Chapter 13 Adrienne
Adrienne
The ceiling fan clicks a lazy rhythm overhead, stirring cool air over my skin that still feels overheated and used.
I’m on my stomach, cheek turned to his side, drifting in that sweet, heavy place between sleep and satisfaction.
Every breath reminds me of where his mouth has been.
My thighs ache. My nipples pull tight when the sheet brushes them.
I can feel the fingerprints he left on my hips like tiny, pulsing hearts.
Scotty runs a fingertip down my spine, slow and absent, like he’s tracing a favorite road he could drive with his eyes closed. He toys with a strand of my hair, tucks it behind my ear, then does it again just to feel it slide through his fingers.
“You alive?” he rumbles, voice scratched raw from too much groaning and not enough sleep.
“Barely.” My words are muffled by the pillow. “You murdered me. Tell my Aunt Celeste that she’ll need to come out of retirement. I will be out due to death by excessive… enthusiasm.”
He huffs a laugh that shakes the mattress.
“You weren’t complaining when you were on your knees in the hallway.
” He drags his hand over my bare ass cheek, lowering his voice, “What was it that you said to me? Please, baby, let me taste you.” His voice is practically a growl at this point, “You were begging to suck my cock.”
I smile into the sheet, blushing because he’s right and he knows it. I was shameless, and I’m not even embarrassed because the man deserves every bit of praise he gets for his magic cock. “You deserved it after what you did to me on that kitchen table.”
His laugh rumbles against my back, low and satisfied. “Yeah, I guess I did toss you up there, didn’t I?”
“Mhmm.” I twist enough to glance at him over my shoulder. “You kept saying you were gonna devour me.”
He grins, unrepentant. “Couldn’t help myself. You looked too damn good with that still freshly fucked look on your face from the garage. All I could think about was spreading you out on that table and making a mess of you. Having you drip down my chin.”
My breath catches. “You succeeded,” I whisper, heat curling between my thighs at the memory.
The image flashes in my mind, the sound of the table creaking beneath us, the scrape of wood under my bare back, his rough hands gripping my thighs wide.
The way his voice broke when he slid into me, deep and hard, muttering something about how tight I felt.
Every thrust had been desperate, hungry, like he couldn’t get close enough even though he was already buried inside me.
And then, when he’d pulled out, dragging me off the edge just to watch me drop to my knees for him…God. The hallway. His fist tangled in my hair. The taste of him. His ragged voice growled my name like a curse. He didn’t just come undone; he completely surrendered.
Even now, hours later, my body clenches remembering it.
“I swear you’ve ruined me,” I murmur, half-teasing, half-dazed.
He smirks, brushing a knuckle along my jaw. “Didn’t hear you complaining when you were begging for seconds, baby. It wasn’t just my fault.”
“Maybe I was just being polite.”
“Polite doesn’t sound like you screaming my name loud enough to scare the neighbors.”
I try not to grin, but fail completely. “Fine. You’re right. I wasn’t polite.” I pause, eyes tracing his face. His hair is messy, the scrape of stubble shadowing his jaw, that cocky little smirk that still somehow manages to look boyish.
His hand moves, slow and deliberate, sliding beneath the sheet like he’s following the same memory I am. His fingertips drag down my spine, pausing at the dip of my lower back, then lower still.
His hand slides lower, leisurely, and lands warm and wide on my ass. His thumb circles where he marked me earlier, and I swear my bones liquefy. He gives a soft pat. Not rough. Possessive in a way that feels like a secret.
“You okay?” he asks, quieter.
I roll onto my side to face him. He’s propped on one elbow, hair damp at the temples from our shower earlier, where he took me again, mouth swollen, eyes that deep, stormy blue-gray in the lamp glow.
God, he makes me wet and achy even after he’s destroyed me.
He glances down my body with a flash of hunger and reins it in, dragging his gaze back to my face like he’s reminding himself to be gentle.
“I’m… good,” I say, a little laugh slipping out. “Sore. Walking tomorrow is going to be a performance.”
“I can carry you,” he offers, totally straight.
“That’s a terrible idea.”
He grins, slow and wicked. “I have great ideas.”
Silence drifts in. Not awkward. Easy. The house is quiet in that old, lived-in way. A clock ticks somewhere down the hall. The shower door is still cracked open, steam ghosting out. My body hums with that new, dangerous contentment that makes my brain want to say reckless things.
