Chapter 13 Adrienne #2
“I like it when you forget.” He drags his thumb along my mouth, studying the curve like he’s memorizing it. “Gives me another chance to remind you how good you’ve got it.” He grabs my hand and presses it against his firm cock. I snort, and he laughs with me, the bed shifting as his chest shakes.
“Is that how you keep them coming back?” I tease, poking a finger against his chest. He grabs it, bringing it up to his mouth to softly bite the tip.
“Why do you bring up other women in these moments?” His eyes search mine. The question isn’t malicious, I can see the genuine curiosity in his expression… or maybe it’s pity.
Suddenly, I feel a wave of shame and insecurity wash over me. I knew exactly who Scotty was the second I kissed him. Hell, I’ve known who he was since I was thirteen years old.
“Sorry, I—It’s insecurity,” I admit sheepishly. “Not jealousy,” I clarify.
His brow furrows as he cups my face. “I meant what I said about not competing, Adrienne; that goes the same way. If you’re in my bed, nobody else is. I know I don’t have my life completely figured out, but I know enough that I never want to lose you.”
“I know.” I place a hand over his, trying to keep the next question inside. “But for how long?” I close my eyes, pressing my forehead against his, praying he doesn’t answer if it’s going to break my heart. But the questions I didn’t ask hums under my skin.
Do you ever picture me in that life? Do you ever see us in the future?
The words crowd my throat and stall there.
He’s telling me the truth I don’t want to accept without saying a word.
So I slide closer and let him pull the comforter up over my back.
He tucks it beneath my shoulder with ridiculous care, then covers his own body with the sheet and tugs me in until my leg is trapped over his hips and my cheek is on his chest. His palm coasts down my spine and settles at the small of my back like a lock clicking home.
The sheet slips down as I sit up, the air cooling against skin still damp with sweat and Scotty’s scent. Every muscle protests, a sweet ache low in my body, reminding me how many times he made me come tonight.
“I should go home,” I murmur, swinging my legs toward the floor. “It’s late. I have work in the morning.”
His hand catches my wrist, rough thumb brushing the inside where my pulse kicks. “Stay.”
I turn back. He’s propped on one elbow, his chest bare, hair mussed. God, he looks so sexy.
“Scotty—”
“Just stay,” he says again, quieter now. He tugs lightly until I fall back against him.
My head finds his shoulder, and I nuzzle against his neck, the same spot that has so quickly felt like it was meant for me. “You know I shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
I lift my gaze to his. “You know why.”
For a long moment, he just looks at me, and it feels like the world holds its breath.
Then he threads our fingers together, slow and deliberate, bringing my hand to his mouth.
One by one, he kisses each fingertip, his lips hot and patient.
When his tongue flicks and draws one into his mouth, I stop breathing altogether.
“Don’t mess with my head like this,” I whisper, though it comes out weaker than I want.
He cups the back of my neck, pressing his forehead to mine, voice low and gravel-soft. “I’m not.”
Something fragile and dangerous stretches between us—whatever this thing is that we keep pretending isn’t real. I can feel it in every exhale, in the steady beat beneath his ribs, in the way his thumb strokes the hollow of my throat like a promise he won’t break.
“Stay,” he murmurs, not a command this time. A request. A rough, quiet one that makes my heart feel like it’s being squeezed in a vice.
I don’t answer right away. I press my mouth to his collarbone and breathe him in.
The fan keeps time with its rotation above us.
I rest my palm against his chest, finding his heartbeat.
For now, I let the ache settle against my ribs.
I let the want exist without a deadline.
I let him be a man who keeps his walls where they are and still lets me inside them just a little.
“I’ll stay,” I breathe finally.
His sigh is a quiet, shaky exhale against my lips, and then he kisses me.
When he pulls the blanket over us, his arm slides around my waist, pulling me close until I’m molded to him. The last thing I hear before sleep steals me is his whisper against my hair.
“Good girl.”
Something warm presses to my shoulder, and at first, I think it’s the dream I was having—sun on my skin, his hands heavy and confident as they do wicked things to me. Then the mattress dips, and his voice scrapes low against my ear.
“Baby. Five-oh-eight.”
I pry one eye open. The room is gray-blue, the window still a square of dark. He’s already showered with damp hair under a faded Rockies cap, T-shirt clinging to his chest, jeans sitting low on lean hips. There’s a to-go cup on the nightstand, steam curling from it.
“No,” I croak. “Absolutely not. You’re insane.”
He smiles, his laugh soft against my ear. “Coffee’s there. Hot. Two sugars, splash of cream.”
I groan and burrow deeper, but the scent reaches me, rich and sweet, and I give up, rolling to my back. Every muscle protests, a slow, satisfied throb between my thighs.
