by Brynn Hale
“You look gorgeous with that glow.” I tend to her comfort.
“And you look handsome with your cock hanging like that.”
She reaches out and strokes me. I groan. I’ll take whatever she offers. I love the attention and I feel like I’ve come home, finally. A part of me was still overseas up until this moment, but now my mind is clear. The fears of being alone are gone.
Second mission. This coming spring, I’ll build an addition with a master bedroom and an en suite bathroom because I don’t want her walking through the house naked…ever. Even those deer, racoons, and possums aren’t going to see my angel.
Third mission. To never leave this woman’s side. I slide into the bed and pull her naked body against mine. “From now on, we sleep like this.”
“Mmmhmmm.” She sighs and in seconds, the melodic sounds of her snores take me into my own slumber.
Willow
I sit up in bed. “Kaede. Kaede!” I rock his shoulder.
“Baby…” His burly arm wraps around my waist and hauls me to him. His morning wood pokes me in the ass and I briefly consider ignoring the sound and making our night continue into morning. But I hear it, again.
“Kaede. Wake up! There’s someone at the front door.”
His eyes open. “No one ever comes out here, sweetheart.”
“I came out here.”
And then there are four sharp and powerful raps on the front door.
“Oh, shit.” He slips from the bed and yanks on his jeans from last night. His tight ass glaring at me and I yearn to reach out and touch it.
Or bite it.
He’s out of the bedroom in thirty seconds, but the heavy bedroom door creaks back open a crack.
Voices escape the living area and find my ears.
“Hey, Kaede.”
“Boone, what’s up?”
Crap, Daisy’s hubby… This is not going to go well…
“I really don’t know. You tell me.”
Called it.
“Come in.” Kaede’s feet squeak on the polished maple flooring.
Boone’s voice booms through the room and into the crack of the door. “I went to get Willow to bring her over to the house and she’s not at Wyatt’s cabin. And so I thought I’d ask you to help me look for her, but then I find her car out front. Do I have to go looking, Kaede?”
“Nope.”
“And am I going to like the end to this story?” Boone’s gruff voice cuts the air like a knife through butter.
“The real story is we’re adults, but I’m sure you’re going to want the extended version.”
“I’m gonna need the extended version.”
“Fine. She wasn’t at the right cabin. She accidentally set up camp here, thinking this was Wyatt’s place due to a GPS issue. She left her dome light on and her car wouldn’t start. I allowed her to sleep on the couch for the night.”
There’s a long pause.
“Then why isn’t she on the couch, Kaede?”
“Because she’s in my bed,” Kaede says so matter-of-factly that my heart races. He isn’t afraid to say the truth and it seems like he is happy or proud to say the words.
Honestly, I don’t care if Boone knows, but I love hearing Kaede say the words. It sounds sexy as fuck and like he wants to come back to me as fast as I want him back.
“What the fuck, Kaede?” Boone’s growly voice cuts into my happiness. “Daisy’s very protective of her friend.”
“Maybe Daisy doesn’t have to know.”
“No. I don’t lie to my wife and if I don’t come back with Willow, I better have a fucking good reason. Get dressed. We’ll all go over together for this shitshow.”
“You gonna wait in here?” Kaede asks.
“Yes. I am.” Boone always cuts to the chase, but today he sounds like the edges of a diamond.
“Then do me a solid and make some coffee and don’t look behind you while you’re doing it.”
“Fine.”
I shiver at how Boone says that one word. It’s not fine. I didn’t want to cause a problem with Daisy and Boone or Kaede and Boone or Daisy and me! I love my friend like a sister. She understands me. She never gives me crap for how I am. I just wonder what she’ll think about this choice.
Kaede slips into the bedroom and closes the door. “I suppose you heard that?”
“I did.”
He meets me at the side of the bed as I swing my legs out. “What do you want to do, sweetheart?”
I freeze. Everything I ever wanted is right in front of me. Everything I dream about. Everything I desire, but there are only two potential hurdles: my job and probably myself.
“I’ll talk to Daisy.” I need to talk to her. She’s been in my spot. She’s protective of those she loves and she might not like what’s happening, but this is bigger than her mama-bear instincts. This is so much bigger.
“I’ll go with you.”
“Kaede, she’s my sister without blood. She’s very protective. She knows me.”
“Then I’ll go help Boone chop some wood.”
He’s going to come along no matter what and part of me wants him with me, so I decide that fighting isn’t worth it. Someday there will be a fight that will be worth inserting my attitude.
He hands me a fluffy grey robe from his closet. “Want to shower together?”
I thought you’d never ask…
Kaede
Boone holds up a hand to stop us outside of the front door to their cabin. “Willow, you do the talking. Kaede, you need to just stand there.”
We step inside and I feel like I’m in a different world. Boone had prepared me for what it would look like, but it’s like Christmas threw up everywhere. I carry Willow’s bag of gifts over to the tree and set them out for her. I see something with my name on it from Boone and Daisy and I have to look away. My chest burns.
“Willow!” Daisy crosses the room with a blue blanketed burrito in her hands.
