Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
SAGE
The storm still rages, but inside the shack the world has gone quiet.
Snow slashes the window like it’s trying to erase the night, yet all I hear is his breathing—steady, trembling, mine. The scent of cedar and woodsmoke clings to our skin, threaded with something sweeter, something that feels like home.
My fingers rest against his chest, tracing the wild rhythm of his heart beneath my palm. “We shouldn’t,” I whisper, but there’s no conviction left in the words.
“I know.” His voice is rougher than the wind outside. “But I don’t want to stop.”
I close my eyes, press my forehead to his, and the rest of the world falls away. The storm can tear down fences, strip trees bare. But it can’t touch this … the wanting that’s lived in both of us too long to die now.
When our lips meet again, it isn’t reckless.
It’s slow, certain, a promise sealed in the heartbeat between thunder and silence.
His sigh shudders against my mouth. Mine stumbles to match it.
Outside, the wind howls once more, and then even that fades until there’s only us, the rhythm of skin and breath and the faint creak of the old shack holding steady against the storm.
My hands slide over his angular planes, memorizing every slope and dip. A hard man in place of the boy I first loved. The throb at the top of my legs returns, greedy though he’s already given me more pleasure than I can comprehend. It’s not enough with him, though.
I find the fly of his Wranglers, unbutton and unzip as his tongue ravishes my mouth, stealing my breath and my heart all over again.
My pulse flutters behind my ribcage, fiery trails burning up and down my skin at every point his fingertips caress until I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I can’t speak. I distill to hunger—ravenous.
My hand slides beneath the waistband of his tented black boxer briefs, breath coming out like a hiss as I feel his warm, thick rod for the first time. He closes his eyes, groans deep in his throat, almost like a purr.
The sound undoes me, makes me want to give him more. I wrap my fingers around him, stroking back and forth.
“Yes, Sage,” he murmurs, chest rumbling with pleasure.
“You like that?”
“Fuck, yes,” he pants.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I say, the moment surreal. My hand stops.
His brown eyes find mine, warmth and heat swirling in the pupils. “We can stop whenever you like, Sage. It’s up to you. But let it be what you want, not what you think the world wants.”
His words lift a weight I didn’t even know I was carrying. My hand moves again, savoring the way he comes alive at my touch. “I don’t care what the world wants anymore.”
If love can survive a storm like this, maybe it can survive everything that comes next.
He reaches up, drags my head down for another impassioned kiss as we melt into each other.
My pulse pounds in my temples, mind racing at what this will feel like. If it’ll hurt. If I’m pleasing him. How he can possibly find me attractive, all hard and athletic, while I’m soft and curvy. But he obviously does. He saved himself for me.
“Quit thinking,” he murmurs against my lips. “Let it all go, Sage. Just be here with me … in this moment.”
“Yes, Silas.” I close my eyes, savoring every touch, the warmth of his skin, the cedar lingering, the salt when I swipe my tongue over his hot flesh, and how his body shakes, hands tightening their grip on me.
He helps me remove his jeans, then his boxers, cock free. I can’t help it. I sneak a look down, eyes rounding.
“You’re huge.”
He chuckles. “That a bad thing?”
“Don’t know.” My bottom lip trembles.
“I promise to go at your pace, Sassy. You’ve never minced words with me before, so don’t start now.”
I chuckle. “No, apart from the mistletoe kiss, I suppose I haven’t.”
“Give me your mouth again,” he demands, pulling me closer. “You’re my new favorite flavor.”
We move as one in the quiet of the cabin, hands exploring, goosebumped flesh and trembling hands, learning each other like worship. My legs wrap around his waist as he flips me onto my back, faces inches apart as he slides into me slowly, incrementally, taking his time.
It’s too much, I grimace, panic seizing my brain. He reads my face, pulling back then easing forward again, crooning words of comfort and love like I’m a wild Mustang he’s gentling. I relax around him, trusting, breathing, learning how to live in the space of what we both want.
Our breaths sync, hearts harmonizing as we find a rhythm that works. Each time he draws back, gives me a momentary reprieve, he thrusts a little harder, a little deeper, laying claim. My fingernails dig into his back, breath shuddering as I ride the line between pleasure and pain.
My hands descend to his round, tight ass, pressing him deeper, though my eyes sting, and I bite my bottom lip.
“Need more of you, Silas. All of you,” I groan as our bodies collide, growing together into one thing bigger than both of us.
“Don’t want to hurt you,” he murmurs, eyes appraising my face.
“I want you to wreck me,” I reply, chin darting up in challenge.
“Stubborn as always,” he says with a chuckle, hips digging deeper, pain unfurling around pleasure until I’m arching my hips up into him, taking everything he has to give.
