Chapter 4
WELLS
Ireturned Lincoln’s kiss like I’d been waiting years for permission. Maybe I had.
Her mouth was warm and sure, tasting like river water and heat. When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, she looked at me with those storm-gray eyes, and something shifted. The air got thicker. Heavier.
She pushed me toward the old couch against the back wall, her hands firm on my chest. I let her. Hell, I’d let her do damn near anything right then. My legs hit the cushions, and I dropped down, watching her the whole time.
“This is my next adventure,” she said, voice low and a little unsteady. “I want to take the lead.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Then lead, Lincoln.”
She stepped back just enough to give herself room.
First came the shoes, still damp and muddy from the take-out.
She crouched, fingers working the knots with quick efficiency, then kicked them aside.
Her tank top was next. She peeled it up and over her head, the wet fabric clinging for a second before it came free.
Underneath was a simple black swimsuit top—the kind that had seen real water, not some tourist string bikini.
Her skin was sun-flushed, a few faint tan lines showing where the life jacket had sat. Small, strong shoulders. The swell of her breasts rising and falling with each breath. My cock was already straining against my wet shorts, aching.
She hooked her thumbs in the river shorts and shoved them down her legs, stepping out. The swimsuit bottoms matched the top—practical, snug, outlining every curve.
When she reached back and untied the top, letting it fall away, I forgot how to breathe for a second.
Perfect, soft breasts, nipples already tight from the cool air coming through the open back door.
The river murmured outside like it was keeping watch, but quieter now, slower. Like it knew this part mattered.
She didn’t rush. She slid the bottoms down her hips, revealing the rest of her.
Strong thighs from all that hiking and paddling, the faint lines where the suit had pressed into her skin.
She was toned but soft in all the right places, and the sight of her completely bare in my office hit me like a Class V wave.
My hands flexed on my thighs, calluses rough against the damp fabric of my shorts. I wanted to touch every inch of her.
“Jesus, Lincoln,” I muttered, voice rough. “You’re killin’ me here.”
She gave me a small, brave smile and knelt between my spread knees. Her fingers went to the waistband of my shorts. I lifted my hips so she could tug them down, and my cock sprang free, hard and heavy against my stomach.
Her eyes went wide. She stared, lips parted, like she’d never been this close to a man before. The look on her face—pure wonder mixed with hunger—shot straight through me. I throbbed visibly under that gaze.
She reached out, tentative, and wrapped her fingers around me. Her hand was cool from the river, soft. I groaned low in my chest.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” she whispered.
She leaned in and touched the tip of her tongue to the head, right where I was already leaking for her. My hips jerked before I could stop them.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
She tried again, licking a slow stripe up the underside, then took me into her mouth. Awkward at first—teeth grazing once, a little too much suction—but she learned fast.
Within a minute, she had a rhythm that had my head falling back against the couch, one hand gently in her still-damp hair. The contrast between the wild adrenaline of the gorge this morning and this slow, deliberate heat was making my chest tight.
She was taking her time. Exploring. And it was the hottest damn thing I’d ever felt.
After a few minutes, I had to stop her. “Stand up, darlin’.”
She did, lips shiny, eyes dark. I shoved my shorts the rest of the way off, kicked my river sandals aside, and pulled her close, hands on her hips, guiding her forward until she was standing right between my knees.
I slid forward on the couch just enough to put my mouth where I wanted it and looked up at her.
I leaned in and licked her, slow and thorough, tasting the river and her and pure want. She gasped, hands fisting in my wet hair. I worked her with my tongue, then slid two fingers inside her, curling them just right while my thumb found her clit.
She rocked against my mouth, breathing broken, one hand braced on the back of the couch to keep herself upright, until her thighs started shaking and she came with a sharp cry that echoed softly off the office walls.
When she was still trembling, I nodded toward the desk. “The guys keep condoms in the top right drawer. Hidden behind the extra log sheets.”
She gave me this sly little grin that made my heart do something stupid, then walked over—naked, confident, beautiful—and came back with a packet. She tore it open herself and looked at me like she wanted to do the honors.
I let her. Her hands rolling it down my cock nearly ended things right there.
I pulled her back onto me, slow and careful. She straddled my lap, her knees sinking deep into the faded cushions on either side of my hips. The head of my cock nudged against her slick entrance, and I had to grit my teeth at how hot and soft she felt.
“Easy, darlin’,” I murmured, voice low and rough. “You set the pace. I’ve got you.”
Lincoln nodded, breath shaky, and started to sink down.
The first inch was pure heaven—tight, wet, velvet heat gripping me so perfectly my eyes nearly rolled back.
