Adison’s POV
Three days into being engaged feels like a dream I refuse to wake from.
The ring—Jake's grandmother's ring, the one he almost gave my mother—catches the lamplight as I move above him.
My palms press flat against his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heartbeat beneath my fingers, and I roll my hips in that slow, deliberate rhythm we've perfected over these months together.
"Fuck, Adison." His voice is gravel and need, rough in ways that make my thighs clench tighter around him. "You feel so goddamn good."
I sink down onto him, taking every thick inch, and the stretch is perfect—that delicious fullness I've become addicted to. His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise, guiding me, controlling the pace even from beneath me.
"Deeper." I'm breathless, demanding. "I want to feel you everywhere."
Jake groans and plants his feet, thrusting up to meet me as I come down. The angle changes and suddenly he's hitting that spot inside me that makes my vision blur.
I cry out, head falling back, and his hands slide up to cup my breasts—rough palms against sensitive nipples that are already peaked and aching.
"That's it, baby." He pinches one nipple, rolling it between his fingers while his other hand drops between us, finding my clit with practiced precision. "Ride me. Take what you need."
I'm close. So close. The tension coiling low in my belly, building with every thrust, every circle of his thumb against that swollen bundle of nerves.
My thighs are burning from the effort but I don't care—can't care—not when pleasure is cresting inside me like a wave about to break.
"Jake—" His name is a plea, a prayer. "I'm gonna—"
"I know." He pulls me down harder onto his cock, filling me so completely I forget how to breathe. "Come for me. Let me feel that pretty pussy squeeze me."
My phone screams from the nightstand.
I ignore it. Jake's fingers work faster, rougher, and I'm right there, right on the edge—
The phone stops. Then it starts again.
And again.
"Fuck." The word tears out of me, frustration and arousal tangled together. I reach for the phone without thinking, ready to silence whoever's interrupting, and Maria's name flashes across the screen.
Maria never calls past midnight.
I answer while still seated on Jake, still full of him, still trying to catch my breath around the pleasure pulsing through my body.
"Miss Addison—" Her voice is shaking. Wrong. Everything about this is wrong.
"Maria? What's—"
"Your father." The words come through in fragments that rearrange the universe. "Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Months, not years. He didn't want you to know. But Miss Addison, I couldn't—"
I disconnect mid-sentence.
The movement off him is abrupt, mechanical. One second we're connected, his cock still hard inside me. The next I'm standing by the window, arms wrapped around myself, trying to remember how breathing works.
Cold air hits my naked skin. I don't reach for clothes. Can't make myself care about covering up when everything inside me is exposed and bleeding.
The Texas sky is endless and dark and full of stars I usually love. Right now they feel like witnesses to something I can't name.
"Adison." Jake's voice is careful. I hear him moving, feel his presence behind me before his hand touches my shoulder.
I flinch.
He pulls back. The sound of him finding his jeans, giving me space I didn't ask for but apparently need.
"Talk to me." He's standing behind me now. Close but not touching. "What did she say?"
"My father." The words taste like rust. "Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Months."
Silence. Then: "Jesus."
"He didn't want me to know." A laugh escapes, bitter and broken. "Of course he didn't. Why would Richard Ward tell his daughter he's dying? That would require actually treating me like I matter."
"Adison—"
"He exiled me." I turn to face him. His expression is soft, concerned, everything I don't deserve. "Threatened to destroy you. Cut me off completely. And now he's dying and I'm supposed to—what? Rush back? Pretend none of that happened?"
Jake reaches for me again. This time I let him. His arms wrap around my naked body, solid and warm, and I press my face against his chest.
"I should go," I whisper. "That's what normal people do. Their father is dying, they go."
"Yeah." His chin rests on top of my head. "They do."
"But I can't." The admission feels like failure. "Not after everything. Not after he rejected me so completely. Going back feels like crawling. Like admitting I was wrong and he was right and everything I chose was a mistake."
"Was it a mistake?" His voice is quiet. "Choosing this?"
"No." Fierce and immediate. "God, no. But he'll see it that way. He'll see me coming back as surrender."
Jake pulls back enough to look at me. The lamplight catches the angles of his face, the gray at his temples, the man I've chosen over everything else.
"Listen to me." His hands frame my face. "This isn't about him being right or you being wrong. This is about your father dying. That's it. Everything else—the exile, the threats, the bullshit—that doesn't disappear. But it also doesn't matter as much as you think it does."
"How can you say that? After what he did to you—"
"Because regret is poison." His thumb brushes my cheekbone. "You don't recognize it until it's already in your blood. And baby, if you don't go, if you let him die without—" He stops. Swallows hard. "You'll carry that. Forever. I know because I've carried things. Smaller things. And they don't get lighter."
My chest cracks open.
"He doesn't deserve my forgiveness."
"Maybe not." Jake's voice is steady. "But you deserve to not spend the rest of your life wondering if you should've given it anyway."
The sky is lightening outside. Dawn creeping toward us while my whole world shifts again. We've been standing here for hours, talking in circles, and I'm no closer to knowing what to do.
"What if he rejects me again?" The question comes out small. Childlike. "What if I go back and he tells me to leave? What if dying doesn't change anything about how he sees me?"
"Then at least you'll know." Jake pulls me closer. "At least you'll have tried. And you'll come home knowing you did everything you could."
Home. This ranch. This man. This life I chose.
"I'm scared." The admission costs me something. "Not of him dying. Of being the daughter who wasn't there. Of being the person everyone expected me to be—cold, selfish, unforgiving."
"You're not that person." His voice is rough with emotion. "You were never that person. And anyone who can't see that doesn't deserve you."
I look up at him. The man who saw me when no one else did. Who built me an observatory while pushing me away. Who chose me over his oldest friendship.
The question forms before I can stop it, something desperate breaking behind my eyes.
"Will you come with me?"
Jake doesn't answer immediately. Just holds me while the sky gets brighter and Texas morning birds start their noise and the world keeps turning despite everything falling apart.
I wait.