They’d lost the earnest money on the house when I called to say I wasn’t coming back. My mother mentioned it exactly once. I told her it was the best money I’d ever cost them, and she’d required a full week to process that.
They had opinions about how we were raising Millie too. She wasn’t in enough structured activities. She spent too much time at the river. She needed more academic stimulation at her age.
Millie, for her part, remained completely unbothered by all of this.
Cade and I had developed a system. We listened, we nodded, we said we’ll think about it, and then we looked at each other after the call and didn’t think about it at all. It worked beautifully.
His hand moved from my belly to my hip, and I went still in the way I always went still when he did that. “Millie’s asleep,” he said. His voice was low.
“You mentioned.”
“Cabin’s quiet.”
“It is.”
“Hammock’s comfortable.”
I tipped my head back to look at him again. He was already looking at me in that steady, open way. There was nothing ambiguous about the expression on his face.
“We’re outside,” I said.
“Yard’s private.”
“What if someone comes by?”
“Nobody’s coming by.”
I held his gaze for a moment. Five years ago, I’d stood at the top of an oak tree with a rope in my hands and looked down at a very long drop and told myself not to think about it.
Old habits.
I stopped thinking about it.
His hand slid under the hem of my sundress, slow and sure, palm warm against my bare thigh. The hammock dipped and swayed as he shifted closer, pulling me half on top of him so our bodies aligned in the narrow space. I braced one hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady under my palm, already quicker than it had been a minute ago.
“Cade,” I whispered, a half-hearted protest that dissolved the second his fingers brushed higher, tracing the edge of my underwear.
“Shh. Let me take care of you.”
His voice was low, rough at the edges, the way it got when he wanted me like this—patient but unrelenting. He kissed me then, deep and unhurried, tasting like sweet tea and summer.
While his mouth distracted me, his hand slipped beneath the thin cotton and found me already wet. A soft sound escaped my throat as he stroked me with one finger, circling, teasing, learning me all over again like he hadn’t memorized every inch of me years ago.
The hammock rocked gently with every small movement of his arm. I pressed my face into his neck, breathing him in—sun-warmed skin and river air—and rocked against his hand. He pressed deeper, moving just right, and my breath hitched.
“That’s it, Annaleise,” he murmured against my hair. “Just feel it.”
Pleasure built in slow, liquid waves, coiling tighter with every stroke. The sway of the hammock only heightened it, like the whole world was moving with us.
When I came, it rolled through me long and deep, stealing my breath. I let out a sigh, trembling under his touch, and he held me through it, kissing my temple, my cheek, my mouth, whispering my name like it was something sacred.
I was still pulsing when he eased my underwear down my legs and off. Then he shoved his jeans open just enough, and I felt the hot, hard length of him against me. With one strong arm around my back and the other anchoring us to the edge of the hammock, he guided me over him. The position was tricky—we had to move together, slow and deliberate—but the way he filled me, thick and perfect, made the difficulty worth every careful shift.
We stayed locked like that for a long moment, breathing each other in. Then he started to move, shallow thrusts that made the hammock sway in a lazy rhythm. One hand stayed on my belly while the other gripped my hip, helping me ride him without tipping us. Every roll of my hips dragged pleasure through both of us.
I could feel him getting closer, the tension building in his shoulders, in the low groans he tried to muffle against my neck.
“Look at me,” he rasped.
