Where We Go From Here (Phoenix Falls Series Book 3)

The high up canopy of dark rustling pine leaves has protected the Nature Trail’s steep road from the beginnings of the winter snowfall, but it won’t stay like that for long. Even now in the nightfall, heavy masses of snow are occasionally breaking away from the sheltering treetops, thudding down onto the roof, the windscreen, and the bed of my truck. I keep the wipers going as we head up the incline, the view already obscured from the surrounding blackness.

Harper takes a long pull on her slushie as I put the car in park outside of the bungalows. I look over to her as I unfasten my seatbelt and she smiles up at me with her eyes, her lips preoccupied with their work on the straw. I watch her suck for a couple of seconds, both of her hands wrapped around the base of the movie theatre cup, and I let myself succumb to the need throbbing through me. I feel my cock extend, pushing hard against my boxers, and I grip a hand over my groin so that I can suppress the growing ache.

She slips the straw from her lips and places her drink in the cup holder before settling back into her seat, snuggling further into the jacket that I gave her to wear. On the bottom half she’s wearing a pair of her pale denim jeans fitted in all the right places, but on the top half she’s wearing my work shirt, covered by my jumper, covered by one of my jackets. She looks so perfect that I have to reach over and gently cup her cheek, loving the way that she gets a soft flush when I stroke at her with my thumb.

“Was the movie okay?” I ask her, and she lets out a tinkling laugh.

“Mm-hm,” she grins. “So many muscles.”

I grin back at her and give her a quick kiss. Today was probably the best day of my year so far. The team and I finished our huge project ahead of schedule, I got an email confirming an upcoming boatload of renos on the horizon, and then I spent the evening having dinner and cosying up in front of an easy movie with the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t get better.

When Harper finally pulls away she tucks some hair behind her ear and says, “Hey, I just wanted to, um, remind you about the, uh…” She swallows and glances away from me, looking nervous. “Um, about my premier? The press week begins on Monday and I was thinking about flying back for the final night so, um, if you still think that maybe you’d be okay to come with me…?”

I stroke at her cheek again and give her a nod when she glances back up at me.

“Of course I’ll come,” I tell her calmly, but beneath my shirt my abs are clenching tight. Like hell would I actually let her go on her own when her piece of shit ex-fiancé is going to be there, supposedly still wearing his goddamn engagement ring.

Which reminds me.

I hunch lower so that I can kiss her again and when she starts losing her strength, melting up against me, I ease my palms under her ass and scoop her over the stick-shift onto my lap.

She sucks in a breath when she lands splayed on my spread thighs, encouraging me to kiss her harder and rock upwards slightly, making sure that she’s feeling me and making sure that she’s getting ready.

When she presses her left hand against the swell of my pecs I seize the opportunity and grasp it with my right fist. I pull backwards and then hold her hand between us, rubbing pointedly at her ring finger as she blinks up at me in an over-stimulated daze.

“I wanna ask you something,” I rasp, the heat from Harper’s pussy on my lap making my voice more gruff than I mean for it to be. “About your engagement,” I add on, my eyes boring hard into her own.

She’s so breathless that for a moment she looks like she forgot that she was recently engaged. Fuck yeah.

“Uh, okay, yeah,” she pants. “Anything – you can ask me anything.”

I tap her slim finger and ask, “Did he give you a diamond?”

She stays silent for a couple of beats, wondering where I’m going with this, before she finally whispers, “A small one.”

I grunt. “You keep it?”

“I…” She looks at her bare finger, frowns, and then looks back up at me with a sad arch to her brow. “I posted it back through his letterbox before I came here. But I… I don’t like talking about this. I haven’t really thought about him in a while. I prefer to think about you.”

I graze my teeth over my bottom lip, liking that sentence way too much.

“Good,” I tell her. “I’m glad you got rid of it. And we won’t talk about it anymore, I promise. But I was thinking about when we go to see your movie and how maybe… maybe before we do that we should head to the jeweller’s in town.”

She looks up at me in surprise. “The jeweller’s? Why?”

I move my hands to her hips so that I can grind her slowly over my shaft, and then I slide my palms up to her waist, clutching her tight against my chest.

“You need some new diamonds,” I say simply.