“Hey,” he says, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. “Where’d you go?”
I swallow. My fingers find his chest, the steady thud beneath warm skin. “Thinking.”
“About?”
“You.”
His mouth tilts. “Dangerous.”
“Maybe.” I glide my palm lower, just to feel the way his ribs expand under my hand, then settle back at his sternum. Don’t chicken out. “Do you ever think about what’s next?”
He stills. Not the protective kind of still, not the shutdown I’ve seen in other men when a woman asks for the future like it’s a verdict. His gaze slides to the ceiling fan, counting the clicks.
“What kind of next?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I keep my tone light, though my pulse skips. “Different. Doing something else. Moving.” The word is out, and I can’t take it back. “Since your parents have both passed.” I smooth my thumb over his heartbeat. “Do you ever think about leaving the house? The ranch? The garage?”
He looks at me again. “The house, the ranch, the garage,” he says, simple and true. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
There’s no apology in it. No defensiveness. Just the reality that he’s a man who likes a simple life, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
“My dad used to say a man shouldn’t need much to be happy,” he adds, his voice cracking slightly.
“Hard work that makes you feel good. Land that respects that you listen to it. A horse that knows your steps. We had that. We built it. When he died, the house… stayed active with his memory for a while. I thought about changing the place, but I read once that when you move walls, you lose the echoes.” He swallows. “I don’t want to lose more of him.”
My eyes sting. I scoot closer until my knee hooks over his thigh and press my forehead to his.
“You won’t,” I whisper. “He’s in you. In the way you fix everything, it deserves a second chance.
In the way you stand and watch a storm roll in like you’re listening to it.
In the way you honor his memory, just like he did with your mom. ”
He lets out a long breath. “Yeah. They’re both buried here, so away would mean…”
“I didn’t mean leave-leave. I guess I’m just asking if you ever want… more or different?”
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t run. He turns my face toward him with a knuckle under my chin so I have to meet his eyes. “Different isn’t always better.” It’s such a Scotty answer. Simple and honest.
“I’m happy here,” he says, and his shoulders loosen when he admits it.
“The mountains, the same roads to the shop every morning, the old chair of my dad’s that should’ve been burned a decade ago.
My mom used to hum when it rained. I still hear it if I leave the window open.
It’s one of my only real memories of her.
If I moved, it’d feel like leaving them again. ”
I think of our family ranch, of my mom’s Sunday roast, and my dad’s grin when he finally sits down with a load groan and his glass of bourbon.
The way certain corners of the house still smell like Christmas if you breathe deep enough.
Like if I closed my eyes, I could still see those birthday parties my parents threw for us Slade Triplets.
“Tell me about them,” I say. “Your mom. Your dad. What did she hum?”
“Old hymns she didn’t believe in. Patsy Cline, when she was dramatic.” His mouth tips. “Dad snored like a chainsaw and pretended he hated how needy Priscilla always was, but he kept sugar cubes in his pocket for her.”
I grin, remembering him as a lanky teenager with oil under his nails, riding across that same pasture on Priscilla. “Of course he did.”
“He said a man should never pass a broken thing twice,” he adds. “Either fix it or throw it away.”
“That sounds like pretty solid advice.”
“Yeah, he was a pretty straightforward kind of guy, no-nonsense. He used to say that’s one of the things my mom loved most about him. He didn’t complicate things. He loved her, and he showed it daily through his actions.”
I’m so close to asking him what happened that made him not want a life like that. He had amazing parents who were a great example of a lifelong commitment, and yet, it’s like he’s spent his whole life running from just that.
“And then they had you,” I say instead, the words coming out softer than I intend. He looks over at me, and for a few seconds, the air shifts, and it feels like we’re both on the precipice of saying something we can’t come back from.
His eyes hold mine a little longer. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, his thumb ghosting over my cheek. He leans in closer, nudging his nose along mine, breathing me in like he’s giving me time to catch up. I nod, small, and kiss him once, soft and sweet.
He follows me when I start to pull back, catching my bottom lip between his, that low sound in his throat. Heat flickers again. A coiled, content magnetism that pulls us closer without needing fireworks.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I murmur. “Or I’ll forget my body needs rest from the last time you looked at me like that.”