Chapter 17 #2
I caught her around the waist before she could fall. Pulled her back against me. My arms locked around her middle, and her hands came up to grip my forearms. For a second we were just there—her back against my chest, both of us breathing hard, soaked through.
She turned her head, and her mouth was inches from mine, and the air between us went electric—nothing to do with the water fight, everything to do with the fact that we weren't hiding anymore.
"Steady?" I murmured.
"You did that on purpose," she breathed.
"Caught you? Yeah, I did."
Her eyes dropped to my mouth.
Then I picked up the bucket at my feet and dumped it over her head.
Her screech echoed across the entire ranch. She sputtered, wiped her eyes, and fixed me with a look of pure, delighted outrage.
"You—you—"
"Sorry." I grinned, not sorry at all. "Hand slipped."
"I am going to destroy you,” she said through clenched teeth, a fire in her eyes that made me feel alive.
"You can try."
The look she gave me promised retribution. The smile underneath it promised something else entirely.
Hunter had been standing off to the side through all of this, arms crossed, too cool for water fights. Until Stephanie snuck up behind him and got him square in the back with the hose.
His roar of indignation—betrayed, outraged, absolutely soaked—set everyone laughing so hard that work stopped completely.
"That's it," he announced, advancing toward Stephanie with murder in his eyes. "You're going in the tank."
Stephanie's shriek as Hunter chased her across the pasture was the soundtrack to the best afternoon I'd had in years.
Liam took off after them, yelling something about nobody putting his girlfriend in a tank, and the three of them crashed into a pile near the fence line that devolved into more splashing and threats.
The chaos wound down slowly, reluctantly.
Ranch hands drifted back to work, wringing out shirt hems and shaking water from their hats.
Liam hauled Stephanie up onto the hay bales stacked near the barn, both of them collapsing flat on their backs to dry in the sun like a pair of lazy cats.
Ivy murmured something to Wyatt that I didn't catch, and the two of them disappeared into the barn with the kind of casual stealth that fooled exactly nobody.
Hunter stood in the middle of the yard, surveying the carnage—overturned buckets, a hose still running, soaked saddle blankets draped over things they shouldn't have been draped over—and spread his arms wide.
"Cool. Great. I'll just handle all of this myself then."
Nobody answered him.
Maggie was leaning against the fence rail, hair dripping, shirt plastered to her body.
She looked wrecked in the best possible way—flushed and bright-eyed and grinning like someone who'd remembered what fun felt like.
Her chest was still heaving from the fight, and when she caught my eye, the grin shifted into something else.
Something that hit me right in the sternum.
She tilted her head toward the cabin path. Just slightly. Just enough.
I closed the distance between us. My own breath was still coming fast, heart still hammering, and not all of it was from the water fight. There was an energy vibrating between us—electric, urgent, the kind of charge that made the air feel thin.
"Your ankle—" I started.
"Don't care."
"Maggie."
"Don't care, Jack."
We made it about four steps down the path before I decided we weren't moving fast enough. I ducked, caught her around the thighs, and hauled her up over my shoulder in one smooth motion.
Maggie yelped. "Jack! What are you—"
"Saving your ankle."
"My ankle is fine.”
"It's not fine. Medical opinion. Hold on."
She was laughing—full, breathless, real laughter that I felt vibrate through my entire body—and her fists drummed against my back without any real force behind them. Sully bounded ahead, tail high, like this was the best game yet.
Behind us, Stephanies's voice rang out clear across the yard. “Get it, Maggie!”
Followed by a wolf whistle so sharp it probably carried to the next county.
I felt Maggie bury her face against my back, her whole body shaking with laughter. "Oh my God."
"Your family's real supportive."
"I'm going to kill her."
"Later." I adjusted my grip on her thighs, my thumb tracing the strip of bare skin where her shirt had ridden up. "You're busy."
I took the cabin steps two at a time. Sully trotted in first and settled by the door with the air of a dog who knew when he wasn't needed. I kicked the door shut behind us and set Maggie down, and the second her feet hit the floor, her mouth was on mine.
Hard. Hungry. Her hands fisted in my wet shirt and pulled, and I walked her backward until her hips hit the kitchen counter.
She gasped into my mouth, and I swallowed the sound, my hands sliding down to grip her waist, fingers pressing into the bare skin above her jeans where her soaked shirt had ridden up.
"Off," she demanded, yanking my shirt upward.
It stuck to my chest, and she growled—actually growled—fighting with the wet fabric until I reached back and hauled it over my head one-handed.
Her palms flattened against my stomach before the shirt hit the floor, and the feeling of her hands on my bare skin sent a jolt straight through me.
I returned the favor with less patience. Peeled her shirt up and off, wet cotton dragging across her skin, and she shook her blonde hair free. It fell around her shoulders in damp tangles. Wet lace. Flushed chest. Green eyes blazing up at me like a dare.
"You're staring," she breathed.
"Damn right I am."
I kissed her throat. The hinge of her jaw.
The spot below her ear that made her hips roll against mine.
She tasted like creek water and sunlight, and I wanted to taste every inch of her.
Her bra clasp was slippery under my fingers, but I got it free and she let it fall.
The sound she made when my mouth found her breast—low and ragged and completely unguarded—nearly dropped me to my knees right there.
