Page 19 of Mountain Daddy
“You feel better.”
Then he withdraws and slides into me again and again. Our hips move in a fluid movement, like a dance both of our bodies already know all the steps to.
Our mouths meet again, catching either other’s gasps and groans.
And when that pang of pleasure reaches the precipice once again, I go over the edge. Taking him with me.
I wake to a big, solid warmth pressed against my back. A slow, steady breath brushing my shoulder. A heavy arm draped around my waist, fingers tangled in the fabric of his flannel shirt—his shirt—that I must have pulled on sometime in the night.
I smile into the pillow, eyes still closed.
Wells stayed.
A thrill runs through me, soft and sweet.
When I shift, he stirs, tightening his arm around me. His voice is a low rumble against my ear.
“Morning.”
I turn my head slightly, smiling. “Morning.”
He presses a barely-there kiss to my shoulder, the kind that says he’s still half asleep and half worshiping.
For a moment, we lie there in the quiet, wrapped in each other and the afterglow and the warmth of something that feels like more than we should want.
But then reality creeps in.
Elsie. My job at the school. The boundaries we’ve crossed.
The ones we’ll have to pretend don’t exist if there’s any hope of doing this again. And, God, I really want to do this again.
I roll onto my back so I can see him. His eyes are soft, troubled, hopeful, afraid all at once.
“We should talk,” he says.
“I know.”
He props himself up on an elbow. “We can’t let Elsie know.”
“Of course not.” I reach for his hand, tracing the rough calluses with my fingertips. “We’ll keep this between us. Just for now.”
He watches me. “Celia…”
“We deserve this,” I say softly. “We deserve to feel something good. Even if it’s only until Christmas.”
His expression shifts — relief and hunger and heartbreak flickering together.
“Then we’re agreed?” he asks.
I nod. “We’re agreed.”
He leans down and kisses me again — slow and tender this time — and I know I’m already in too deep.
But so is he.
And neither of us tries to escape.
SIX