Kids. Even though I was one, I still don’t understand them. And babies, I feel like they’ll break in my hands. How hard can you squeeze them? Not squeeze but hold. See, I don’t even know the right words to say, so I’ll just stay away.
They hug and Daisy’s puzzled face turns to me. “Kaede, this is a nice surprise. Hope you’re hungry.”
“Always.”
“Babe, you want me to take Mav?” Boone holds out his hands.
“Not a chance.” Willow steps forward and swoops him from Daisy. “He’s mine for the rest of the day.”
“Well, he’ll have to be hers, for parts of the day. Because I’m pretty sure you can’t give him what he wants on the hour.” Boone’s eyes fall to his wife’s chest and she rolls her eyes. “Every hour.”
“And are you jealous, hubby?”
Boone chuckles. “Not at all. If anything, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He kisses her temple.
Daisy moves into the kitchen while Willow sits at the kitchen table, adjusting the blanket to see the baby.
I stand behind Willow and look down at him. “What’s his name again?”
“Maverick,” Boone says while stoking the fireplace. “Maverick James.”
It fits the little man. He looks like Boone, with his red hair and wide jaw, but when he opens his eyes, he is all his mother. The blue is tinged with green, like Daisy’s eyes.
For a moment, I let myself consider what our children would look like, Willow’s and mine. Would they have her blue eyes or mine? Hers are sapphire and mine more sky. Would our DNA mix as perfectly as theirs has?
I shake out of the thoughts. Currently, our worlds are forty-five miles and a ridge and valley between us. Divided. And as much as I want her to stay, I can’t ask her to give up her life to be with me. In the light of day, it’s easy to see how in the heat of the moment endorphins and testosterone can make a man’s brain crazy. All those plans. They were just hopes and dreams and I’ve never had those come true anyway.
Daisy sets the table and places Boon
e’s favorite meal in the middle—biscuits and gravy, because how he smiled made me do the same. It tastes as good as it looks, but Willow barely eats anything. She just coos at the tiny bundle in her arms.
“If you want to eat, I’ll… I’ll hold him.” I hold out my hands.
The side of her mouth tips up. “That would be great. Thanks.”
“Boone and I eat in shifts now.” Daisy lifts her fork.
“I can see why.” Willow stands and she holds Mav out to me.
I can’t seem to figure out where best to grab him.
“Just cup behind his neck and under his butt,” Boone directs me.
I do that and Willow slips her hands out from under mine. I stare into her eyes and the smile I’m rewarded with lights a firestorm inside my chest. Maverick’s so small, but hefty and solid. His eyes flutter open.
“He can’t really see you. Babies don’t get clear eyesight until about four months,” Daisy says before taking a big bite of eggs.
“I didn’t know that.” There was so much I didn’t know. The military taught me how to do a lot, but they never taught me to do this. And this feels so much bigger. So much more important. So much more dangerous.
My heart starts pounding and I feel like my chest is closing in on me.
“Hey, I need some fresh air. Boone, did you want some help with that wood pile out there?” I hand Maverick off to Daisy’s waiting hands without a pause. That warmth inside of me subsides to just embers, not the blaze of before.
“If you’ve gotten your fill, I’d definitely take some help.” Boone stands and I help him clear the table while Willow and Daisy talk.
Outside, I head to the pile of wood and without a word, I start breaking pieces. With every shard I feel a little more centered. It’s not being with Willow that’s scaring me. Or even having children.
It’s being without her.
Willow
I can barely keep my brunch down. My stomach is a ball of nerves on top of a flood of fears.
“Let me lay Mav down and we can chat.”
“I’ll make some tea.”
“Decaf for me, please,” Daisy mentions while putting Mav into his bassinet in the corner.
In five minutes, I’m on the couch, sipping from a handcrafted mug.
“It’s so wonderful to have you here. How’d you like Wyatt’s cabin?” Daisy lifts her mug and sips. “I mean after you got it cleaned.”
I take another long sip, hoping the burning liquid will scorch away my fears. But as I look into my friend’s eyes, my heart rises. “Well, turns out I was at the wrong house.”
“Oh…” Daisy sits up straight. “Where were you?”
“At Kaede’s house.”
Her gaze tracks to the door. “Kaede’s place? The Kaede that was just in here?”
“Same one.”
I tell her the story and she continually sips her cup of tea, not saying anything. By the time I’m to the point where I don’t want to say more and everything that’s left is the stuff I’m dying to tell her but probably shouldn’t, she’s smiling.
“What?” I ask.
“I remember you at our wedding. How when I looked over at you dancing with Kaede, you looked up at him and you smiled. I thought to myself, ‘He deserves a woman like Willow.’ I just didn’t know that he deserved you.”
I lean forward. She’s my sister. I can tell her anything. “We had sex.”
Her face pales. “He didn’t force—”
“No! No. We both wanted it to happen. God, did I want it to happen.”
Daisy chuckles and her hand lands on mine. “I know what you mean.”
“And… and Daisy, it was incredible.” My pussy quivers remembering how she pulsed around him and how he gave her what she craved.
“But sex can just be sex, Willow.”