Her eyes grow wide and I quickly dip down so that I can kiss her again. My tongue rubs firmly against hers and she moans gently into my mouth, processing the information that I just gave her.

“Diamonds, plural?” she whispers breathlessly against me as my fingers quickly tug down the zip on her jacket.

“Yeah, diamonds plural,” I murmur back to her, shoving the jacket off her shoulders and then getting to work on her jumper. When she’s left in nothing but her jeans and my work shirt I wrap a hand firmly around the side of her throat and say, “You’re gonna wear them here.”

Her long lashes flutter as my thumb strokes over her clavicle.

“A diamond necklace?” she whispers, entranced.

I can’t help but smirk as I nod down at her.

“It’s too much,” she says, her brow creasing.

It’s only the beginning, I think to myself as I gently rub away her frown. “Don’t you think that you deserve some new diamonds?” I ask her quietly as I pull my phone and my wallet from the pocket of my jeans, tossing them onto the vacant passenger seat.

“Um… uh…” she pants, fast-blinking with contemplation.

I breathe a laugh and shake my head, flipping open my wallet so that I can slide out one of the two condoms that I shoved in there before we headed out this evening. She glances at the big black square and bites at her bottom lip.

“That was rhetorical,” I tell her as I chuck the foil packet onto the dashboard behind her and ease open the button on her jeans. “But the answer’s yes.”

She flushes with pleasure and arches back, letting me get a good look at her as I drag down the zipper on her jeans. I push the denim down off her hips and then press two fingers firmly against the warm cotton hiding her pussy.

“Are we gonna do it in here?” she asks me, watching my fingers rub at her with dilated pupils.

“We can do it wherever you want,” I murmur, slipping her gusset aside so that I can finally touch her soft heat. “Jesus, that’s beautiful,” I whisper, dropping my forehead to her shoulder as I rotate my fingers in gentle circles on her clit.

“Mitch, please,” she whimpers, her nails biting into the back of my neck and her hips grinding desperately against my hand. “I need you, right now.”

I pull back and nod, preparing to shove down my jeans, roll down the condom, and then get her pants off so that I can take her on my lap in the driver’s seat of my truck. But then her eyes flash down to my right, drawn to the light suddenly beaming up from the passenger seat.

I follow her gaze, staring down at my phone. Then my eyes go back up to hers, knowing what she’s seeing.

“What–” she begins, before reaching down and grabbing it, hastily swallowing as she scrolls through an endless page of messages, unopened and unread.

Her eyes shoot up to mine, confused and frowning.

I couldn’t care less about what’s on the screen of my phone right now. In fact, I could continue ignoring those messages for the next three weeks. What I want is for Harper to put the cell down, wrap her arms back around my shoulders, and then let me give it to her the way that no-one else ever will.

“It’s… it’s your birthday?” she asks, her brow dropping lower by the second. “It’s your birthday… today?”

I look at her for a long moment. I can already see that not telling her this information has put a big black cross next to my name.

I steel my jaw and give her a nod.

“Yeah,” I admit, because that’s the extent of it. But I can tell that to Harper, for whatever reason, this is a big deal.

She blinks rapid-fire at me, then looks back down at my phone as more messages silently come through. “It’s your… fortieth birthday. A significant birthday. And you didn’t think that you should tell me that.”

She stares at the screen for a few more seconds and then drops it down onto the seat beside us.

Honestly, right now nothing would make me happier than if she just shot-put the thing right out of the window.

I still have my hands on her waist as I try to think of how to describe my rationale behind this decision. She isn’t shoving me away from her so I don’t think that she hates me but it’s becoming crystal clear that this has some sort of deeper meaning to Harper than I’m currently understanding.

I didn’t tell her that it was my birthday because it’s not significant to me. I didn’t want it to alter her behaviour – which evidentially was a valid concern. I didn’t want her to feel the need to alter the dynamic, to please me for the sake of it being the day that I was born on. Today went exactly how I wanted it to without her even knowing it.

The only other thought that I had to contemplate was the fact that I’m forty now. With Harper not even being thirty yet that realisation may make her want to end this where it’s at. So I guess that I was being selfish, holding off on telling her so that I could spend just a little more time with her. But none of that was done with malicious intent.