“You’re awfully put together for a man who kept me up half the night,” I mutter, pushing up on my elbows and dragging the sheet with me.
“Early start,” he says, easy. “Horses have to be fed before I head in.”
I squint at him over the cup lid as I take a first sip. “Uh-huh. Or you’re trying to get my car off your property before the guys show up and start flapping their mouths.”
He steps closer, bracing a hand on the headboard by my shoulder, and tips my chin up with two fingers. The gesture is gentle, but it pins me in place. His eyes are clear and steady.
“This has nothing to do with anyone seeing anything,” he says, slow and deliberate. “I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks.”
The words land with sincerity. I hold his gaze, heartbeat thudding against my tongue.
Before I can make a joke or poke at the edges of it, he slides his palm to the back of my neck and kisses me hard, coffee forgotten, his mouth stealing the air from my lungs.
By the time he pulls back, I’m half under again.
“Finish getting ready,” he murmurs, and punctuates it with a sharp smack to my ass. Heat skitters low in my belly, and I swat at him on instinct, laughing even as the pressure behind my ribs expands.
I swing my legs out of bed and pad to the bathroom.
In the mirror, my lips still look slightly swollen, and my hair is a lost cause.
I jump into the shower, deciding it will be easier to get ready once I’m back home if that part is done.
After, I brush my hair and teeth, pull on my dress from last night, and shove my heels into my bag in favor of the spare flats I always keep on hand.
When I step back into the bedroom, he’s standing there with my jacket folded over one arm, my purse looped on two fingers like a gentleman out of a different century.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I take another sip of coffee and try to ignore the way his earlier sentence keeps echoing between my ears like the fan blades last night.
I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks.
I don’t say it out loud, but it feels like something shifting. Like the weather turning just before dawn. Instead, I ignore the question that bubbled up on instinct when he said that.
Does that include my brothers?
We climb into the cab of his truck, and he turns the engine over. His truck smells like him; it always has. He drives with one hand loose on the wheel, the other anchored high on my thigh, thumb tracing idle shapes that make me grateful for the darkness.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye.
Cap pulled low, damp ends of hair curling against his neck.
I want to reach out and run my hand against the dark scruff of his jaw, but I don’t.
Something about that feels too intimate.
Instead, focus on his lips, memories of the way he kissed me last night flooding my brain.
On the dirtiest, filthiest things I’ve ever heard a man say.
The road is empty. The radio’s off, it’s just the dull hum of the tires on asphalt.
Every few miles, we pass a fence post with a reflector, and each little flash is a heartbeat inside the cab.
My body is loose and sore, my mind too awake.
His hand tightens once on my thigh when we take the bend by the cottonwoods.
He doesn’t move it after. He doesn’t need to. The message is clear without words.
I press my palm over his knuckles and leave it there.
He doesn’t look away from the road, but I see the corner of his mouth tip, just barely.
Something warm slides deeper into my chest, a warm pull that isn’t pain.
By the time we pull behind the garage, the sky has diluted to milk-blue.
The bays are dark, the gravel lot still.
He kills the engine, and the truck settles with a soft creak. Neither of us moves.
He’s the one who breaks first, stepping out of the cab and walking around to open my door. “Come on,” he says, voice soft.
We walk the short distance together. He carries my bag even though I could. At my BMW, he opens the door like a gentleman. He leans in and slides the coffee into the cup holder and places my purse on the passenger seat.
When he straightens, our eyes catch. Linger. All the things we didn’t say last night crowd the small space between us.
Do you want more? Do I? Can we?
He reaches for me, one big palm cupping my jaw, the other spanning the column of my throat, steady and warm.
The kiss he gives me isn’t the teasing, greedy one when he wants to leave me aching and needy.
Nor is it the wicked one when he wants to send me away, remembering just how deeply he fucks me.
It’s slower, deeper, a different heat entirely.
My fingers curl in his shirt. I let myself lean, just for a breath. When he finally pulls back, he rests his forehead to mine for two heartbeats and then three, like he’s syncing us on purpose.
“Go,” he murmurs, almost a smile. “Before I change my mind and drag you back to the truck.”
I swallow, throat tight. “Thanks.”
He steps back, hands dropping to his pockets, shoulders sagging like he isn’t ready to watch me leave. I climb in and shut the door, starting the engine and putting it into drive before I jump out and ask him to run away together.
As I angle the rearview mirror, I catch him in the reflection… standing there in the growing light, cap low, watching me leave. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t wave. Just stands solid as the mountains behind him, eyes on me like a tether I can’t see but feel anyway.
The ache in my chest deepens, a quiet, steady fullness that feels a lot like falling. I back out slowly, fingers tight on the wheel, and I swear I can still feel the heat of his palm on my thigh all the way down Main.