Chapter 7
Joelle
The kitchen is scented with bacon, strong coffee, and toasting bread. I move through it on instinct, plating everything and pouring into mugs. I don’t ask the men if they’re hungry; men who work hard like they do always are.
Wade sits at the head of the table, and then the others take their places. Eli first, eyes darting, grin suppressed but still present like he has a joke permanently on his mind. Then Rick, who wipes his hands on his jeans. Caleb takes his chair last, lounging like he’s always been there.
No one talks at first. They eat with that focused silence only hungry men have, eyes down, forks scraping plates, coffee mugs lifted, food disappearing fast.
I don’t ask if they like it because I can tell that they do.
Then Eli breaks the silence.
“This is good, Joelle. Real good. Thank you.”
“It’s my job,” I say, clasping my hands in front of me.
“Sit,” Caleb says. “Eat with us.”
“Oh, I was nibbling as I was cooking,” I admit, thinking about the pounds I have to lose.
“Not the same as sitting and eating with company,” Wade says.
I concede and pull out the chair nearest to Caleb, fixing my plate with pancakes and bacon. Wade watches, passing me the maple syrup. When I chew on my first bite, the table seems to relax.
Stories flow. Near misses, drunken nights, a steer that broke through the fence and wandered into town.
Eli does most of the talking, wise cracking, and raising eyebrows.
Rick chimes in with dry one-liners that make us all wheeze.
Caleb stays mostly quiet but smiles warmly every time I glance his way.
They treat me like I’m part of the inner circle. It feels warm like a family I’m not part of yet but maybe could be.
And yet, I feel like a fraud sitting here in Wade’s T-shirt, breasts aching with milk, pretending that what we did yesterday wasn’t gross and terrible. What would Caleb say if he found out? What if he already knows?
Wade wants me to try out for the job for days, and I’m full to bursting again. What am I going to do?
When the plates are empty and the last sip of coffee’s gone, Wade leans back in his chair and tips his chin toward the door.
“Back to it.”
No questions. They all stand. Rick nods at me and dips his head respectfully. “Thank you, ma’am. That was really somethin’.”
Eli winks. Caleb hesitates like he wants to say something, then follows the others out into the sun.
The kitchen’s quiet again. The air feels heavier with them gone, thick with a weird, buzzing anticipation.
Wade watches me from his chair.
I don’t move.
“Need anything else?” I ask.
His eyes lower to my chest.
I already know what he’s going to say before he says it.
“You need some relief?”
The way he says it carries an additional layer that isn’t about being drained but being fulfilled. I feel the answer before I speak it: The pressure behind my nipples. The dampness between my legs. The ache everywhere.
“Yes.”
Wade stands slowly, walking toward me with all his swagger out in full force, dark t-shirt straining across his chest.
“I’ll take care of you,” he says and lifts his chin. “Come upstairs.”
***
My room is small and clean. I made the bed and rested my bag in the corner. I didn’t bring much with me. Just a change of underwear, a spare tank, and a toothbrush in case I’d have to stay overnight. It still smells like someone else’s soap in here.
Wade closes the door behind us. He looks at me for a long moment like he’s trying to decide how this should go, his jaw working.
Then he steps closer and peels my shirt up slowly like he’s done it a thousand times and it’s perfectly natural to see his stepsister’s breasts after breakfast. I lift my arms and he strips the shirt over my head.
I’m not wearing a bra, and when I look down, a trickle of milk is already leaking from one side.
He cups both breasts, thumbs brushing my curves, assessing. It feels clinical in a way, but tender too. “Still sore?”
I nod.
He leans down, latches onto one nipple, and sucks. The relief is instant, sharp and sweet, making me gasp. His hands hold me firmly as the milk flows faster this time, as though my body remembers how much greedier he is.
He groans, his rough hand squeezing my hip, and I tip my head back, surrendering to how good he makes me feel. But this time, he does more than just milk me.
His hand drops lower, cupping my ass, squeezing tentatively like he’s waiting for me to object.
I don’t. The pressure feels good and knowing a man like Wade, so big, strong and in control, wants me this way does funny things to my insides.
I can’t hide from him like this. My body is bared to him.
What we’re doing is as intimate as any kind of sex.
My previous orgasm, intentional or not, splintered any kind of boundary between us.
Still roaming, his hand slips between my thighs, palm firm against the soft fabric of my white cotton panties.
His heat sears through, awakening my clit.
I gasp again, louder, and his responding groan vibrates against my nipple.
This is so much more than relief of a biological problem—but even though doubt flickers through me, my body craves what I know he can give me.
His fingers press against my panties, testing. Then they tease at the edge of the fabric, meeting slick flesh, slipping inside where I’m warm and wet. Embarrassingly wet.
And he knows it.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, his tongue trailing the underside of my nipple. “All cream and honey.”
I grip his shoulder with one hand, the edge of the dresser with the other.
He sucks harder. His fingers work deeper.
The ache is unbearable. The pleasure is worse.
I’m not just a body responding to his hands.
I’m a woman craving what I haven’t had in too long, aching for attention, comfort and connection.
But this is wrong. He’s my stepbrother. This is a job I desperately need, and now I’m coming apart under the expert touch of a man who’s supposed to be giving me a second chance. I’m risking everything.
My body gives up before my mind does.
I don’t mean to come. Not like this with his mouth still drawing milk and his fingers stroking that deep spot that makes me cry out, but I do.
It tears through me in a rush, making my hips jerk and my milk let down faster, thighs clenching around his wrist. I hear myself moan his name from a distant plain where harps play softly and stars flicker in a midnight sky.
Wade keeps feeding while I fall apart.
Only when I go soft against him, boneless and panting, does he finally pull back. Wipes his mouth. Straightens.
His eyes are dark and satisfied.
“You taste better than anything, Joelle, and I mean anything!”
I laugh, flushed and dizzy, flushing harder as he sucks the fingers one by one that were moments ago between my legs.
I’m trembling, my knees weak as I steady myself against the furniture, my pussy pulsing hard around nothing.
The front of his jeans is tented but he gives no other indication that he’s seeking satisfaction of any kind, and I don’t understand why.
Doesn’t he want me? Is this really about him helping me relieve my little problem?
Wade never struck me as a man overflowing with altruism.
“You’re going to ruin me,” I whisper, my mouth running away with me, confessing a truth I should hold close to my heart rather than hang out in the midday sun.
But I mean it, because part of me already feels claimed by this cowboy, and I don’t know if I should stay or run.
There are other places I could go. Other ranches that might need a live-in cook and housekeeper. But I don’t have time to drive these mostly desert lands, anymore than I have money for gas.
Wade grins, and it crinkles his cloud-gray eyes to perfection.
He cups my cheek with his work-roughened palm. “That’s the idea, sweet little Joelle. That’s the idea.”