4. Reid
REID
The last table clears at ten, and she doesn’t run.
That’s how I know. Two days of her bolting the second anything gets real, and tonight she comes out to the dark patio, apron off, hair down, stops in front of me, decided.
The lights are off, the street empty, and at dawn a truck takes me south for two weeks I no longer want. She holds still and looks at me anyway, because a man who’s already leaving is safe to want. He can’t stick around and turn into one more person who walks out on her.
“You didn’t go home,” she says.
“No.”
“I keep waiting for the part where you get bored and cut it short.”
“I’ve got until dawn.” I stand. “I’d rather not waste it.”
She glances at the empty street—the patio nobody’s watching—and something reckless and delighted crosses her face.
“Here. Right where I’m supposed to be a professional.
For two days, I’ve been scared to death of getting caught wanting you.
” She steps into me, grinning, braver than I’ve seen her.
“Turns out the fix is not caring who looks.”
I walk her into the deep shadow along the building, out of the streetlight. She follows, and I let go of the last careful distance I keep from anything I want.
Her back hits the cool brick, and she laughs under her breath, that same breathless sound she made when she said here.
I kiss her like I’ve been starving for it, tasting the last of the kitchen on her mouth.
She answers harder than I expect, fingers already working the buttons of my shirt, efficient even now, until the fabric hangs open and her palms slide over skin she’s never touched.
Her hands tremble, and I catch her wrists just long enough to look at her. Something in the way she holds still under my hands—eager, yes, but careful in a way that isn’t fear—makes me slow down.
“First time for a lot of things tonight,” I say, quietly enough that the empty street can’t hear. I study her face in the dark. “Including this. Am I right?”
Her grin softens but doesn’t disappear. She doesn’t look away. “You’re right. I’ve never…done this. Any of it.” A small breath. “I kept choosing second on purpose. Safer that way. But I’m not choosing second tonight.” Her hands slide up my chest, steady now. “I want this. I want you. I’m ready.”
The words land like a door opening. Eleven years of believing I don’t get to have this connection with someone, but here she is handing it to me. I kiss her again, slow and reverent even against brick, in a place we shouldn’t be.
“Good,” I murmur against her mouth. “Then we do it right.”
I strip her carefully, not because I’m careful with her but because I want to see every inch as it appears.
Apron already gone. Dress unzips under my hands.
She steps out of it and stands there in nothing but simple cotton, hair down around her shoulders, and for a second, the old clamp tightens around my heart—then gives way.
I unhook her bra, slide the last of the cotton down her legs, and kneel.
The patio is shadowed, the street a few feet away and dead quiet. Somewhere, a truck will come at dawn, but right now, the only sound is her breathing and the soft scrape of my knees on stone.
I look up. She’s watching me, eyes wide, that careful self-denying woman discovering she likes being reckless. Her hand finds my hair, not pushing, just holding on.
I start with my mouth.
I kiss the inside of her thigh, then higher. When I finally put my tongue on her, she makes a sound she’s never made in the kitchen—surprised, almost delighted.
She’s wet already, the evidence of how long she’s been thinking about this, and I taste her like I’m learning the only map that matters. Fingers follow, two of them sliding in easily while my tongue works her clit in slow, steady circles.
She gasps, hips tilting, and I feel the exact second that nervous thrill tips into something deeper. Her free hand flattens on the brick. The other tightens in my hair.
“Reid—”
I don’t stop. I keep the rhythm unhurried even here, in a dark corner we’ve got no business being in. The risk is only excitement now—crew gone, town asleep, her decision not to care.
Her thighs start to shake, and I feel the way she tries, for half a second, to stay quiet, then abandons it.
She comes with a broken little cry she can’t hold back, body tightening around my fingers, pulsing against my tongue.
I stay with her through it, gentling only when she starts to get oversensitive, until she’s trembling and laughing under her breath like she can’t believe she just did that out here.
I stand. She’s still catching her breath when I shed the rest of my clothes. My shirt hits the ground first, then my jeans and everything underneath. Cool night air touches skin that’s already overheated.
She watches the whole time—open, flushed, lips parted—and the look on her face is pure hunger. Not shy. Not second-guessing. Just raw, greedy want, like she’s decided she’s allowed to take what she wants and she’s taking me.
When I step back into her, she reaches for me without hesitation. I lift her easily, and her legs wrap around my waist, heels digging into the small of my back. I brace her against the wall, the brick cool and rough against my hand.
