Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Wyatt
The noise drained out of the brewery slowly.
The last clink of glass. The scrape of chairs being turned upside down and stacked, employees waving as they left for the night.
The hum of the refrigeration system took over, settling into a lower register, like a living thing easing into sleep.
By the time I locked the front door and slid the bolt home, the space felt different.
Intimate. Watchful. Like it knew something was about to happen and was willing to keep the secret.
She’d come in as the last customer left and stood near the bar.
She ordered a drink, her fingers wrapped around a lowball glass she hadn’t taken a sip from.
Her hair was loose, falling over one shoulder in a way that felt deliberate even if it wasn’t.
Like she’d dressed for herself and ended up dressed for me anyway.
She looked over her shoulder when she heard me coming behind her.
“You’re closed now?” she asked. Her voice was steadier than I expected. Mine wasn’t.
“Yeah, just you and me.”
She nodded once, like that answered something inside her. “Good.”
I set my keys down on the bar slower than necessary. Gave myself a moment to breathe. To remember she’d been through hell and that wanting her didn’t give me the right to take anything from her she didn’t offer.
She watched me do it. I could see the flicker of awareness cross her face. The way her shoulders dropped a fraction, like she noticed I wasn’t going to rush her.
“I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
A ghost of a smile touched her mouth. “Guess we were both wrong.”
I moved behind the bar on instinct, poured her water without asking, and set it in front of her. She didn’t reach for it. Her eyes stayed on me instead, following the movement of my hands like she was grounding herself in something solid.
“How are you?”
She huffed a quiet laugh. “That’s a loaded question.”
“I know.”
She leaned against the bar, glass forgotten. “I’m here.”
It wasn’t much. It was everything.
I nodded. “That’s enough.”
Her gaze sharpened at that, something flickering low and hot beneath the exhaustion I knew too well. She pushed away from the bar and moved before stopping close enough that I could feel her heat, the faint tremor running through her like her body hadn’t quite decided it was done reacting yet.
“You keep saying things like that,” she said softly. “Like you don’t need anything from me.”
I swallowed. “I don’t.”
“That’s a lie.”
I met her eyes. Didn’t flinch. “It’s not.”
She studied my face like she was searching for a crack, a tell, something she could call out and use as an excuse to pull back. When she didn’t find it, her breath shuddered out of her.
“I didn’t come to thank you.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t come to talk about what happened.”
“I know.”
“I came because everything still feels wrong,” she said, the words finally roughening. “Because I wake up and it’s like my body doesn’t belong to me yet. Because I don’t know how to be normal again, and I needed something to remind me that I’m still here.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t touch her. Didn’t give her anything she hadn’t asked for.
She stepped closer anyway.
Her fingers brushed the edge of my shirt, tentative at first, like she was checking whether the ground would hold. When I didn’t stop her, didn’t lean in or take over, her hand flattened against my chest, warm and steady, and something in her expression shifted.
She kissed me like she’d already made peace with the consequences.
It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t desperate. It was slow and deliberate and full of intent, like she was choosing the moment instead of being carried by it.
Her mouth was warm, soft, insistent in a way that sent a jolt straight through me, down to a place I hadn’t let myself acknowledge since the night I’d found her.
I let her lead. Let her set the pace. When she pulled back, breath uneven, I rested my forehead against hers and forced myself to stay right there.
“You sure?” I asked quietly.
“Yes.”
It wasn’t hesitation in her eyes. It was hunger. It was need braided with fear and the fierce determination of someone who decided she was done being afraid of her own body.
I kissed her again, deeper this time, my hands finding her waist, her back, the curve of her spine under my palms. She made a sound low in her throat that felt like it was meant only for me, and the restraint I’d been holding onto tightened, not loosened. Care sharpened it. Focused it.
The brewery disappeared around us.
There was only the press of her body, the way she fit against me like she’d always known where she belonged, the way her fingers slid up my arms and hooked into my shoulders like she was anchoring herself to something solid.
The taste of her. The sound of her breathing.
The heat that built between us, slow and relentless, until it felt like the only honest thing left.
Moving my hand to the back of her head, she instinctively pulled to the side, letting my lips slide down to her neck and tasting the sweetness of her skin.
I couldn’t get enough of her and needed more than just a little taste.
Slowly, I moved her toward the fireplace, the warmth of its flames cutting through the early autumn night. Letting her go, I grabbed a blanket from the cupboard.
“You have everything here,” she said as I spread it out on the floor.
“The customers like them in the winter.” I held out my hand for her, and I sat on the floor, pulling her down so she was straddling my lap.
I didn’t think my cock could get any harder, but it strained against my jeans, begging for release.
My kisses trailed down Tessa’s neck to her shirt, where I slowly undid the first button, smiling when I realized it was a pearl snap and came undone easily. She helped me by unbuttoning her shirt the rest of the way, revealing the swell of her beautiful breasts barely encased in a black lace bra.
