Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)

by Elsie Silver

“Has anybody ever told you how incredible you are, Willa?” I swallow. “How fun? How smart? How goddamn witty?” Fuck. His words are like a baseball bat to the chest. Totally out of left field.

It’s the corded muscles in his back, the sight of wet fabric beneath the water—proof that he couldn’t hold himself back even a second longer—that has me barreling quickly toward that cliff. The same one he’s been pushing me off for about the last twenty-four hours. The one he’s always at the bottom of to catch me when I fall. And fall I do.

Maybe he’s feeling just as exposed as I am. Maybe if I feel like a goddess when we’re together, he feels like a god. Maybe we both just revel in that feeling.

“How do I look?” I quirk a brow and arch my back. “Like you’re mine,” he growls.

Those words. My body aches for more. I want him to be mine too. “Yeah? You like this look on me?” “It would be better like this.” He swipes his thumb over my chin and in one smooth movement, paints my lips with the stray shot of cum. He leans back and looks at me with a mischievous grin on his face. “Definitely mine.”

“You’re a savage, Eaton.” I laugh lightly, before darting my tongue out to taste what he put there. “And I love it.” “Good thing, Red.” He slips into the water, dragging me down with him to wash us off. “Because I’m going to haul your fine ass to my cave now. Keep you on your back, coming all night long.” Then he scoops me up and c...

Cade: Luke’s birthday party is on Saturday at 2 p.m. Talia: Can we bump it to noon? I have dinner plans that night and need time to get ready.

ARE YOU-- FUCK U HOE, ITS YOUR GODDAMN FUCKING SON!!!!!

Rhett: You know Medusa? Willa: Not personally, no. Rhett: Remember the part about not looking her in the eyes? Willa: I’ve always kind of liked Medusa. If I were her, I’d wanna turn men into stone too. Rhett: Pretend Talia is Medusa. But a version we don’t like.

Word, same

I have a feeling I’m giving major serial killer vibes at this current juncture.

“If you can’t stop running your mouth with that self-sabotaging bullshit, I will shut it for you.”

......okay daddy

“What are you looking for, baby? You think I’d stop just because someone walked in?” His fingers glide down between my legs, and he runs two gentle fingers through my wet folds. “Maybe Talia will catch us, and I can make things abundantly clear for both of you. Because I can promise you, I’ve never fucked anyone the way I fuck you.” I clench and moan. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” His voice is all gravel. “I wouldn’t care. You’re mine, Willa. And I don’t give a fuck who knows it.”

One hand presses down on my back as he leans forward to whisper, “Is that what you need? You need me to bend you over right here and now, then send you back out there dripping my cum down your pretty little thighs to prove it to you?”

he leans over my back and grits out, “You want it all, Willa? The house? The babies? The ranch?” I nod again because it’s all I can do. I want all that. With him.

“You want me, Willa?” “Yes.” I cry out

I want him so badly ...

“You’re going to spend as much time as you want at our house,” he says, while thrusting into me slowly. “You’re going to work whatever job you want. Wherever you want. But you’ll always have a place here. A home here. I’ll make you coffee every morning. I’ll leave you all the Post-it notes you want. I’ll cook your dinner every day. I’ll eat your pussy in the hot tub before bed every damn night.”

“But this pussy is mine, Willa.” He drags his lips over my skin until I can’t even think straight. I press harder on my clit, feeling myself barrel toward that finish line. “Mine to fuck.” Yes.

“Mine to fill.” Yes.

“Mine.”

A man of such dichotomies. Hard words laced with love. Rough hands filled with tenderness.

“Ready?” he asks with an outstretched hand and a lopsided smile on his face. A dimple I never even noticed has popped up. He looks boyish and beautiful. And like he might be mine after all.

“Willa.” Summer’s eyes widen. “We’re in public.” “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

Looool my friends shutting me up in public

I sigh, letting the word mine settle into my bones. I spent all night snuggled next to Cade and spent the entire party catching his eyes on me, raking over me in an impolite fashion. When I played “Happy Birthday” on my guitar, accompanied by Luke on the smaller guitar that I gifted him, everything felt so damn right.

“Uh oh. Have you got baby rabies, Willa?” I groan and lean back in my chair. “Will you take back my feminist card if I tell you I really just want to live in that little house on the ranch, teach guitar lessons, get titty-fucked in the hot tub, and have a bunch of adorable babies?”

I always feel better with his hands on my body.

“Some sort of breeding kink I don’t know about?”

............ahem........

“I haven’t shaved my legs.” I chuckle. “I don’t care. Don’t you get it? I’m in love with you, Willa. Prickly legs, random carrots in your purse, pregnant, not pregnant. I want you.”

“It’s okay to feel sad, Willa. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s definitely okay to need a couple of days alone to digest. But you can overthink this too. You can turn it inside out until it looks like something different than what it is.”

from where I’m sitting, it’s two smart loving adults who are navigating a curve ball in the best way they know how.” A sob racks my body. “It’s two people who were both a little lost until they ended up on the same path and walked together for a while.”

I’m heartbroken without him too.

Rhett: My wife messaged you about dinner. You haven’t answered. Don’t be rude to her or I’ll drive over and kick your ass.

Eyes shut, I wish for Willa. A life with her. A family with her. Gray hair and more laughter with her.

Shaking my head at myself, I put the Jeep back into drive and head straight for Cade’s little red house. The little red house with a freshly poured sidewalk out front. The little red house with a sweet dark-haired boy strumming his guitar on the front step. The little red house with a man who makes my heart race and my cheeks heat just by scowling at me the way he is now.

His thumbs stroke along the peaks of my cheekbones, and he holds my head between his palms. Reverently. Delicately. With so much love.

“I love you, Cade,” I murmur against his chest. “I love you too, Red.” Then he just holds me tighter, and I hope he never lets go.

I spent years feeling jilted. Feeling angry. Feeling like everyone around me had everything going for them and I was just stuck in a rut of responsibility. And then Hurricane Willa blew into town and turned everything upside down in the best fucking way.

“I love it when you pet me.” She sighs and closes her eyes with a low chuckle. “Y’all are fuckin’ weird,” Rhett quips from beside us,

First, YES. Second, shut up Rhett

I glance over my shoulder, seeking that flash of coppery hair. And she’s there, smiling, gripping the metal fence panel with one hand, the other slung over her stomach, looking at me like I hung the moon—and for her I would.

I’d do it for everything she’s given me in such a short time . . . A love Luke has never known. A reason for me to smile again. A person to talk to after so many years of silence. A love I’ve never known.

She’s climbed up to the top of the fence panel and is staring at me with her hands cupped over her mouth, shouting like a crazy person. My crazy person. Here for me.

“You know the rule, Red?” “You wear the hat, you ride the cowboy.”

She winks at me, looking fucking adorable wearing my hat. I should have put it on her forever ago. I should have put it on her the first day I laid eyes on her in that coffee shop.

And I realize in that moment maybe I am heartless after all, because the beautiful girl with the copper hair grinning back at me right now is the one who stole it.

The baby kicks the shit out of me non-stop, and I feel like a beached whale.

Whoever said pregnancy is beautiful can die a fiery death, as far as I’m concerned.

“Do you think . . .” He peers back up at me now. “Do you think it would be okay if I called you mom too?”

I LOVE LUKE SM

“My dude, you can call me whatever you want. I know I’m not actually your mom, but I love you like one. Did you know I fell in love with you before I fell in love with your dad?” His eyes light at that. “You did?” I nod, pulling him close with an arm around his shoulders. “I did.”