Chapter 116: Into the Joy
The days bled into one another, a seamless rhythm of work and wary peace. The ranch operated like a well-oiled machine under Dove’s steady hand, while Beth’s enterprise hummed in the background, a phantom network of favors and transactions. Damien’s presence was a constant low-grade current, a reminder of a world waiting to reclaim him.
A week in, Beth stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of her study, watching the late afternoon sun gild the vineyards. The silence in her head was new. For eighteen years, her mind had been a partitioned space: Beth Montgomery, legitimate CEO, cool and untouchable; and Bell, the ghost of a girl who knew how to break a man’s finger to get a passcode. She’d stuffed one into a box to let the other breathe. She’d been composed. Silent. Acceptable.
A slow smile touched her lips, cold and sharp.
Fuck that.
The box was splintering. It had been cracking since the basement, since Dove’s story about the bloody dress. That girl wasn’t a shameful secret. She was the fucking cornerstone. The hybrid. The one who could chat about merlot yields and, in the same breath, orchestrate a senator’s ruin. She was done being palatable.
That evening, she didn’t dress for dinner. She wore old jeans that hugged her hips and a simple black tank top, her wavy hair down, a cascade of dark silk around her shoulders. She bypassed the formal dining room and found Damien on the terrace, a laptop balanced on his knees, the dying light painting his face in gold and shadow.
“You’re leaving soon,” she said, not a question.
He looked up, the business mask sliding away as he saw her. “End of the week. It can’t wait.”
“I know.” She walked to the wet bar, poured two fingers of his favorite whiskey, neat, and brought it to him. She didn’t sit in the adjacent chair. She took the laptop from his hands, closed it, set it aside. Then she settled herself straddling his lap, her knees pressing into the cushions on either side of his thighs.
Damien’s breath hitched. His hands came up to rest on her waist, warm through the thin cotton. “Beth.”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, tracing the line of his jaw with her finger. “About boxes. I’m done with them. All of them.”
“What does that mean?” His voice was rough, his gaze locked on hers.
“It means I’m not just the CEO. I’m not just the fixer’s daughter. I’m not just your wife.” She leaned in, her lips a breath from his. “I’m the girl who made Jimmy Hargrove eat his teeth. I’m the woman who sold three hundred acres to a tech billionaire while planning to intercept his rival’s shipment. I’m sarcastic, and I’m happy, and I’m ethically flexible. And I rule here.” She nipped his lower lip, not quite a kiss. “Now I rule as me.”
The last of his control snapped.
He crushed his mouth to hers, a groan ripping from his chest. It wasn’t the careful, reverent kiss of reconciliation. It was claiming and concession, a battle with no enemy. It tasted like whiskey and want and ten years of fucking silence. She kissed him back with equal fury, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling just shy of pain.
It felt like being twenty-two again. Young, stupid, crazy in love and powered by a defiant sense of immortality. Before the politics, the family wars, the slow, toxic drip of neglect. This was raw, unedited need.
She ground her hips down against the hard ridge of his erection, feeling him jerk beneath her. “Fuck, Beth,” he cursed against her mouth, his hands sliding under her tank top, mapping the familiar scars and new muscles of her back.
“Take me inside,” she breathed, biting his earlobe. “Or I’ll fuck you right here on this terrace where anyone could see.”
He stood in one fluid motion, her legs wrapping around his waist, her mouth still seeking his as he carried her through the open French doors, down the hall, and into the master suite. He didn’t make it to the bed. He pinned her against the nearest wall, the impact shuddering through them both.
Their clothes were a frenzied obstacle. His shirt tore at the seams. Her tank top was pulled over her head and discarded. He unfastened her jeans, yanking them and her underwear down her thighs in one rough movement. She got his belt open, shoved his pants and boxers down just enough to free him.
He was thick and hard in her hand, velvety heat over steel. She stroked him once, twice, spreading the wetness beading at his tip. Their eyes met—green fire meeting green fire—and all the words were gone. There was only this frantic, hungry truth.
He hooked one of her legs over his arm, opening her to him. The broad head of his cock pressed against her entrance. She was wet, ready, aching.
“Look at me,” he demanded, voice guttural.
She did. She held his gaze as he thrust up into her in one deep, devastating stroke, filling her utterly. The breath left her lungs in a punched-out cry. It was too much, a blinding reclamation. He felt bigger than memory, the stretch bordering on painful, perfect.
“Christ, you’re so tight,” he snarled, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. He didn’t move, letting her adjust, his body trembling with the effort of stillness.
“Don’t you dare be gentle,” she whispered, scraping her nails down his back. “I’m not glass. I’m the fucking foundation, remember?”
A savage sound escaped him. He withdrew almost completely and slammed back into her, the force driving her shoulders into the wall. She screamed, the pleasure so acute it was a white-hot wire in her veins. He set a brutal, punishing rhythm, each drive hitting a spot deep inside her that made her vision speckle.
The obscenities spilled from him, filthy and fervent. “Take it, take all of it, you perfect, vicious bitch. This cunt is mine. Always was. Fucking milking me so good.”
She met him thrust for thrust, her hips rolling, her inner muscles clenching around him. “Yours?” she gasped, raking her teeth over his collarbone. “You’re mine. Every goddamn inch. You come back to me. You always come back.”
His hand slid between them, his thumb finding her clit, rough and circular. The dual assault shattered her. Her orgasm ripped through her without warning, a convulsive, silent violence that clenched around him, pulling a ragged shout from his throat. He fucked her through it, his rhythm turning erratic, desperate.
“Beth… I’m gonna…”
“Do it,” she commanded, biting his shoulder. “Fill me up. Let me feel it.”
With a final, deep grind, he obeyed. His release pulsed hot inside her, wave after wave, his body shuddering against hers. He held her there, pinned to the wall, both of them breathing in shattered, humid gasps.
Slowly, he lowered her until her feet touched the floor, his arms keeping her upright as her legs wobbled. They stayed like that, foreheads pressed together, still joined, the sweat cooling on their skin.
When he finally softened and slipped from her, he didn’t let her go. He walked them to the bed, collapsing onto it with her in his arms. The room was dark now, the only light the faint blue glow from the pool filtering through the windows.
He brushed the hair from her damp forehead. “No more boxes,” he said, his voice raw.
“No more boxes,” she agreed, her hand splayed over the frantic beat of his heart. She felt liquid, powerful, and utterly herself. The CEO, the fixer, the wife, the violent girl. All one. All here.
In the quiet, a different truth settled. He was leaving. The outside world was a tide that wouldn’t be held back. But the woman he’d return to wouldn’t be waiting in a compartment. She’d be right here, in the whole, complicated, terrifying expanse of herself, running everything.
She turned her head, nuzzling into his neck. “The foundation’s solid, Damien,” she murmured, sleep already pulling at her. “It can hold anything.”
His arms tightened around her. He didn’t speak. He just held on, as if she were the only anchor in a shifting dark.