I just want to keep things exactly as they are.

I move my fingers to redo her jeans and when I look at her face I can see that she’s embarrassed. Which is probably the worst emotion that she could be feeling right now.

I cup her face in my palm, ducking down a little so that I can catch her eyes.

“Hey, look at me, Harper,” I say quietly, guilt settling in my gut like a tonne of bricks. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Birthdays aren’t a big deal to me. I just wanted to spend the day finishing up the Pine Hills project and then having my evening with you, and that’s exactly what I did. It was perfect. Why’re you looking so upset?”

“Because what if I wanted to get you something? What if I wanted to make the day more special?”

I try to find the most diplomatic way to say that that’s exactly why I didn’t tell her.

“You give me more than enough every day – the only thing that I want is you. I never want you spending cash on me, Harper. It’s my job to take care of you, not the other way around.”

She scrubs angrily at one of her eyes, and I narrow my gaze on her. If I catch sight of one single tear I’m going to be even more pissed that today’s my birthday than I was twenty seconds ago.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” she says, shaking her head like she’s got a whole argument going on in there. “Today’s about you and you actually… you tried to make it about me.” She looks up at me, bewildered. “You literally just told me that you wanted to buy me diamonds. On your birthday. Like it’s some kind of treat for you.”

I shrug a shoulder.

“It is,” I say. “Using the money that I’ve earned to treat the woman that I–”

She shakes her head adamantly, cutting me off, but her hands are still on my shoulders, keeping us together. Showing me that she’s not mad at me.

Just hurt.

“It’s not the money,” she says. “It’s the fact that you hid it from me. If you don’t want to celebrate, that’s fine – I get it. It’s kind of girly and you’re, like, the most manly man that I’ve ever met. But I just… I hate it when people withhold the truth.”

She winces, like she’s said too much, and she clambers off of me before I can stop her, clicking open the passenger door and then jumping out, heading straight for her door.

I stare after her in confusion and I try to make sense of what just happened. I watch her unlock her door and close it quietly behind herself.

Maybe it was dumb for me to not mention it to her, but it sounded like she understood my indifference about celebrating. So what the hell is it?

I mull over her words, the frosty air coming off the snow pile drifting in through the still-open passenger door.

It’s as I’m leaning over to click it shut that I realise.

I hate it when people withhold the truth.

I drop my head into my hands, groaning, and then I’m shoving my wallet and the stray condom back into my jeans, grabbing the jumper and jacket that I gave to her, and throwing myself out into the snow.

How could I be so fucking stupid? Of course she hates it when people withhold the truth. Because withholding the truth is the same thing as lying. Which is why she fled to Pine Hills in the first place.

Because that’s exactly what her own sister and fiancé did to her during her literal engagement.

I’ve just given her a reason to maintain her trust issues over the dumbest thing of all freaking time.

Hell no. I slam my door shut, lock up, and then crunch my way through the icy blanketing, my boots sinking so deep that the bottoms of my jeans darken with water.

I’m at her door in under ten seconds, giving it a quick rap as I rest my forehead against the pane. I’m not about to let my blind ignorance ruin the best day that I’ve had in over a year.

“Harper,” I call through the wood. “Harper, I’m an idiot. Please open the door.”

She leaves me to sweat for another minute, my balls about freezing off as the winter chill penetrates the denim. Then I hear the sound of her undoing the bolt and the door opens up a millimetre.

A sparkly eye appears in the gap, her soft hair falling over her face as she whispers, “Go on.”

If I wasn’t so pissed at myself, that would’ve actually made me laugh.

“I’m an idiot,” I repeat. “It was the dumbest thing to not tell you, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Harper. Going forward I swear, even if something’s not a big deal to me I’ll tell you about it. I’ll tell you every goddamn thing. I never want you to think that I’m hiding anything from you, good or bad. It’s not in my nature, Harper – I would never. I swear, I would never–”

She opens the door fully and I immediately have her in my arms, her breasts soft and warm against my chest, her lips urgent but gentle against my own.

“I know,” she murmurs, not pulling away even to talk. I keep kissing her as she continues, “And you don’t have to do that. They’re my issues and I’ll deal with them.” She smiles against my mouth and whispers, “It’s no biggie.”