That was what I’d considered on the drive in. Mr. Right Now, but every pump of my heart told me that Kaede isn’t just for now, he is forever.
“This was so much more. It was intimacy that I’ve never experienced with a man.”
“It is something else, isn’t it?”
“You can say that again.” I widen my eyes and she giggles.
A long sigh rises from my chest. “I just don’t know if I can fit into his life and can I give up my life in Helena?”
“I won’t sugar coat it. It was an adjustment, but what would you really be giving up, Willow?”
I sit back. Shopping on a whim isn’t necessary. And did I really need to go to a Tuesday night $5 movie if I had someone to watch my collection of DVDs with me? Were those happy hours three nights a week needed when happiness was right in front of me? And did those happy hours ever truly make me “happy”, regardless of their promises? Nope.
“Do you have Wi-Fi out here?” I glanced around.
“We do now. I couldn’t live without it. You know me.”
“I’d definitely need it for work.” I stare into my empty cup. “I’ve always wanted to start my own graphic arts business…”
“Kaede could be your first customer.”
“What?”
“His leather goods. He’s been making them for two years. Sells them in Helena at that little boutique—”
“Bubbles and Bags?” My stomach bottoms out.
I knew him before I knew him.
“That’s the one. He’s really talented.”
I cup the mug and sip. “I didn’t know.”
“There’s probably a lot you don’t know about him, but what do you think about what you do know?”
I set my cup on the coffee table and wrap an arm around her. “You were right.”
“How’s that?”
“You said he would find me. But I guess neither of us thought he’d find me sleeping in his bed.”
We spent the afternoon laughing and drinking decaf tea. The guys stayed outside. When Kaede came in, Daisy crossed the room and read him the riot act. Boone laughed. Kaede didn’t. There was something about him. Something different. I’d imagined he had as deep a conversation with Boone as I had with Daisy. I laid my hand on his leg, but he never touched me.
“You ready to go? We can get your things from Kaede’s and I can take you over to Wyatt’s place,” Boone says while Kaede stands by the door.
Kaede’s chest heaves. “No.”
Boone’s head rears back. “No?”
“No. Willow, I can’t stand here and let you ride away without telling you that it’s not what I want.” He crosses the room to me. “I’m not asking you to make a decision tonight, but I’m going to give you the open door. You can stay with me now and forever.”
“Forever?” I breathe out the word.
“You said you can do your job from wherever and I can get the internet for you.”
“And I can make you a website for your leather business.”
He glances to Daisy. “You told her?”
“Actually…” Willow walks to the gifts. “I wanted you to open these Christmas morning but I can’t wait. Open them now.” She hands off the gifts to Daisy and Boone.
Daisy delicately pulls at the tape, not ripping the wrapping paper. Boone, on the other hand, tears it open like he’s eight years old. He chuckles. Daisy slips the lid off the gift box and her mouth opens with a gasp.
“Oh…my.” She holds up the leather satchel. “It’s beautiful, and I think I know where it came from.”
Boone holds up the leather wallet. “Nice. I needed a new one of these.”
I cross the room to Kaede. “I remember dancing in your arms at their wedding. I remember how you held me. I remember how I stepped on your feet and you never said a word. And when I saw those gifts, I knew Boone and Daisy would love them.”
“My past told me that people leave, so I tried to pretend it would be okay if you left and went back to Helena. But I don’t want you to leave. Ever. Please stay. Stay and be mine forever.” Kaede slips an arm around me. “I love you, Willow.”
My legs weaken but he’s right the
re to catch me. “Is that forever a proposal?”
His hand slips behind my neck, holding me right where he wants me. “Sweetheart, it’s whatever you want it to be.”
“I love you, too.”
“Forever it is then…”
His kiss melts me into him.
Maybe that GPS was right after all.
Epilogue
Kaede
“One more time for me, baby.” I thrust deeper into her body, holding her by the hip while she rocks back into me. Her ass in my face and my cock disappearing is the best magic trick ever. This is my second favorite position next to looking into her eyes and fucking her so slow that she’s trembling for release.
At the moment, she’s already had two mind-blowing and dick-squeezing orgasms, but I wasn’t giving in until number three. I love watching her come. I get as much satisfaction from hers as I do mine. Okay, not quite as much, but very close.
So fucking close.
It’s Valentine’s Day and being nuts deep in Willow is exactly where I want to be. And I’m not wasting time making up for lost time when it comes to sex. The last two days have been a marathon of naked, food in bed, and being inside of this woman. And she’s insatiable.
“Oh, God, Kaede…” That’s her first level.
I reach around and just barely skim my fingers over her clit.
“That’s it, sweetheart. I want you to see stars.”
She tightens that already clenching pussy and that’s level two. I’m coming home and I’m bringing her with me.
I lean over her and she turns her head so that I can kiss her. My body tingles and I push the need to fill her away for a moment.
“You are so fucking tight, Willow.”
“You’ve got the best cock in the world.”
I chuckle. “Not like you have anything to compare it to, and don’t get me wrong, I’m totally fine with that.” I thrust faster while pinching her nipples. That’ll do it.
“Oh…. Fuck!”