we have time for that,” I say breathlessly, sliding my hand around the back of his neck and scratching lightly.
“No, probably not.” His hand skims over my ribs, then my hip, and down my thigh. With a firm grip, he pushes my leg out and up, making room for himself. “I’ll settle for two.”
Despite the fact that we need to get up, Wes takes his time.
His kisses build, slow and sleepy at first, growing into tender passion.
He breathes out my name in gasps and groans, holding on to me like he doesn’t ever want to let go.
Unlike last night’s filthy whispers and playful moments, in the soft light of morning, neither of us says much.
That’s new too. I don’t have to fill the silence with Wes. I don’t need words to hide behind, not when he easily offers me his own naked vulnerability. Not when every kiss is a promise, and every touch is a question I want to answer with Yes, yes, yes.
This time, after he’s kept his word and turned me all but boneless, he doesn’t gasp his pleasure into my throat.
Even with his arms trembling from the effort of holding himself up, he looks down into my eyes and lets me see every flicker of emotion.
And then, our bodies still connected, his breaths still ragged, he leans down to press a tender kiss to my temple.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and squeeze tight until his weight crushes me into the mattress. I don’t care. Who needs to breathe when their heart is overflowing with too many emotions to count?
Wes is the first to move, reluctantly pushing back up on his elbows. He brushes his thumb lightly under my eye and smiles, sated and so content I wouldn’t be shocked if he started purring.
“We should get up,” he says reluctantly. “I checked the forecast while you were sleeping. Going to be a long drive today if we want to be in South Dakota tomorrow.”
I stretch my neck up to steal one last kiss and then playfully shove his shoulder. “You’re the one trapping me here.”
“Sloane?”
“Mmm?”
“I’m really glad it was you who found me that day on the side of the road.”
“Me too.”
Wes leans in to brush one last soft kiss against my mouth and then gets out of bed with a groan. “If you want to grab a shower first, I’ll get started on breakfast.”
Breakfast is waiting when I get out of the shower. Wes puts a plate into my hand, gives my legging-covered butt a hearty squeeze, and throws a wink over his shoulder on the way to the bathroom for his own shower.
“Keep that up and we’re going to miss the storms tomorrow!” I call after him.
He pauses at the bathroom door long enough to prop his hip against the frame and raise one smoldering brow. “Darlin’, don’t tempt me.”
“Go!” I gesture sharply toward the shower with a slice of crispy bacon, laughter spilling over.
I finish my breakfast quickly before ducking into my office to grab the extra camera gear for Tracy and Matt’s wedding. Then I impulsively head back into my bedroom, my mind on the dress shoved to the back I’ve been looking for an excuse to wear for ages.
I bought it almost two years ago, so the first question is going to be if it even fits. With a deep breath, I toss my clothes onto the bed, pull out the garment bag, unzip the shimmering pink silk, and step into it.
The bodice is fairly modest. A sweetheart neckline curves up into wide straps while the multilayered skirts flare out. The back is where the real drama comes in, cut so low there’s a mere inch of fabric between where the dress stops and my ass starts.
Sucking in my breath, I carefully do up the side zip and gather the skirts to check the mirror on the other side of my bedroom. It still fits—in fact, I’m pretty sure it looks better now than it did two years ago.
“That dress was made for you.”
I turn to find Wes staring at me from the doorway with his hip propped against the frame. He’s pulled on a pair of shorts, but hasn’t gotten to a shirt yet, one hand lazily rubbing a towel against his damp hair.
“You like it?” I do a little twirl, the silk fanning out around my legs.
Wes steps into my bedroom and tosses the towel on the bed.
He doesn’t stop until he’s close enough to drag his fingertips along the neckline.
A riot of goosebumps erupts in his wake.
“I want to ask why you’re wearing this, but I’m not sure I care.
” Lust and something else, something far deeper, stare back at me.
“I know I don’t deserve you, but damn if I’m not going to try to keep you anyway. ”
The free fall from flirty to emotional is so fast I don’t have time to swallow the lump in my throat. “Promise?”
Wes slides his hand into my hair and leans his forehead against mine. His breathing is rough, emotion turning his voice hoarse when he says, “Yeah, Sloane. I promise.”
It’s a little weird to be in Wes’s car, and not just because it’s loaded with features I can’t afford. The interior has a lingering new car scent, but mostly it smells like him, spice with a hint of citrus.
Wes is driving, one hand on top of the steering wheel, the rest of his large frame relaxed into the leather seat.
His other hand rests on the gear shift. I impulsively lay mine on top of his, relaxing even further when he spreads his fingers.
After a few minutes, he lifts our hands to his mouth and presses light kisses to the back of my hand without ever taking his eyes off the road.
He wears a faint smile when he lowers our hands to rest on the center console, utterly at ease but for his attention to the road. Like he’s just as content as I am in this moment, not talking, not really doing much of anything except breathing the same air.
The long hours in the car turn into some of my favorite moments as we fall back into the rhythm of racing after storms from one end of the plains to the other.
Sometimes we sing along to my ridiculous playlist. Sometimes we let the music play and sink into comfortable silence, content to exist together.
And sometimes, often late at night when the darkness presses in around us, we talk, our conversations taking on a new intimacy that no longer scares me quite so much.
Wes entertains me with stories of his travels, everything from the stunning beauty of the midnight sun in Norway, the frigid cold of an Antarctic polar plunge, and the blazing heat of a Namibia desert.
But in between the glory days, he slips in the quieter moments.
He talks a lot about his mom, who bought him his first camera and spent childhood summers with him on a ranch somewhere south of Amarillo while his dad often traveled for work.
“I think that’s what got me into storms,” he says late one night as we head for our hotel, the wind farm surrounding us blinking red and eerie in the darkness, like we’ve been dropped into the middle of an alien world.
“Mom used to yell for me from the porch when I’d be out there trying to take photos of lightning long before I had any idea how to actually get it in focus or exposed correctly. ”
“It was lightning on the mountains for me,” I reply in the same hushed voice. “There was this park close enough to ride my bike to that had a killer view of the mountains. I used to watch the sky in the summer, waiting for thunderheads to billow up. Then I’d just sit there for hours.”
Wes doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to—the exquisitely gentle brush of his lips against my knuckles communicates plenty. Some people have churches. Wes and I have storms.