Chapter 14
Joelle
Wade scoops me into his arms with one fluid motion and starts up the stairs like I weigh no more than his saddle. My head rests against his shoulder, the steady thump of his heartbeat soothing as I come down from the greatest high I’ve ever experienced.
My legs are weak, thighs slick, every nerve raw from what happened downstairs. I should be embarrassed and ashamed for the desperate sounds I made and how easily I gave in to my urges and Wade’s seduction. But all I can think of is how good it felt. How absolutely right.
The bedroom smells of leather, soap, and something smoky that settles deep in my chest. He lays me down with care on cool, clean sheets. The mattress dips under my weight, and I pull the blanket to my chin.
“You cold?” he asks.
I nod, even though it’s more than that. I’m not confident enough to let him see my body all spread out this way. Uncertainty coils an ugly path inside me.
He leaves for a moment, then comes back with a glass of water, helping me to sit up to drink and watching to make sure I finish.
Then he takes a warm cloth and kneels between my legs again. Carefully, he wipes along the tender insides of my thighs, between my folds, over the places that still hum with sensitivity.
“You alright?” he asks quietly.
I nod.
But I’m not. Not really.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I came here to work. To earn enough stability that I could bring my boy here. I came to prove that I could build a life, finally, honestly, without handouts and definitely without any mistakes.
And what have I done?
I’ve slipped easily into a situation with a man older than me, a man who should be the only sort of family I have.
He’s my stepbrother, and he’s crawling into bed behind me, sliding his arm around my waist, pressing his chest to my back, and burying his face into the curve of my neck like we’re a married couple, accustomed to this closeness.
And he sleeps.
Just like that. A switch flicked off. Totally relaxed about what we’ve done.
But I don’t.
My brain won’t quiet.
I’ve never slept with a man before. Never known what it’s like to rest in a man’s arms, safe in his bed, cradled tight against his hard body.
Nothing in my life has ever been this easy.
Not Caleb’s birth. Not the years before. Not the part-time jobs or the arguments with my mom or the aching loneliness of raising a baby on instinct alone.
And definitely not Caleb’s father.
He’s a cowboy, too. Broad-shouldered with a slow smile and easy charm.
I met him at a county fair when I was barely old enough to know better, and he bought me soda and spun me around the dance floor until I was dizzy with it.
Then he bent me over the hood of his truck, filled me up, and vanished.
He must have sensed my innocence, felt my desperation for affection and love, dicknotised me into a huge lapse of judgment.
Looking back, I’m ashamed of how pathetic I must have been to him and how easily he manipulated me to get his dick wet.
I should’ve learned my lesson.
But it seems I’m as stupid now as I was at nineteen. As easily dazzled. As easily undone.
The only difference?
I have an IUD now. No more babies. No more surprises.
Still, what is this? A passing infatuation? A kink? A lonely man looking for simple comfort? Or something worse. Something that feels real and won’t be in the long run?
Because if my boy’s father taught me anything, it’s that cowboys like Wade tire. They move on. And women like me? We’re the mess they leave behind. Regret is a bitter pill I don’t want to taste again.
Wade stirs behind me, his breath shifting rhythm, his hand flexing on my hip.
Then his mouth, slow and warm, presses against my shoulder and down my spine to the curve of my ass.
He pulls the blanket away, and his hands part my thighs without a word.
“Wade—” I whisper, but any objection dies in my throat.
His tongue is already there, stroking through my folds with the same rhythm he used on my breasts earlier, teasing and worshipful, savoring my taste.
I clutch the sheets, breath hitching. My legs fall open, wider. I can’t help it. I need it. Feeling sexy and wanted is a drug I’m already addicted to.
His mouth laps, sucks and tugs just right until I’m moaning again, soft and desperate and frightened by how fast I fall.
I come with his tongue inside me, body arching, my cry half-buried in the pillow. I’m soaked. Shaking. Wrecked.
But he keeps going.
His mouth moves higher and finds my breast again. My nipple is already leaking, already aching, and he latches on like it’s his goddamn right.
He drinks, and I let him, while he moves inside me again, because whatever this is—comfort, kink, control—it feels better than being alone, even if it ruins me later. Even if he tells me to go, breaking my heart like the last one did.