28. Owen
“What was it like growing up on a ranch?” Delia asked the next morning over breakfast.
Around four that morning, we’d finally managed to burn off enough of the desire driving us to pass out for a few hours. I’d woken Delia shortly after ten with my head between her thighs, then hauled her out of bed for a real breakfast.
It was Saturday, the sky outside gunmetal grey, rain lashing the windows. The lake was dark and choppy, dotted with white caps as far as the eye could see.
The perfect day to stay inside and make it my mission to fuck this woman in every goddamn room of this house. I wanted her memory everywhere, filling these rooms with her sounds, with reminders of the pleasure we’d found together.
And then I wanted to keep making more, both inside and outside these walls, forever.
“Loud,” I said at last with a chuckle. “At least when my brothers came along. But chickens make constant noise, cows are always mooing, and if a horse gets spooked by something in the night, they wake the rest of them up with their neighing. The house isn’t that far away from the main barn and pens, and my bedroom faced out that way, so I never really got to sleep in. I supposed that made it easier once I started playing competitively and training happened at all hours of the day. I learned to survive on very little sleep.”
Delia rolled her eyes. “And you were complaining about me keeping you up all night.”
“Don’t get confused, Whiskey,” I said, pausing my flipping of our French toast to point the spatula at her, “I’ll never tire of that perfect pussy of yours. Getting no sleep to fuck you is hardly a hardship. But I feel like I ran a marathon. I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
She popped a grape in her mouth and said, “Could’ve fooled me.”
With a smirk, I turned from her and after a final flip, plated the French toast and slid a stack in front of her, along with butter, syrup, and powdered sugar.
“Eat,” I said. “Then maybe I’ll have you for dessert.”
“Promises, promises.”
I chuckled as I sat down next to her, diving into my own meal.
“To truthfully answer your question,” I said around a mouthful, “growing up on a ranch was probably a lot like growing up on the peninsula. We were outside all the time, running through the fields, messing with the animals, getting into all sorts of trouble. But we weren’t doing drugs or getting arrested, so Mom and Dad let us have our freedom.”
A wave of nostalgia crashed over me, had me wishing for simpler days. When it was just me and my brothers, raising hell, always discovering some new hidden gem on the ranch property. Like the swimming hole tucked away behind a tangled copse of trees a thirty minute walk from the house. Or the fast-rushing creek we’d taken to floating down on logs when we were feeling extra rebellious.
“The summer before I left for college, Trey and I got this idea to go rafting down this creek on the property,” I started a bit wistfully. “We invited all our friends, had some older guys buy us cases of beer, tied like thirty tubes together and set off. It was a blast…until we were ready to get off the water and realized we had floated too far away to walk back. My dad was spittin’ mad when he came to pick us up, a whole slew of other parents in tow to collect their own children. We’d ended up twenty miles from home and drunk off our asses. Trey and I were grounded and forced to stay within sight of the house for a month, which, I’m sure you know as a free range child yourself, was pure hell.”
Delia laughed. “That does sound a lot like growing up on the peninsula. All of my favorite childhood memories involve my sisters and being outside.”
“Mine too,” I said. “Because we were so close in age, Trey and I had a habit of encouraging each other’s recklessness. Dad tanned our hides more than once because of it.”
God, I’d have given anything to talk to Dad now. To tell him about this woman that had stolen my heart.
“He would’ve loved you,” I said quietly.
“I wish I could’ve met him. But I want to meet the rest of your family,” she said, at last looking up at me. “I want to see where you grew up. ”
“Whenever you want, Whiskey,” I said earnestly. “Say the word and we’ll be on a flight. You’ll fit right in with the chaos.”
She smirked at me. “It’s kinda nice having a sugar daddy.”
On the heels of mentioning my own dead father, the word ‘daddy’ shouldn’t have had my cock perking up, but I’d be damned if it didn’t turn me on.
“Daddy?” I asked. “Our age gap isn’t that big.”
“You know,” she said slowly. “In my romance novels, older men love being called ‘daddy’ in bed. It’s a major turn on for some.”
“Yeah?”
“ Yeah ,” she emphasized, studying me, eyes darting across my face as she gauged my reaction.
“And how do you feel about it?” I asked tentatively.
“I mean…you’re not old enough to be my father,” she said, “but I’ll admit you definitely give ‘daddy’ energy."
I huffed out a laugh. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“You’re an alpha male. A leader. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s an intangible vibe certain men give off, and you have it in spades.” She studied me. “How do you feel about it?”
“Honestly? I’m hard as a statue.” I reached for her nearly empty plate, shuffling it and mine to the side.