“God, you feel so good, Sage. Like where I was always meant to be.”
“And you … Silas, your cock … yes,” I moan, taking and receiving in equal measure.
I cry out as he moves more confidently. Then stops, turning his head to the side for a moment, closing his eyes, and concentrating before thrusting again. His hand slides between us, circling my clit.
I float, fly away, breath coming faster, heart a timpani staccato. Eyes lock, all heat and tenderness. We come as one, bodies exploding into each other. Heat, pain, pleasure. All wrapped together in the dark need of decades.
When the storm finally quiets, we lie tangled in the hush, every secret stripped bare. One arm braces his weight, so he doesn’t crush me. His finger traces my jawline, eyes washing reverently over me.
“Never thought I could love you more than I already do, Sage. But you’re my everything.”
“And you’re mine,” I whisper, kissing his stubbled cheek.
A long silence follows, our breaths slowing. The heater kicks in again, a low whine. As the storm finally quiets, I don’t know where the sound of the wind ends and the rhythm of him begins.
Silas shifts, grabs his phone, eyeing the screen for a moment. “Still no signal,” he says. “Don’t want Ralph and the crew risking their necks on account of us.”
I nod, realizing how fragile the quiet of this little world we’ve created together really is. I don’t know if it’s ready to bear the weight of outside pressure yet, of what others will say and do to stop us.
“What’s that look for?” he asks, the creases deepening in his forehead.
“Just don’t want to deal with Walter, Ralph, the hands, anybody else right now. I want you all to myself. Is that selfish?”
“No.” But his voice sounds raw. “If you’re thinking you can hide this now, though, Sage. Well, I won’t let you. You’re mine, condemnation or not. I want the world to know it, and I won’t accept any less. Can’t ever live that half-life without you again.”
“Me neither, Silas.”
“Good, then.” His chest rumbles.
For the first time in eight years, I’m not cold.
My hands slide over his body, fingers tracing hard planes of muscle. I murmur, “You’re so different now.”
He exhales a shaky laugh. “How?”
“So hard. So built. So Marine.”
He chuckles, chest rumbling beneath my touch. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, voice barely above a whisper. “No matter what I told myself, I still saw you as that eighteen-year-old boy…”
His eyes are dark and searching. “I know. When I showed back up, saw you on the swing, you were sixteen all over again—the girl I left behind.”
“Without one letter. One call. One text.” Bitterness and longing coil around my throat. “Didn’t even come to the funeral.”
“Dad made me promise I’d leave you be.” His jaw tightens. “Only way I could keep that was by staying away … forever. Only one who could bring me back is you.”
“So, if I’d reached out myself, called or texted about Dad’s funeral?”
“I’d’ve been there,” he says, raw-voiced.
My forehead knits, unable to grasp what he’s saying. He received a formal invitation like everyone else. His absence stung. But I can tell by the lines of pain in his face, not nearly as much as my impersonal silence.
He adds, “I gave my word. To Ralph. To Walter. An impossible ask. Eight years of pain.”
“But why?” My voice breaks on the word.
He cups my cheek, thumb warm against my skin. “Because you deserve better than me, Sage. Always have.”
“No.” I breathe, shaking my head.
“Yes,” he insists softly. “The orphaned son of a ranch hand and the daughter of the biggest rancher in Alpha Ridge Creek? Never made sense. Me being your adopted brother just added insult to injury. Made me look like the asshole spitting in my benefactor’s face.”
“Not orphan,” I whisper, eyes stinging. “Not adopted son. Savior of this ranch.” I swallow hard. “If it can even be saved.”
He brushes my hair back, eyes fierce and tender all at once. “Dunno for sure, Sassy. But I’ll promise you this. If you won’t give up, I won’t either.”
My lips tremble. “We’ve never been the problem, though, have we?” I study his face, the small furrow between his brows, the wound neatly mended on his temple. “Maybe you and me, this, became the scapegoat. Easier to blame us than face how Walter was really tearing the family apart.”
He looks down, jaw flexing. “Never thought of it that way,” he murmurs. “Maybe it was easier than dealing with true heartbreak. At least from Dad’s point of view.”
The ache in his voice slices right through me. I reach for his hand, thread my fingers through his. “You would make Dad proud,” I whisper. “You always did.”
He laughs softly, the sound half-choked, half-warm. “Not at this exact moment, no. But I can promise him one thing—you’ll be safe, happy, cared for always.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. “That’s what he would want.”
“It is.” His lips brush mine, gentle at first, then more certain. “Enough about family. Enough about guilt.” His hand slides around my waist, voice dropping low. “What I want is right here in my arms.”
I snuggle into him, melting all over again. Outside, the storm continues its slow fade, leaving only the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against mine.