Page 4 of My Three Hometown Hard Hats

With his other hand, he reaches down, rubbing circles around my clit. I bite down on his palm to keep from screaming as pleasure crashes through me.

“That’s it. Yes,” he breathes into my ear as he slams into me two more times before he tenses inside of me.

He pulls me up fully, so my back is pressed against his chest with him still seated inside of me. His hand slides from my mouth and down my throat.

I try to slow my breathing without much success.

Who is this man? And how am I ever going to enjoy sex again after this?

CHAPTER ONE

Hadley

“Home sweet home,”my older brother, Grayson, says from behind the wheel of his truck.

My head jerks up and, sure enough, we’re already pulling into Aspen Springs.

The last few hours of driving up into the mountains since Grayson picked me up from the airport in Denver have been a bit of a blur.

I haven’t been back to Colorado in three years, and even then I was only here for forty-eight hours. My mom and Grayson were the only people I saw.

He turns the truck onto Hickory Avenue, which cuts through the middle of town. My eyes track over all the familiar buildings lining both sides of the street, a mix of new and old.

I can almost feel the history of this tiny mining village that turned into the town I grew up in seeping into my bones.

For the first time in five years, I feel like I can finally take a deep breath again. I moved to New York because this town, and even the state, was suffocating me, but now I feel the complete opposite.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m older now or if I’m having a crisis, but the peaceful nature of this town is instantly setting me at ease.

Grayson turns the truck again onto the street we grew up on, and I am smacked in the face with the breathtaking view of the Rocky Mountains.Were they always this big?

Suddenly, there’s no air in my lungs. All I want to do is pull out my camera and capture this image, an image I grew up seeing but never truly appreciated until this moment.

Maybe that’s what you could do. Be a photographer. There’s no way. Right?

“You’re quiet over there,” Grayson says, side-eyeing me.

“Just thinking.”

“About?” He pulls the truck to a stop in front of the light green house with pots of purple and pink flowers lining the porch.

“How gorgeous it is here.”

He swings his door open. “You’re just realizing it?” he teases, pulling my suitcases from the bed of the truck.

I glance again to the west, taking in the peaks that jut up into the crystal blue sky. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

His much larger frame steps beside me, his arm slung over my shoulders. “Good to have you home, sis.”

I lean my head against him.How did I not realize how much I missed him?

“Hadley, is that you?” I hear my mom’s voice through the screen door.

“I’ll get your stuff. Go see her,” he says.

With a smile on my face, I hurry down the small sidewalk and up onto the porch. Opening the door, I’m hit with a smell that is distinctly my childhood, this house, my mom.

“Hey, Mom,” I say, crossing through the living room and wrapping her in my arms. She leans on her cane with one hand but holds me close with the other.