All bets are off.
I fuck her like the demon riding me wants to.
And apparently Harper’s riding the same demon, because even though she was just on the edge of coming when I was eating her out, now we’re both sweating, hips slapping for longminutes I lose track of before she grabs my hand and drags it to her throat.
Her beautiful glistening breasts are bared, pushed out by her arched back—and that night in the bathroom comes rushing back.
She was the first woman I ever did anything like this with. Of course, she was all my firsts. I’m a lot better trained at breath play now. We had no fucking clue what we were doing that night and we were lucky we didn’t hurt ourselves.
But now, I’m confident as I squeeze her throat and her face goes blissful with pleasure. I brace myself with one elbow as I release her throat and twist her nipples in a ruthless grip.
So that when I finally release them, she screams as she comes.
I pump and pump and pump into her, finally stilling. Her body shudders endlessly around me. The orgasms we’ve both been waiting a decade for shake our bodies and we cling to one another.
FOURTEEN
HARPER
LeavingCaleb was difficult this morning.
Especially when he had that devastated look in his eyes that told me he didn’t trust I’d be back again. Which just ended with me throwing my arms around him and promising things would be different this time.
His arms closed around me like a vise. “I don’t know how to let you go now that I’ve got you again.”
But then I felt all his muscles go tight with anxiety, his fingers tapping against my back.
“Do I? Have you back again?”
My forehead dropped against his. “You know you do.”
But wariness in his eyes when he pulled back told me he didn’t trust it—this. Or he didn’t trust me. My chest cracked in two at that.
“Let me come back with you,” he said. “I don’t like you confronting Z alone about this, even if he is your son’s father. I’ll stay in the car. Just let me be there.”
Which just made my guts squeeze. Because now I know Zisn’tBruiser’s father. But if I told Caleb, he’d only be moreinsistent about coming along.
Plus, I needed… I don’t know. Time to fuckingprocess?
Either way, Caleb being anywhere within threecountieswhen I finally confronted Zedekiah about his lies would be a very bad idea.
I need to extricate my son from the situation.
Regardless of how it began, I just didn’t believe Z was some evil person the entire time.
We could be mature and have the discussion we clearly ought to have had ten years ago. We could saygoodbye. And then Caleb and I can have a future of forever happiness. Even thinking about it makes a zing of hope sing through my chest that I haven’t felt… well, in a really long time.
But still, Z is someone I need to deal with alone.
So here I am, after exchanging phone numbers and addresses and work addresses and giving Caleb Ximena’s numbers and ten different ways to find me, laughing when he asked if he could bug my phone again like Silas asked him to do when we were teenagers.
“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve had it out with Z, okay? Breathe.” I kissed his nose right before climbing back into my car. I had to all but pry his fingers off the hem of my shirt, but he let me go, ultimately trusting me that it wasn’t goodbye this time.
His trust in me to take care of my shit and come back to him meant the world.
And now here I am.
I park in the gravel parking lot in front of my double-wide. Yes, it’s a trailer, but it’s not in a trailer park. It’s in a field, and there are horses that graze beyond the fence out back that delight Bruiser every time they come near. I got a great deal on rent from JD, a rancher who came into my shop for alarge backpiece tattoo that took seventeen hours. You really get to know someone after seventeen hours under the needle with them. When he heard me and my son were looking for a rental after leaving Z, he offered me this place.