She’d left my workshop alone, though. That was the deal. She got the house. I got the garage.
Some messes were sacred.
I was out back splitting wood—red oak, same as always, the kind of work that emptied my head and filled up the woodshed. Late afternoon, sun warm enough that I’d stripped down to a T-shirt, the axe finding its rhythm the way it always did.
We didn’t need the wood yet—it was early fall, weeks before the first real cold—but I liked staying ahead of it. Hartley had taught me that. Not directly. Just by being someone who planned for things before they became problems.
She’d changed my life in ways I still couldn’t fully catalog. She’d taken the business—Wildwood Ridge Outfitters, the duct-tape-and-instinct operation Evan and I had been running on caffeine and stubbornness—and turned it into something real. Scheduling, logistics, marketing, client coordination, a website that actually worked. She ran the office side while my partners and I did what we did best on the mountain. The team shouldn’t have worked on paper, but was damn near unstoppable in practice.
Our son, Sawyer, was two. He had Hartley’s brown eyes and my inability to sit still, and right now he was across town at Evan and Paisley’s place, having what Paisley called a “playdate” and what was actually two toddlers chasing each other in circles until they collapsed. Evan and Paisley’s daughter, Magnolia, was the same age, and the two of them were already inseparable—sharing snacks, pulling each other’s hair, and babbling in a language only they understood.
That meant Hartley and I had the cabin to ourselves for the evening. A rare thing, with a toddler and another baby on the way.
I swung the axe and split a round clean down the center, the two halves falling away with that satisfying crack. Stacked them. Grabbed another round. Settled it on the stump.
Movement in the kitchen window caught my eye. Hartley was standing at the sink, watching me. She was wearing anapron over a tank top—she’d been baking something, probably the banana bread she made every weekend now that she’d discovered our oven actually worked—and her hair was pulled up in a messy knot. She was five months pregnant, just starting to show in a way that made my chest do something primal every time I looked at her.
She didn’t look away when I caught her watching. She held my gaze through the glass with an expression I knew very, very well.
I buried the axe in the stump and headed inside.
The kitchen smelled like banana bread and coffee and the lavender hand soap she’d put by every sink in the house. Hartley was still at the counter, but she’d turned to face me, leaning back against the granite with her arms crossed.
“Sawyer’s not back until seven,” she said.
“I know.”
“And the banana bread needs another twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
She reached behind her back and untied the apron. Pulled it over her head. Set it on the counter in a neat fold, because she was Hartley and even this had a system.
Underneath was a pair of shorts and a tank top that was thin, white, and doing nothing to hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were fuller now, sensitive from the pregnancy, and I could see her nipples through the fabric. The soft swell of her belly below.
She looked like everything I’d ever wanted.
“The table,” she said. Not a question.
“The table,” I agreed.
She moved to the table, then used her hands to boost herself onto it in one smooth motion. The wood creaked under her weight.
I crossed the rest of the distance and stepped between her knees, gripped the waistband of her cotton shorts, and tugged them down, along with the pale-blue underwear beneath, in one slow drag. She lifted her hips to help, and the fabric caught briefly on the gentle curve of her pregnant belly before sliding free. I dropped them to the floor without looking.
Her thighs parted for me immediately, knees falling wide. The sight of her—pink, slick, already swollen—made my mouth water. I sank to my knees on the hardwood, hooked her legs over my shoulders, and pulled her right to the edge so her hips were barely on the table. Then I buried my face between her thighs.
The first long, flat lick made her gasp—her back arching, fingers digging into my hair. She tasted like salt and heat and the faint sweetness that was just her, stronger now with pregnancy hormones. I dragged my tongue up through her folds, circled her clit slow and deliberate, then sucked it gently between my lips.
Her hips jerked. I pressed two fingers inside her—slow at first, letting her feel every inch—then curled them forward, stroking that rough patch that always made her thighs tremble. She was so wet that my fingers glided in easily, and she immediately started rocking against my mouth, chasing more.
“Fuck—yes—right there,” she panted, her voice breaking.
I hummed against her clit so she’d feel the vibration, pumping my fingers faster and deeper while my tongue flicked tight circles. Her breathing turned ragged, her thighs clamping around my head.
When I sucked hard and crooked my fingers again, her back bowed off the table, a sharp, broken cry tearing out of her throat as she came hard around my fingers. I didn’t stop until the aftershocks faded and her grip in my hair turned gentle and trembling.
Then I stood and stopped a moment to stare at her. She was flushed, eyes glassy, lips parted. I reached for the hem of her tank top, and she lifted her arms so I could peel it off.