She made a soft, surprised sound in the back of her throat, half whimper, half moan.
I slid my hands up her damp back and held her steady.
“That’s it…just like that,” I whispered against her collarbone. “Feel me stretching you?”
She gasped sharply as she took another inch, her inner walls fluttering around me. “Wells…oh fuck. You’re so big.” Her voice cracked on the last word, needy and breathless.
I groaned deep in my chest as she sank lower.
The wet, slick sound of her pussy taking me in filled the quiet office—obscene and perfect.
When she finally settled all the way down, ass flush against my thighs, I was buried to the hilt inside her.
She was scorching hot, pulsing around every inch of me, so tight it bordered on pain.
I had to lock my jaw to keep from thrusting up like an animal.
“Fuck, Lincoln,” I rasped, lips brushing her nipple. “You feel incredible. So damn tight and wet for me.”
I ran my tongue over one stiff peak, then the other, sucking gently while my hand slipped between our bodies.
My rough thumb found her swollen clit and stroked slow, lazy circles.
She cried out, a broken little moan that went straight to my balls, and started moving—tentative rolls of her hips at first, then deeper, braver strokes.
The couch creaked softly beneath us. Every time she rose up, I heard the wet suck of her pussy dragging along my cock. Every time she sank back down, our skin met with a soft, fleshy slap. Her breathing turned into desperate little pants and whimpers.
I kept talking to her, low and steady, the way I’d talk her through a tough rapid.
“Look at you, ridin’ me so good… That’s my girl. Take what you need. Nice and deep.”
She moaned louder, head falling back, damp hair sticking to her shoulders. Her breasts bounced with every roll of her hips, nipples shiny from my mouth. The sight of my thick cock disappearing into her pretty pink pussy over and over—shiny with her arousal—was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
“Wells—” she gasped, grinding down harder, her voice turning ragged. “It feels…so full. I can feel all of you.”
I groaned and thrust up to meet her, just enough to give her that extra pressure. The wet slap of our bodies grew louder, faster. Her moans turned into sharp, needy cries.
“You’re squeezin’ me so tight, darlin’. You close again?”
She nodded frantically, nails digging into my shoulders. “Yes—don’t stop—please—”
I gripped her hips harder, guiding her rhythm, thumb still stroking her clit in firm circles. “Come on, Lincoln. Let me feel this pretty pussy come all over my cock.”
She shattered with a loud, broken cry, her whole body seizing up as she clenched around me in pulsing waves. The feeling of her coming—hot, rhythmic, fluttering so hard it milked my shaft—was too much. I thrust up deep and held her there as my own orgasm slammed into me.
“Fuck—Lincoln—” I growled against her neck as I came hard, hips jerking, filling the condom in long, powerful pulses while her pussy kept squeezing me through every wave.
We stayed like that for a while. Her forehead against mine, her breath slowing, her fingers loosening on my shoulders one by one. The river moved outside, steady and unhurried. The same sound it had been making since long before either of us was born.
I ran my hand up her spine. Slow. Feeling every notch, every warm inch of skin that was still damp from the river and flushed from everything else. She shivered. I pulled her closer, and she let me.
That was the part that undid me. She let me.
This woman who had taught herself to paddle from online videos because nobody would let her near the water.
Who had run the Gauley with nothing but internet tutorials and her own nerve.
Who walked into my lot at closing time and demanded the hardest run on the menu like the river owed her something.
She didn’t need anyone. She had made not needing anyone into a way of life, and it had worked for her, and she was good at it.
And she was sitting in my lap on a wrecked couch in a back office that smelled like river water and rubber, letting me hold her.
“Wells,” she said against my neck.
“Yeah.”
“I meant it. I’m staying.”
“I know.”
She pulled back just enough to look at me. Her hair was a disaster—the braid long gone, dark strands stuck to her jaw and her shoulders.
Her eyes had gone soft—no edge, no readiness, no storm. Something underneath all of that. Something she’d been protecting so hard she’d forgotten it was there.
“Not just tonight,” she said. “Not just for the next trip. I mean I’m staying.”
I brushed a strand of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. My hand was shaking. I’d run Dead Man’s Pocket a hundred times with steady hands, and this woman had me shaking.
“I heard you the first time,” I said.
The corner of her mouth moved—the beginning of the smile that had been pulling at me since yesterday, finally landing. Warm and real and aimed at me like I’d earned it.
I kissed her forehead. Then her nose. Then the corner of that smile, because I could, because she was here, because she wasn’t leaving.
The river kept going outside. The mini fridge droned. The logbook was still open on the desk, the pen still where I’d set it down, the incident column still blank.
I was never going to log the rock. But I was never going to forget who saw it.