I pull back only so that she can take a look at the seriousness in my eyes.

“It is, Harper. Your trust is a big deal to me. And I’m going to earn it, so help me God.”

She laughs and kisses the centre of my pecs, making my heart damn near burst out of my chest.

“You speak so small town-y,” she whispers, smiling.

I run my hands down over her ass and then pick her up with an easy swoop.

“You got your key to lock up?” I ask her, and she shakes her head.

I pull the assortment of keys from my pocket and file through them until I find the one for her bungalow. Then I pull her door shut and work the metal in the lock.

“I love that you have a key to my bungalow,” she whispers excitedly, her hands pawing at my chest.

I breathe out a laugh as I walk us next door to mine, because holy hell do I love that too. Then the second that I’ve got us inside I’m scraping her higher up my torso and she’s clawing at my shoulders, both of us desperate to get as close to each other as physically possible.

“Shower,” I murmur as I stride us towards the back of the bungalow. I flip a sconce on as we go and it illuminates the kitchen in a warm orange glow. When I get us in the bathroom I kick the door shut and then drop Harper to the floor, ripping my shirt over my head and quickly unsheathing the belt from my jeans.

She leans up against the sink to watch me, her eyes half-mast and stormy as they trail over my muscles, thick from four months of nonstop hauling, and rippling with energy that needs to be spent.

Once I’m fully naked I pull open the door to the shower and flick the handle so that the spray can start pouring. Then I’m back over to Harper, helping her pull off her jeans and gripping my hands around her hips so that she can jump up onto the sink, her thighs spread wide on either side of my abs.

I rub at the hem of the work shirt that she’s wearing, half wanting to have her whilst she’s wearing it. But then I realise that I need to see all of her, every inch of her, and I pull it off over her head, tossing it down on the floor and watching as her soft hair spills over her shoulders.

No bra, I think to myself, swiping my tongue over my bottom lip as I look at her wrapped around me in nothing but those white cotton panties. The perfect picture of the girl-next-door.

And that’s what she has been whilst we’ve been staying in these bungalows. My boss’s gorgeous twenty-eight-year-old daughter, that hot piece of ass that I’m not supposed to have. And now I’m rubbing the dark head of my shaft over the damp cotton of her underwear, teasing her heat as she arches back on the basin.

“C-condom,” she pants when I reach down to suck her neck, my fingers pulling her panties aside so that I can rub and press at her clit. When I look back up her cheeks are flushed, her hair’s sticking damply to her throat, and the mirror behind her has fully steamed up with the heat from the shower water that’s now thrumming hard beside us.

“I know, baby,” I rasp, and then I squat between her legs so that I can grab the rubber from my jeans, placing it on the sink. But before I can stand upright again my eyes lock onto her heat.

I need it. Just one taste.

I grasp the sides of her panties and pull them down past her knees, leaving them to dangle off her ankle as I take in the sight of her sex. I lean forward, pressing my forehead against her belly, and she moans before I’ve even got my mouth on her, the feel of my heavy breathing and my rough palms behind her knees making her spread and writhe like I’m already inside of her.

I wrap a fist around my shaft and start tossing it, tight and fast.

“Can I?” I beg, my mouth hovering just over her heat.

When she whimpers but doesn’t respond I look up at her from between her thighs and rub my thumb more firmly into her soft skin.

“Just for a minute, baby,” I plead. “Just one minute and then I promise I’ll take you how you want it.”

She bites at her lip and nods her head, leashing her fingers in my hair and crying out the second that my mouth touches her sex.

I groan against her and instantly start stroking her with my tongue, long firm strokes that make her press my face against her harder. I release my cock so I can knead both of her thighs as I suck and lap, and then I let one palm slide up her waist until I can finally get a handful of her tits.

“Mitchell,” she whimpers, grinding herself desperately against my face. I caress her breast, fingers playing with her soft nipple as my tongue laps relentlessly at her nub. My other hand moves around her hip so that it’s gripped tight around her perfect ass and then I force her forwards, enabling me to lick her as firm and deep as possible.