Her jeans were the real battle. Soaked through, suctioned to her thighs like a second skin. I dropped to my knees on the kitchen floor and worked them down while she braced her hands on the counter behind her, breathing hard, watching me with those green eyes gone dark.
"These jeans," I muttered against her hip, "are a goddamn engineering problem."
"Less talking."
I got them off. Pressed my mouth to the inside of her thigh and heard her breath catch. Hooked my fingers into the wet lace at her hips and dragged it down, slow, and she whimpered.
"Jack—"
I put my mouth on her, and her hands sank into my hair. She wasn't quiet. Wasn't careful. Every sound she made was raw and real, and it went straight to my blood like whiskey.
I used my tongue, my fingers, found the rhythm that made her hips buck against me and then kept it — relentless, steady — while she fell apart above me.
Her back arched hard against the counter edge.
One hand left my hair and slapped flat against the countertop and her head fell back and she said my name like it was being torn out of her.
She came with her whole body. Shaking, clenching, a strangled cry that echoed off the cabin walls. I held her hips and worked her through it until she was gasping, until her fingers loosened in my hair and her body went liquid.
I kissed my way back up. Her stomach. The curve under her breast. Her collarbone. She caught my face and kissed me deep and filthy, tasting herself on my mouth, and the sound she made was somewhere between satisfaction and fresh hunger.
"Bed," she said. "Now."
She pushed me backward across the cabin. My legs hit the mattress, and I sat down hard. She climbed into my lap, her knees bracketing my hips. Her hands went to my belt and she was efficient about it—buckle, button, zipper—and when her hand wrapped around me I hissed through my teeth.
"Lie back," she murmured, and pushed my chest until I went.
She slid down my body. Took her time. Kissed my stomach, my hip bone, the trail of hair below my navel, and when her mouth finally closed around my cock, my fists twisted in the sheets, and my hips jerked before I could stop them.
She was good. She was devastating. Wet heat and clever tongue and those green eyes watching me from between my thighs with an expression that was half tenderness, half pure wicked intent. She hollowed her cheeks and took me deeper, and the sound I made wasn't something I'd ever admit to.
But I didn't want to finish like this.
I needed to be inside her. Needed it like air.
"Maggie—" My voice came out wrecked. "Come here."
She didn't stop. Took me deeper, hummed around me, and my vision whited out at the edges.
"Maggie." I reached down and slid my hands under her arms, dragging her up my body. She came, but slowly, letting her mouth drag the whole way—across my stomach, my chest, my throat—until her face was above mine and her wet hair curtained around us.
"I need to be inside you," I said against her mouth. "Now."
She reached between us. Positioned me. Sank down in one slow, devastating slide that pulled a groan out of both of us. Her forehead dropped to mine, and for a second we just breathed together—full, connected, trembling.
Then she rolled her hips, and we stopped being gentle.
This wasn't like before. Not slow. Not careful.
This was the water fight energy turned molten—raw and urgent and alive.
She rode me hard, and I met her thrust for thrust, my hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave bruises.
Her nails raked down my chest. I sat up and pulled her flush against me, and the new angle made her cry out, her head falling back, her throat exposed and perfect.
I kissed it. Bit it. Felt her clench around me and groaned against her skin.
"Harder," she gasped, and I flipped us. Drove into her deep, and she wrapped her legs around me and pulled me closer, her heels digging into the small of my back. The bed frame knocked against the wall. She was loud—gloriously, unapologetically loud—and every sound she made wound me tighter.
"Jack—God—right there—"
She started to tighten around me, and I held on by sheer force of will, driving the angle she needed, watching her face as she shattered. She came hard, clenching around me like a fist, and the feel of her—the sound of her—dragged me over the edge right after.
I buried myself deep and let go. It tore through me like wildfire, my whole body shuddering, her name the only word left in my mouth.
We lay tangled in the wreckage of the sheets, breathing hard, skin damp from water and sweat. Maggie was laughing—quiet, disbelieving laughter that vibrated against my chest.
"That was—"
"Yeah."
"We should have water fights more often."
I laughed into her hair and pulled her against me. She came easily, fitting herself into the curve of my body like she'd always belonged there.
She fell asleep fast—faster than I'd ever seen her go under.
One arm thrown across my chest, her face pressed into my shoulder, her body heavy with the kind of exhaustion that comes from being completely, thoroughly spent.
No tension in her jaw. No furrow between her brows.
Just Maggie, soft and still and peaceful.
Sully had moved from the door to the foot of the bed, curled in a warm circle. The cabin was quiet. The ranch was quiet.
Brad would have loved today.
The water fight, the laughter, the easy chaos of a family that didn't ask permission before pulling you in. He'd have been in the middle of i—instigating half of it, probably. He'd have had Sully soaked by the second bucket.
The thought didn't cut. It just settled. Grief and gratitude, braided together.
I'm building something, brother. Something worth keeping.
Maggie shifted in her sleep, burrowing closer. I pressed my mouth against her hair and breathed her in.
I thought about the maps in my glovebox. Two hundred acres northeast. Creek access. Room to build something real. I thought about the inheritance I'd carried like dead weight, waiting for it to mean something.
And I thought about the woman curled against me who'd cracked herself open because I'd asked her to come into the light. She'd come. She was here, warm and trusting and choosing me even in her sleep.
The least I could do was build something worthy of that choice.
Sully's tail thumped softly against the quilt.
"Yeah, Sul," I murmured. "We're staying."