Epilogue
WOLFE, OCTOBER
The tight heat of Trace’s ass around my cock felt new every fucking time I was lucky enough to experience it. Six months of plastering myself as close to Trace Bishop as possible. And everything still felt new.
“Oh god, Trace,” I croaked. “Not gonna last.”
I felt his huff of laughter in my dick. “You say that every time you fuck me.”
He was on his back on our sofa, knees up by his shoulders and face ruddy from the hour-long make-out session that preceded this. My cock pushed deeper inside him until my hips brushed his ass.
His eyes rolled back. “There. Fuck, baby. More.”
My brain immediately began running chromatic scales to keep from thinking about how good this felt.
About the ridged muscles of his abs from his busy summer at SERA.
The way his tan made his eyes even brighter.
The cut quad muscles under my greedy fingers.
The way he sounded like sex incarnate every time he murmured the word baby at me.
“Stop talking,” I squeaked.
The rumble of his laugh only made it worse. He was so fucking sexy. So fun and sweet. So goddamned loving.
His hands moved into my hair. “Look at me. Let me see those pretty eyes, sweetheart.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, which only made him laugh some more.
“So fucking cute. Ah, fuck. Like that again, baby.”
“Not cute,” I gritted out, pulling back and slamming into him, making sure to peg just the right spot. His groan was my reward, long and guttural, drawn out in the stillness of the room.
I glanced around, still desperate for a distraction, and landed on one of the newest photos he’d hung on the wall.
It was a shot of me performing with Lyra Vale at one of her concerts in LA.
After apologizing to her for not giving her a heads-up on my big reveal, I’d agreed to do a set at one of her live shows.
It was fun and exciting, but also nerve-racking and terrifying.
It was enough for me to decide that big-stage performances weren’t for me.
There were also photos of Trace and me laughing over pizza and wine at Alex’s restaurant, the profiles of Rosie and Lennon visible next to us.
Snapshots of Gabe and Hunter from Aunt Tilly’s bachelor party, where Trace and I had arrived embarrassingly late for…
reasons. A collage of photos that included one of Dad and Papa when they borrowed the camper van, one of Rosie, Lennon, and me too tipsy from Slingshot Flames at Timber, and one of Trace holding my cousin Hazel’s baby as the Montana sunset threw its peachy warmth all over everyone’s faces.
We’d had a summer full of nights like that.
But now that it was autumn, I looked forward to the winter season, when things would slow down a little, and the two of us could focus on time together, planning our new house that would be built on the parcel of Marian land that had been earmarked for me here in Legacy.
I’d switched parcels with Rosie since hers was closer to SERA, and when the house was completed, Trace would be able to walk to work or ride his mountain bike.
“Look at me, dammit.”
My eyes snapped back to Trace, whose knowing grin saw right through me, always. “You’re too hot,” I explained. “If I look at you, I can’t keep from thinking about how good you feel.”
As soon as I was back in my body, I noticed everything. The way my body had already naturally found his gland, the way his fingers tugged my hair with just the right amount of pain, the warm squeeze of his inner thighs on my sides.
“You going to come for me, Wolfe?”
Even when I topped, Trace stayed in charge. It was a dynamic that I fucking loved, now that I’d let myself have it without feeling like I needed to be ashamed or embarrassed by it.
“You first,” I croaked. As if I could hold back much longer.
I stroked his dick, then reached down to give his balls a quick, gentle tug, before moving back up to fist his shaft. Trace arched back into the sofa, managing to take me even deeper, his voice pleasure-rough. “Just like that. Fuck!”
Not for the first time, I found myself wishing there were a way to be inside him while he was also inside me. Sometimes I just wanted to crawl beneath his skin and burrow right against his heart so we could move through the world together and never have to be apart.
His fingers let go of my hair and came down to settle over the front of my throat. His hold was loose, but enough to remind me whose I was.
His.
Completely.
“Baby, please,” he groaned, telling me it was okay to feel it. To let go and ride the wave with him. I thrust hard one more time and felt the wet warmth of his release spill over my hand as I came deep inside him.