“I wasn’t done with that!” she protested.
“I don’t care,” I said, turning her seat so I could grip her under the thighs and lift her onto the counter. “I’m ready for dessert.” I reached beneath the hem of my tee Delia wore, a faded black Mustangs’ one with my last name and number emblazoned on the back, gripping my boxers by the waistband. Delia lifted her hips and I slid the underwear off, tossing them unceremoniously behind me. Then I met her eyes as I added, “And daddy gets what daddy wants.”
Delia shivered, goosebumps breaking out on her arms and legs. She gripped the tee as though to pull it off, but I stilled her.
“Keep it on,” I said. “Lest you forget who you belong to.”
“Never.”
“That’s right, baby. You’re mine.” I lifted a hand and brushed my fingers over her lips. “This mouth.” Lower to her chest. “These tits.” Further south to the apex of her thighs. “This pretty pink pussy. You might as well get my name tattooed on all of it.”
Leaning back on her forearms, Delia opened her legs wide and anchored her heels on the edge of the counter, spreading herself wide for me.
“Eat up.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice, and with a growl, I dove in. I showed her no mercy as I licked her from back to front, then sealed my lips around her clit and sucked hard. She bucked against me, and I chuckled against her flesh, my tongue fluttering rapidly against that bundle of nerves. This was as much for me as it was for her; all of her pleasure was. I loved unraveling her, loved the way her thighs quaked and clamped around my head the closer she got. Lived for her noises, her murmured praises, her hoarse cries of my name.
The way she whimpered, “Daddy, please,” right as she approached that precipice.
Fuck, I was already hard as steel, but that stiffened me further, almost painfully so.
“That’s it, Whiskey,” I said as I shoved my fingers inside her and curled them against her inner wall. “Come for me. ”
She blew apart, crying my name out as she shook, her pussy gripping me tightly and pulsing.
“O!” she screamed, and I didn’t know if it was an exclamation or a shortened version of my name, but I didn’t care.
“That’s right, pretty girl,” I murmured against her slick flesh. “O, as in Owen , the only man who can take care of you like this.”
“The only one,” she gasped out.
“My good girl,” I whispered, pressing a final kiss to her clit as she came down, licking her sweetness from my lips.
Then I rose and leaned over her, capturing her mouth with mine, letting her taste herself on my tongue. She came to me greedily, clenching my shirt in her fists, pulling me closer. I had half a mind to climb on top of her and fuck her right there.
We spent the rest of the day like that, alternately talking and tangling ourselves together, seeking pleasure. I was a man starved, like I’d been in the desert for too long without hydration, and she was an endless pool of fresh water. I finished showing her around my house, and we curled up in my small home theater, putting on one of her favorite 90s rom-coms while we shared stories.
She gave me a hand job that made a mess of my clothes, so I stripped, dragged her upstairs, bent her over the railing on the balcony off my bedroom, and fucked her from behind as punishment.
“Being bad is pretty fucking good,” she said afterward.
I gave zero fucks about anything outside of our bubble. I couldn’t have told you where my phone ended up after I’d used it to take photos of her the night before, and for the first time in a long time, my mind was as far from work as it could be .
There was only Delia.
It wasn’t just the sex, either, though that was all-consuming and mind blowing. Our connection was one I’d never experienced before and surely never would again—not that I wanted to. It was so easy to be with her, the way we moved around the house, making meals, conversing, discussing everything under the sun. It felt like we’d been doing it forever instead of only forty-eight hours.
I never wanted her to leave.
“Are we like…together now?” Delia asked on Sunday afternoon.
We were curled up in my bed, my front to her back, facing out toward the lake beyond my windows. Sweat from our recent joining was drying on our skin, and the sun had finally come out, sparkling on the waves, the sky a bright blue blanket overhead.
“Yes,” I answered instantly. “What a silly question.”
She turned in my arms, and I loosened my grip enough for her to pull back and stare into my eyes. “We haven’t exactly discussed it.”
“I thought it was obvious,” I said. “We’ve spent the last two days in bed together, Whiskey.”
“So,” she said, a bit petulantly. “Sex is one thing. A relationship is a whole other.”
“I want that with you,” I told her, raising a hand to rest it on the curve of her cheek. “I want everything with you.”
“Don’t you think it’s too soon to be discussing stuff like that?”
“Absolutely not,” I assured her. “I’m thirty-seven-years-old. I know what I want, and I never thought I’d find it. The day you shoved your way into my office and my business was the best of my life.”
Delia hummed happily as I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll have a serious conversation about this when we’re not naked and sex-addled,” she said. “But know I want everything with you too.”