“Mitchell, please,” she moans. “If you don’t stop I’m going to–”

“Do it,” I growl, my hand moving from one breast to the other. I hunch down as I gorge deeper and the angle enables me to push my shoulders underneath her knees, get them steady, and then shove them backwards, fully exposing her to me.

“Mitch!” she whimpers, and then my hands are on both of her breasts, massaging them in my palms as she clenches tight and cries out with her climax. Her hands secured in my hair keep me pressed hard against her heat and I help her ride out the orgasm, her knees locked tight around my neck.

“Don’t stop,” I grunt as she squirms and jolts, my thumbs rubbing as fast as they can over her pointed nipples. “Keep coming for me, baby.”

Her knees clench tighter as I suck at her clit and she moans desperately, her fingers too weak to hold on any longer. Her hands move to the sink behind her ass and she grinds against me with nothing but her hips, her breathing way too fast as the steam from the shower and her orgasmic exertion constrict and choke at her throat. When her body finally falls limp I give her one long last suck and then stand between her thighs, ripping into the condom as I watch her tits rise and fall.

“You have the sweetest pussy,” I tell her as I get the rubber on my tip, grip it, and roll it down. Her lashes flutter as she looks down at my cock and I tease her with it by trailing it up her flushed thigh, its thickness and rigidity making her eyes roll back into her head.

I grasp my other hand behind her neck and kiss her, tilting her backwards so that my tongue can slide in deep. She takes it, too limp to return the strokes, and I grunt in her mouth as my tip finally nudges against her pussy.

I pull back and grip both of my hands around her hips, pulling her up off the sink and clutching her tight against my abs. I walk us into the streaming shower, the air so thick with mist that it’s turned opaque, and I kiss her again when I’ve got her pinned to the back wall.

“I’m sorry about before,” I murmur as I dip a hand underneath us so that I can align my cock with her entrance. “I’m gonna spend all night making it up to you.”

She manages to open her eyes a little and I instantly duck down to kiss at her lips.

“Y-you don’t need to be sorry,” she whispers. “I forgive you, Mitch. It-it’s your b-birthday, after all.”

I grin down at her and then start pushing up, her teeth biting hard into her bottom lip as I try to breach her with my tip.

“This is what I wanted for my birthday,” I grunt, my hands firmly wrapped around her waist as I try to fill her slowly. “My girl taking her pleasure all night.”

I reach down for one more kiss before I finally thrust up, bringing us together as close as we can go.

I squeeze my eyes shut, my temples throbbing because of how tight she is. I press my forehead hard against the tiles above her and I slide out slowly, not wanting to be rough when she’s at her most sensitive, post-climax. She shifts her legs slightly higher and wraps her arms more securely around my neck, and I stay still for a brief moment, revelling in the feeling of her beautiful body moving trustingly against mine. I wait until she settles, and then I bury my nose in her hair and thrust back inside.

She gasps and squirms, and I pull back a fraction so that I can look down at her gorgeous body. I keep my eyes on where we’re joined and start pumping faster, the sight of her taking me damn near making me spill. I check her face to gauge how she’s handling it, if it’s too much or too fast, but the second that our eyes meet she’s making those fuck-me whimpers and rubbing her sweet nipples up against my pecs, so I build up the tempo to a relentless in-and-out pounding, one hand kneading her ass and the other tilting her chin up to face me.

“I should tell you something,” I pant, as I roll into her deeper, her thighs splaying backwards to give me better access. “If I’m gonna tell you everything, then there’s something I need to get on the table right away.”

Her eyes widen a little like she’s scared, so I shake my head and rub my thumb up her jaw.

“It’s not a bad thing,” I clarify. “It’s a… it’s a really good thing. I think. But I’m… I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda nervous, baby.”

Her brow creases but she nods at me anyway. “You… you can tell me a-anything, Mitchell. Please.”

Fuck. Why is it so goddamn sexy to hear her say “please”? I grit my teeth together and give her ass another rough squeeze just to help me calm the fuck down.

“First,” I rasp out, “I love it when you call me that. When you call me Mitchell, instead of Mitch. No-one ever calls me that – it’s only you, baby.” I stop speaking before I get to my second point, immediately feeling the heavy weight of expectation settling in my abs. I try to stay focused, determined to tell her how I feel.

