Page 91 of Stick Break
As soon as those three words leave my lips before he’s moving, climbing up my body, his mouth claiming mine in a hungry kiss, his big, beautiful body settling between my thighs. And then?—
He’s inside me.
With one perfect stroke, he fills me completely. My body tightens around him, and we both groan, raw and unfiltered. I wrap myself around him, and he does the same, holding me like letting go isn’t an option. And in that moment, I feel it…this is different. Not just the sex. The connection.
We move together slowly, unhurried, exploring and savoring, like there’s nowhere else in the world we need to be. In no time at all he makes me come with practiced ease, my body pulsing around him, and I bury my face in his neck, clinging to him like a lifeline. His own release follows, a deep, shuddering surrender.
“I love feeling you inside me like this,” I whisper, breath still shaky against his lips.
For a long time, we stay tangled, unmoving, letting the silence settle around us like a second skin. Eventually, he gently slips out of me and rolls to his back, pulling me with him. I drape myself across his chest, lulled by the steady beat of his heart under my cheek.
The next thing I know I’m opening my eyes to morning sunlight spilling across the room. I stretch, smiling, and reach for Rip. But the bed is empty. My heart skips.
I sit up, expecting to hear the clatter of dishes or the smell of coffee drifting from the kitchen, but the cottage is still. Too still. Then I hear it—his voice. Outside. I step into the kitchen and move to the window. There he is, sitting in a chair, phone to his ear. My heart clenches. What’s going on?
My mind spins, racing back to last night. What we said. What I said. I’ll go back to Boston with you.
Did I scare him? Did he change his mind? And then I see the phone in his hand. He’s talking to someone. Is it her? A chill creeps over my skin.
Was last night’s soft lovemaking not about a future, and more about a goodbye?
23
Rip
I grip the phone so tightly my knuckles burn, the plastic casing creaking under the pressure of my frustration as I pace in front of the fire. Jesus Christ. The last thing I want is for Lyra to show up on my doorstep and find Indie Rhodes in my bed.
Not because I want Lyra back. Hell no. I’ve come to realize that ship didn’t just sail, it sank.
But Lyra’s not coming here for some heart-to-heart. She’s coming because she’s lonely, or needs something. Like a new story. I am done with her turning my life into her next goddamn headline. But it’s not me I’m worried about. It’s Charley. If Lyra finds her here, she’ll twist it into something ugly. Use her. Exploit her. Hurt her.
And I’ll be damned if I let that happen to my girlfriend.
Girlfriend.
Is Charley my girlfriend?
Goddamn right she is.
When she looked me in the eyes last night and said she was coming home with me, something cracked wide open inside. I was floored. Speechless. Not because I didn’t want it, but because I’d been so afraid it was too big a leap for her. Too much, too soon. After everything she’s been through, after all the hurt she’s had to swallow, I worried she’d flinch at anything that looked remotely like commitment.
But she didn’t. She chose me. Us.
Sure we need to talk, voicing the words about who we really are, but that will come. Christ, I’m in so deep, and I’m not even afraid. Leaving our bed this morning was like tearing off a piece of myself, but the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Of course I knew it was Lyra. I can see it so clearly now, see how relentless, and manipulative, she is. Being with Charley has helped me take the blinder off.
So I answered, planning to end things once and for all. No more back and forth. No more games. No more being the guy who waited around like a damn stray dog, hoping she'd finally choose me. That guy is dead.
Charley buried him, with nothing but a touch, a look, and the quiet way she reaches for me in the middle of the night. She showed me what love actually looks like. Not headline drama, but steady hands and soft laughter. The way she instinctively tends to my injury, even when I’m sleeping. That’s real. Not manipulation. Not someone showing up when they’re lost and vanishing when they’ve found a better offer.
God, how could I have been so damn stupid?
But it ends now.
“Listen, I have to go,” I say, cutting Lyra off mid-whine.
“It’ll just be a short visit,” she presses, voice dipping into that sultry lilt she always used when she wanted something. “I’m in between assignments right now, and I really need you, Big Bear.”
“Don’t call me that.” The words burst out sharper than I intend, but I don’t take them back.
