Chapter 8: The Porch After the Storm
She woke alone. The space beside her in the tangled sheets was cold, the only evidence of the night before a deep ache between her legs and the phantom sensation of rope on her wrists. Gray dawn light filtered through her blinds. Silence, heavy and strange after the barn’s echoes, pressed on her ears. For a disorienting second, panic coiled in her stomach. Had they left?
She pulled on a pair of sweats and a worn-out tee, padding barefoot through the quiet apartment. The front door was unlocked. She pushed it open.
They were there, on her porch, as if they’d grown from the weathered planks themselves. Rhett stood at the railing, his back to her, a solid silhouette against the bleeding gold of sunrise over the pines. Jace lounged on the top step, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. The scene was so still it felt painted.
The wooden boards groaned under her feet. Rhett didn’t turn, but Jace’s head tilted, a slow, lupine smile spreading across his face.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Jace said, his voice raspy with the night. “We were starting to think you’d hibernated.”
Sadie ignored the flutter in her chest, leaning against the doorframe, crossing her arms. “You could’ve left a note. Or, I don’t know, stayed in the bed you fucked me in.”
Rhett turned then. In the cool morning light, his face was all stark lines and shadow, his eyes impossibly dark. He said nothing, just looked at her—at her messy hair, her defiant posture, the way her nails dug into her own arms.
“You said you didn’t need either of us,” Jace reminded her, tapping ash onto the damp wood. His grin was all teeth. “Last night, before you walked into that party like you owned the world. Remember?”
She did. A reckless, protective lie.
“So we figured we’d watch the sunrise,” Jace continued, stretching his legs out. “See if you’d come find us. Or if we’d have to come find you.”
“Here I am,” she said, her voice tighter than she wanted.
Rhett finally spoke. “Come here.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a gravitational pull. She uncrossed her arms, took the few steps across the porch. The old rocking chair sat behind him. He sat down, the wood creaking under his weight, and pulled her onto his lap before she could process the movement. She straddled him, her sweatpants thin against the rough denim of his jeans. His hands landed on her hips, fingers pressing into the sore muscles there, claiming her all over again.
“Still sore?” he murmured into her hair.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Jace stubbed out his cigarette and stood. He moved in front of the rocking chair, his knees hitting the planks as he knelt. His hands went to the waistband of her sweatpants and her underwear beneath, dragging them down in one rough pull until they bunched around her thighs. The cool morning air kissed her exposed skin, making her shiver.
“See?” Jace said, his gaze fixed between her legs. “Told you you’d be shivering.”
He didn’t give her a chance to retort. He leaned in, his hands spreading her thighs wider over Rhett’s legs, and put his mouth on her.
His tongue was flat and hot, a ruthless, wet stroke from her opening to her clit. She jerked, a gasp torn from her. Rhett’s grip on her hips tightened, holding her down, his own hardness evident beneath her. Jace’s mouth was relentless. He licked into her, fucking her with his tongue, then sealed his lips around her clit and sucked, hard.
Pleasure, sharp and bright, lanced through the residual ache. Her head fell back against Rhett’s shoulder. One of his hands slid from her hip, around her belly, and down. His fingers, calloused and sure, parted her folds from behind, finding her soaked and open. He pushed two fingers inside her, curling them forward, pressing against a spot that made her see stars.
“Fuck,” she whimpered.
They worked her in a devastating tandem. Jace’s mouth sucking and licking, Rhett’s fingers pumping deep, curling, scissoring, stretching her. The rocking chair began a slow, creaking rhythm, pushed by Rhett’s heels. Each forward rock pushed her onto his fingers, each back rock pressed her cunt harder against Jace’s face.
She was hurtling toward the edge too fast, the coil in her belly winding tight. Her breaths became ragged sobs. “I’m—I’m gonna—”
Jace pulled his mouth away with a wet pop. Rhett’s fingers stilled, buried inside her.
The sudden stop was a physical pain. She cried out, a sound of pure frustration, her body trembling on the precipice. “No, please…”
“Not yet,” Rhett said, his voice a rumble against her spine.
Jace blew cool air on her throbbing clit, making her shudder. He looked up at her, his chin glistening with her wetness. “You don’t call the shots here, sweetheart. We do.”
He dove back in. Rhett’s fingers moved again, this time adding a third, the stretch burning so good. They built her up again, masterfully, until her thighs were shaking and her pleas were a broken mantra. Just as she was about to break, they stopped again.
“Please,” she sobbed, tears of overstimulation leaking from her eyes. “God, please let me come. I need it. I need it so bad.”
They did it a third time. The torture was exquisite. She was a live wire, every nerve ending screaming. Her world narrowed to the push and pull of their hands and mouths, the creak of the chair, the smell of pine and sex and smoke on the damp air.
Rhett’s lips were at her ear. “Who do you belong to?”
“You,” she gasped. “You. Both of you.”
His fingers crooked hard inside her. Jace’s tongue flicked over her clit in a rapid, insistent pattern.
“Now,” Rhett commanded.
It wasn’t a permission. It was a trigger.
The orgasm detonated. It wasn’t a wave; it was a rupture. A violent, uncontrolled surge that ripped through her with a force that blurred her vision. Her back arched violently against Rhett’s chest. A guttural scream tore from her throat, raw and endless. And as she shattered, her body did something it never had before—a hot, frantic gush of liquid released around Rhett’s fingers, soaking his hand, Jace’s face, and the porch boards beneath them with a sound like rushing rain.
Jace didn’t pull away. He groaned against her, his tongue working her through the pulsing, squirting waves until the last tremor subsided.
Silence, except for their ragged breathing. Sadie went boneless, collapsing against Rhett, completely spent. She was aware of the cool air on her wet skin, of the shocking dampness between her legs and underneath her. Rhett slowly withdrew his fingers, bringing them to his mouth, tasting her release without a word.
Jace sat back on his heels, wiping his face with the back of his hand, a look of dark, satiated triumph in his eyes. “Told you you’d regret that speech.”
She couldn’t speak. Could only tremble as Rhett’s arms wrapped around her, holding her shivering body together. The sunrise was full now, bathing the porch in warm, forgiving light, illuminating the evidence of her surrender pooling on the wood.
She had come to them defiant. She lay in Rhett’s arms now, utterly unmade. And the terrifying, glorious truth was settling into her bones: she hadn’t been abandoned. They were here. They had been waiting. And they had, quite literally, pulled her apart to put her back together.
Rhett pressed a kiss, startling in its softness, to the crown of her head. No words. Just the steady beat of his heart against her back.
It was enough. For now, in the quiet dawn, it was everything.