My mouth watered as I pushed aside the thin material and circled one of her pretty pink buds with my tongue, teasing her other breast with my free hand.
She moaned, her hips instinctively bucking closer to me.
I kissed down her chest and stomach, moving my hands between us to unbuckle her jeans.
I thought she’d protest or give me some kind of smart comment, but instead she leaned back before she stood again, letting me slide off her jeans and revealing her beautiful, bare pussy, already wet and waiting.
I met her heated gaze as I spread her legs before I slowly flattened my tongue against her sensitive flesh.
She shivered, opening her legs wider to feast on her beautiful pussy.
Tessa leaned back against the stone of the fireplace as I pushed my face deeper, burying my tongue in her sweet heat as she gasped in delight, her hips bucking toward my awaiting mouth as if she couldn’t wait for more.
Sliding my hand up her leg, I curled a finger inside of her wet pussy, moving it in the same rhythm as my tongue on her clit, just the way she liked it.
Her breathing was labored as her hips pressed toward my face with wild abandon, her whole body shaking as she came hard, and I lapped up every bit of it.
But that wasn’t enough. I needed more of Tessa. I loved hearing her moan and the way she felt when she came undone for me.
“Wyatt,” she gasped.
“Yes, baby?” I asked, meeting her hooded gaze before sucking long and hard on her clit.
“I need you in me,” she moaned, her legs shaking, barely keeping her standing.
“Not until you come on my tongue again. I want to taste you before I fuck you,” I murmured into her soft flesh, kissing her mound before diving my tongue back in.
“Wyatt,” she breathed hard, her hips moved erratically, chasing her own high.
I added another finger inside her, hooking it toward the spot she liked.
I was rewarded when she gushed, her whole body shaking as she rode out her orgasm on my awaiting lips.
I lapped up every last bit of her, her breathing still ragged as I slowly stood up.
Unbuckling my jeans, I met her heated gaze. Her face flushed from the orgasms, and a lazy smile was on her face. “Lay down,” I said as I stood and kissed her hard.
Pulling a foil packet out of my wallet, I tossed the rest of it aside, not caring that my jeans were at my ankles and my shirt still on.
I just needed to fill Tessa. She spread her legs for me to kneel between them as I rolled the rubber over my cock, I slid closer, letting just the head press against her pussy.
She moaned, immediately spreading her legs further for me.
“What if I said it was time to close the bar and I needed to head home?” I asked, stroking the base of my cock as I locked eyes with her.
She bolted upright, sitting up and gripping my shoulders. “Wyatt, if you don’t fuck me right now, I may combust.”
I laughed, putting one arm around her waist and pulling her flush against me, the head of my cock seeking out her entrance.
“Okay, okay, I guess I can give you what you want.”
I sealed my words by kissing her, putting everything into it that I couldn’t say out loud.
I wanted to tell her that my time with her had been the best I ever had.
How I loved not just the taste of her and fucking her but being with her.
I filled her slowly, but my girl was always greedy. She gripped my ass, filling her to the hilt as if she couldn’t get enough.
Our bodies moved together, the music still streaming around us as our heavy breathing matched its rhythm.
I knew I was close, but couldn’t end it without feeling her come on my cock again.
Sliding my hand between us, I found her clit, still continuing my thrusts.
“Fuck, Wyatt,” she murmured, gripping onto my shoulders as her body shook around me.
It didn’t take long for her to moan, pulsing as we came together, her beautiful pussy milking my cock.
I didn’t stop until I knew she released every last drop, and then I slumped down, my legs like gelatine as I leaned on her for support, leaving small kisses along her bare shoulders.
She lay against me, cheek pressed to my chest, listening to my heartbeat like she was memorizing it.
My hand traced slow, grounding lines along her back, felt the rise and fall of her breath gradually even out.
The quiet settled around us again, deeper now, weighted with something neither of us could pretend wasn’t real.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” she said eventually.
“I know.”
“It doesn’t make it better.”
“I know.”
She lifted her head, looked at me like she needed to see whether I’d changed my mind. “Then why does it feel like I can breathe again?”
“Because you let yourself. Not because of me.”
She considered that, then nodded like she’d accept it for now.
We dressed slowly. Not awkward. Not rushed. The kind of quiet that didn’t need filling. When she finally stepped back, there was something resolved in her posture that hadn’t been there before.
“I can’t do this again.”
I didn’t ask what this meant. I already knew.
“I know.”
“I’m going to need space. And I don’t know what that looks like yet.”
“I know.”
Her eyes softened, just a little. “You make it hard to walk away.”
I held her gaze. “That’s not a reason to stay.”
She exhaled, long and shaky. “No. It’s not.”
At the door, she paused, hand on the handle, and looked back at me one last time.
“Thank you,” she said, and this time she meant something different.
I nodded once. Let her go.
The door closed behind her with the same quiet finality as the night she’d come home shaken and broken but alive.
I stood there long after she was gone, the brewery breathing around me again, knowing with bone-deep certainty that this wasn’t the end.