The head of my cock slides through the slick heat between her thighs, finds her entrance, and that’s where I pause. We’re both breathing hard. I can feel how wet she still is from my mouth, how ready.
“Still sure?” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “Because once I’m inside you, I’m not going to be gentle for long. You’re going to feel every inch.”
She nods, that same grin edged with something softer now, but her eyes are dark and hungry. “I’ve been second my whole life on purpose. Tonight, I want to be first. Fuck me, Reid. I want it.”
I nudge inside, taking it as slow as possible.
She’s tight—first-time tight, so snug the pressure steals my breath. Heat grips me in a perfect, wet clutch, inch by inch, and the sound she makes is half pain, half wonder—a broken little gasp that goes straight to my cock.
I force myself to hold still once I’m fully seated, buried deep, every nerve ending lit up by how she squeezes around me. She pulses, a fine tremor running through her thighs. I kiss the corner of her mouth, the hinge of her jaw, breathing against her skin while I wait for her body to adjust.
“Christ, look at you,” I murmur. “Taking me so well. You’re so fucking tight. Feel that? That’s all of me. That’s yours.”
Her fingers dig into my shoulders. She rolls her hips experimentally, testing, and the small wet sound of it nearly undoes me.
When the tension in her eases, I start to move—slow, deep strokes that drag every inch of me through her.
The wet, filthy slide of it fills the quiet patio—skin meeting skin, the soft, rhythmic sound of me fucking into her, her breath hitching every time I fill her.
“That’s it,” I tell her, voice low and rough against her ear. “Let me hear you. You’re so wet, I can hear how much you want this. Listen to that. Listen to how your cunt is taking me.”
She moans, unguarded, and the careful woman who’s spent years choosing second loses herself in the moment.
I keep one hand under her thigh, spreading her wider, the other braced on the brick beside her head.
I watch her face the whole time—the flutter of her lashes, the way her mouth falls open, the hungry, dazed look that says she’s never felt anything like this and she doesn’t want it to stop.
Every thrust punches a soft, shocked sound out of her. Every time I grind deep, she clenches around me like she’s trying to keep me there.
“You feel so fucking good,” I growl. “Hot and tight and mine tonight. No one’s ever been inside you before. No one’s ever made you this wet. Look at you—out here where anyone could walk by, taking my cock like you were made for it.”
The street is still empty. Dawn is still hours off. The only audience is the dark and the distant sound of the town asleep.
I fuck her deeper, a little harder, angling until I find the spot that makes her eyes roll and her nails bite into my skin.
The wet slap of our bodies grows louder.
Her breasts brush my chest with every thrust. She’s panting now, little desperate sounds she can’t swallow, and I can feel her starting to tighten around me again—rippling, clenching, chasing it.
“That’s my girl,” I say, breathless. “Come for me. Come on my cock like you came on my tongue. Let me feel it. Let the whole empty street hear how good I’m making you feel.”
She comes again.
It hits her sudden and hard—her whole body locking up, cunt pulsing in strong, rhythmic squeezes that milk me. The sound she makes is pure, unguarded delight, loud enough to startle the quiet, and the sight of her falling apart with my name on her lips finishes me.
I follow her over the edge with a broken groan, burying my face in her neck as I thrust deep and stay there, cock kicking hard as I spill inside her in thick pulses.
I can feel every spurt, feel her still fluttering around me, feel the heat of it between us.
For a few long seconds, there’s nothing but the two of us breathing, the brick at her back, the dark, the wet mess of where we’re joined, and the quiet knowledge that we both just unclenched a brace we’d been holding our whole lives.
I stay inside her until the last aftershock fades and her legs start to tremble. Then I ease her down carefully, steadying her when her knees threaten to give, and wrap my jacket around her shoulders before either of us can remember the clock.
“You’re thinking again,” I say. “I can feel it.”
“I’m calculating how efficiently this hurts tomorrow.” Her fingers trace the old scar on my forearm. “You roll out, two weeks becomes three, and by the time you’re back I’m gone. A nice thing that happened once.”
I turn her chin up. Even in the dark I feel her waiting for me to agree, because agreeing is what everyone does.
“I spent eleven years sure I’d already had my one shot and burned it.” My thumb moves along her jaw. “Then a woman put the whole gold town in her butter, and I found out I never had a shot at all. Not until her.”
She goes still. It’s the truest thing I own, handed over the night before I lose the right to prove it. Brave or stupid, I won’t know which until Thursday.