I collapsed into him as his legs unfolded and wrapped loosely around me. His voice murmured something breathy and affectionate as his hands moved up and down my sweat-damp back.
“’S too good,” I said into his hot skin.
The rumble of his laughter vibrated through our chests where they were stuck together. “No such thing.”
After a while, when my heart no longer felt like a herd of elephants, he shifted under me. “Gotta get up. Your family’s expecting us. At this point, we’re probably going to be late—”
“Our family,” I corrected out of habit. He still hadn’t gotten the message, no matter how many times I’d repeated it.
Trace pinched my side. “Get off me so I can go earn brownie points with your sister.”
For some reason, Rosie was the holdout, the lone person in the family who had a hard time believing Trace and I were actually together. It wasn’t that she disapproved of it; she simply thought it was weird. She still thought of him as an uncle, which made the two of us dating super-creepy.
I moved off him and stood. “Maybe if you spend half the night with your hand on my ass, she’ll get used to it.”
As he stood and walked toward our bedroom, I took my fill of his glorious rear view, still blotched with pink from where I’d slammed my hips against it.
“Admit it,” he called over his shoulder. “You just want me to fondle you all night.”
“Is that a complaint?” I asked as I followed him like a lovesick pup.
I crowded him into the bathroom and then the small shower.
I was already looking forward to the much larger shower we planned for our new house, even though we wouldn’t be able to move into it for at least a year.
But in the meantime, the SERA cabin was cozy enough.
And when we needed more room, we decamped to Marian Lodge and found whatever space we needed.
For me, this mostly meant taking advantage of the small sound booth Papa had put in two years ago. I used it to record new songs and play around with Papa on fun joint projects.
My father had immediately tried to sign Fletcher Coe to a deal with his new label—the one he’d started with Zee Barlo not too long ago.
But I’d held him off for now. Being out as Fletcher was still too new.
I’d worked with my original team, and Trace, to determine that keeping things as steady as possible was what I needed now. Change could come in time.
In the meantime, I was still writing songs, recording videos for social media, and selling rights. I’d sat down for one big interview back in June, a month after the impromptu Legacy performance, and answered questions about Fletcher Coe and the reasons I’d kept my identity a secret for so long.
The response had been… mixed.
Yes, there were plenty of people who still believed my success had come from my father’s contacts in the industry or the silver spoon in my mouth at birth.
But the viral videos of Papa’s reaction that night had put most of that to rest. He wasn’t a good actor, and that had been genuine confusion and surprise.
For the most part, people were supportive, and in many ways, Fletcher Coe being related to Jude Marian only made the deal that much sweeter. People wanted both of us. And they thought they could get to each of us through the other.
There had been several times in the past few months when the fandom lunacy had put Trace over the edge.
He’d immediately called Joel at On Your Six to put a security detail in place, and he’d even installed fencing and a gate on the residential area of the SERA property.
Now, because of me, all SERA students and staff had to badge themselves into the parking lot and their own cabins.
One of the trade-offs was the increased attention on SERA itself.
Trace’s association with me had brought even more mainstream media coverage of the program, which had, in turn, boosted enrollment and moved forward his expansion plans.
He was in the process of hiring someone to take over operations so he wouldn’t have to sacrifice his time in the field.
It was a work in progress.
But one of the things I loved most so far about living in Legacy was exactly what we were late for. A big Marian get-together at the lodge.
Despite my eagerness to meet up with my family, I decided Trace’s body deserved plenty of time and attention in the shower.
“If you drop to your knees, we’re not leaving here tonight,” he growled. “So help me, I will put you in that bed and keep you there like I did last time.”
My face heated with the memory. He’d edged me all night long, and when Rosie had complained the next day that I’d promised to bring the whipped cream for the chocolate pie she’d made, I’d flushed beet red with the memory.
Foster and Tommy had exchanged a look with each other before making a joke about us somehow putting good use to the whipped cream.
Trace had confirmed it with a wink, which had only made me blush harder.
It hadn’t helped Rosie’s attitude toward Trace.
“Fine,” I said, putting the soap back on the shelf. “But when you’re two glasses of chardonnay deep in a conversation with Alex about prosciutto versus pancetta, remember this.”