Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
I feel like I should tell her we can date long distance. We can try to make this work.
“I feel the same,” she whispers with a radiant smile gracing her features. “I really like you, Lucas.”
“I really like you too.” I move my hand between our bodies, wanting to play with her once more, but she shakes her head.
“No, I want to feel you again,” she demands, and my cock jumps to life at her words. She reaches down, fisting my dick in her hand as it hardens more and more. “I want you inside me for the rest of the night.”
We come together in slow motion, and I push inside her. I’m being reckless. Careless. But I don’t have another condom, and it was pure luck I even had that one. I haven’t had sex in… it’s kind of embarrassing to admit… but years. Yes, it’s been fucking years, and I’m not about to deny Melanie what she wants.
So, I give it to her. I push further inside her, our bodies moving slowly together. This time we’re not in any rush to get there. We take our time learning each other. I trace my tongue over every part of her. She runs her fingers over my tattoos, and I silently beg for this night to never end.
When sleep finally finds us, it’s on the bed, her tucked beneath my arm, my palm curved around the rise and fall of her ribs. The fire has become a quiet orange eye.
My phone buzzes at dawn.
I shift without waking her and slide the screen up. Dean. Of course.
“Yeah,” I answer, voice low.
“Wheels up in two hours,” he says. “Short notice—client’s asset tried to move up a departure window. Asher’s already prepping. You’re on it.”
I look at Melanie’s eyelashes fanned against her cheek, at the curve of her hand where it rests on my chest like she put it there and then forgot to move it. “Copy,” I say, because that’s the only answer there ever is. “Send the packet.”
“Check your email. Snow’s incoming—leave buffer,” Dean says. A beat. “You good?”
“Always,” I say again, softer this time.
He hangs up. The call leaves an echo racing through me. I don’t want to leave, but reality creeps back in.
I ease out from under the blanket, careful, gentle. She stirs, eyes blinking open, sleep-blurry and unfairly pretty.
“Hey,” she breathes, smiling like the night was what I think it was and not some version my brain invented to keep me warm.
“Hey,” I say, crouching beside the bed. “I’ve got to go.” I hate how the words sound like an apology.
She pushes up on one elbow. “Work?”
“Yeah. Out of town.” I brush a strand of hair off her forehead, and my hand lingers longer than it should. “I’ll call you.”
Her smile shifts—smaller, realer. She nods. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeat, because I need to hear it back.
I find Asher in the mudroom lacing boots with the efficiency of a man who’s had a go-bag packed since birth. He looks up, reads my face with one quick pass, and doesn’t comment.
“Snow by nine,” he says. “We’ll beat it.”
“I’ll drive first shift,” I tell him, shouldering my pack.
“Figures,” he says, and there’s amusement in it.
I shove my phone in my pocket, run a last scan of the cabin without thinking—windows, locks, stove off, dogs accounted for. Charlotte appears in the kitchen doorway with a robe and her baby bump and the kind of knowing smile only best friends can wear without getting punched.
“Be safe,” she says, hugging Asher, then me. Quietly to me: “We like her for you.”
“I noticed,” I say.
Melanie appears at the edge of the hall, blanket draped around her shoulders like a cape. We just look at each other for a beat. I wish for a lot of things in that second that don’t fit into a go-bag. Most of all I wish for more time that isn’t borrowed.
“I’ll call,” I say again, because it’s the only promise I can make that won’t break.
She nods, smile brightening into something mischievous because she’s her and she can’t help making the air around her lighter. “Don’t make me post a thirst trap to get your attention.”
“You wouldn’t need to,” I say, and earn the laugh I wanted.
Asher bangs the door with his shoulder, and cold air rolls in. I step out onto the porch, breath ghosting in the early chill. The ridge is a line of ink, the sky a wash of white waiting to fall.
I glance back. She’s standing there with the blanket and the dogs and the mountains at her back, and for a second it feels like a photograph I’ll keep in my head—sharp, composed, perfectly lit.
“See you,” she says.
“See you,” I echo, and head into the kind of morning that always comes for men like me. The engine turns over. The tires bite road. Work is a straight line when I’m driving it.