I try to use it to my advantage, using the surge of adrenaline to pump her faster and deeper, my hips smacking loud and wet against the hot centre of her thighs. My eyes drop down to her tits and my sac is suddenly aching with the need to release, the sight of them bouncing for me making me bite back a snarl.

“What I really wanted to say to you,” I pant, cupping her cheek in my palm and trying to hold it together whilst I get these words out, “is that I… I don’t know how this is for you, but for me this is it. The real thing. And I’m not talking about the sex,” I add quickly, aware of how in this moment my words might get misconstrued. “Although the sex is fucking amazing, baby. I-I’m trying to say that this – you and me – us… it’s the real thing for me. And I… I…” I swallow hard, looking deep into her eyes. And then I say it. “I’m in love with you, Harper. I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Harper gasps, her eyes sparkling and wide. But then she’s suddenly screwing them shut as she’s overcome by a second climax, the combination of what she’s heard and what she’s feeling too much to contend with anymore.

I hold her tight against my chest as I finish her off.

“You don’t have to say it back,” I murmur quickly, my hand moving to her clit and rubbing hard. “I just had to tell you. I had to tell you that, if this was all up to me, you’d be mine now. No going back. I know we haven’t talked about the future, and that’s okay. But I had to let you know where I stand.” I press my forehead against the top of her head and she looks up at me from under her lashes. “And it’s right here. Taking care of you. For as long as you’ll let me.”

“Oh my God,” she whispers, her hands cupping either side of my jaw as she rides out the rest of her orgasm.

I move both of my palms to grip at her behind, lifting her slightly higher against the wall so that I can pound her deeper as I finish. The new position means that her lips are close enough to mine for me to be able to lean down and reach, so I give her a long firm kiss. I keep it chaste until she opens up for me, asking me to give her my tongue. I give her a couple deep strokes of it and then I’m the one who’s on the edge, pulling back so that I don’t completely over-stimulate her and picking up my thrusts again so that I can finally spill my load.

“Mitchell?” she whispers, and my eyes flash down to hers, full of heat. Maybe it was a bad idea to tell her how hot it gets me when she calls me that, knowing that she could sweet-talk me into doing anything she wanted with her husky voice alone.

“Yeah, baby?” I rasp as my hands grip into her, bouncing her up and down my shaft.

“Are you… are you sure?” she whispers, looking imploringly into my eyes. “I want to believe you so bad. I want you to love me. But I just want you to be sure before I let myself believe you.”

I bounce her faster, steeling my jaw to stop myself from growling.

“How could I not love you, baby?” I whisper back to her, my voice low beneath the thrum of the water. “I’ve never been more sure about anything. I’m so in love with you that I want to skip past the diamond necklace section and go straight to the diamond rings.”

Her hand grips at my jaw as her pleasure makes her lose control, but then it’s running delicately down my abs, disappearing beneath us, and then–

“Harper,” I growl, my head about to explode. She kisses innocently at my chest as she gently massages my sac. “Harper, you do that for one more second and I’m gonna come.”

“They’re so big,” she whispers, not letting up.

“Baby, I mean it. Harper, please–” And then I’m groaning, my body locking her tight against the wall and pounding into her harder than I should.

“S-sorry, Harper, just one more minute. Just one more–”

“I love you, too.”

I bite down hard on my cheek, holding back the expletives that want to rip out of my chest so that I don’t ruin the moment. She lets me pump her exactly the way that I need to, my cock sliding in and out of her thick and fast, and then when I’m done I keep her up against the wall, grunting when she tries to climb down, needing to stay inside of her for just a minute longer.

Her fingers stroke up and down my back, more delicate than I’ve ever been touched before, and I press my face into her hair, listening to the beautiful sound of her panting combined with the relentless cascade of the spray.

“I love you,” she whispers again, and this time I pull my head up so that I can look down at her as she says it.

I slide gently out of her and we’re both instantly moaning, but then I pull her into my arms and hunch down so that I can kiss her, the water from the shower like a Phoenix Falls storm.

“I love you so much that I almost broke the condom,” I murmur against her, my cheeks burning red.

She clings on tighter and whispers, “I love you so much that I wouldn’t have minded.”