Page 35 of Puck Wild (Storm Warning #1)

I bit my lip, breathing hard, watching the mess of us—me dusted in flour, Jake on his knees, the two of us a study in desire.

I wanted to come, and I wanted to wait. I wanted to drag it out and have it last long enough that it vaporized the rest of the world.

It probably wasn't my choice. Jake knew what he was doing. He edged me right up to the brink and then pulled off, mouth trailing quick, biting kisses down my thigh.

I clamped a hand over my face, trying to hold it together. "Holy shit, Jake—"

"Wow, Spreadsheet. That's your dirty talk? 'Holy shit'? How do you color-code orgasms on your spreadsheets?"

I barely managed to breathe. "If I did, you'd be a statistical outlier."

"Damn right."

Jake pressed his body up against me, bare skin on skin, and for a second, I thought he might fuck me right there on the counter, flour and all. "If you want the full treatment, we might need some… equipment."

"Nightstand."

"Be right back. Nobody move." He pecked me on the lips—gentle and quick—before sprinting down the hall.

The sound of the bedroom door bumping the wall, followed by frantic rummaging, made me laugh despite the trembling in my thighs. I glanced down: my skin was a patchwork of flour, sweat, and bite marks, and my cock appeared cartoonishly out of place, flushed and sticky with spit.

A minute later, Jake reappeared. He'd lost his sweatpants somewhere, and he clamped the condom package between his teeth. He had a bottle of lube in one hand.

He grinned. "Well, well. Looks like somebody's about to get thoroughly safety-inspected."

"Fuck," I gasped.

"You want to do this here, or you want a less—" he glanced around at the carnage "—powdered-sugar-adjacent environment?"

"I'm not sure the kitchen can take more abuse."

Jake rubbed his chin with his free hand. "Fair. We should preserve it. For… brunch." He scooped me up off the marble and carried me—bridal style—straight down the hall, and we trailed a fine white mist like the world's worst wedding processional.

"Careful," I warned. "If you break your ankle before Thursday, Coach will murder you and then make you run stairs in hell."

"I'll use the other foot. I'm an innovator." He body-checked his bedroom door open, dumped me onto the unmade bed, and tumbled in after, wrestling me onto my back with gleeful ferocity.

The sheets were a disaster—Jake never made the bed, claiming it was polite to leave it open for napping emergencies. I didn't care.

He knelt above me, a condom wrapper pinched between his fingers. "Now, let's review the steps. Step one: don't blast your boyfriend off the face of the earth."

He ripped the foil and rolled the condom on. My mouth went dry as I watched. "Step two: apply product generously." He popped the lube open with his thumb and looked at me. "Remind me: is this a single or double coating situation?"

"Are you doing a home improvement ad?" I laughed. "Just—look, I trust you."

Jake's grin softened. He bent down and kissed the inside of my knee, slow and deliberate, then pushed my thighs apart with both hands.

He spread the lube—way too much, predictably—and rubbed it in with his fingers, first feather-light, then steady and deep. I was still half-covered in flour, so his hands left sticky trails, and the smell of the bakery aisle and sweat filled the room.

He worked one finger inside me, gentle at first, then more direct, curling and searching until he found the spot that made me gasp. I dug my fingers into the sheets, knuckles tight, and Jake looked up, eyes lighting up like he was unboxing a new toy. "Good?"

My answer was a helpless whimper.

He added a second finger, twisting, opening me up. I rocked down, desperate for friction, but Jake held me steady with his palm, thumb pressing into the crease of my thigh while he got me used to the stretch.

When he finally pulled out, I watched him line up—condom shiny, cock flushed, the rest of him wild and beautiful. He braced one hand on my hip and slid in, a little at a time, stopping every few seconds to let me breathe and let the stretch go from impossible to perfect.

I dragged my knees higher, tilting my hips up, and he slid the rest of the way in, bottoming out with a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh.

"Okay?"

I nodded. He pulled back, slow, and then snapped his hips forward, knocking the breath out of me. My head slammed against the pillow. I started laughing and couldn't stop.

He started laughing, too, but didn't let up in his rhythm. "That's right. Let it all out, Carter. You're in good hands."

His hands were everywhere—one braced on my hip, fingers digging in with every thrust; the other roaming my chest, leaving floury fingerprints on my sternum and tweaking my nipples hard enough to make me arch up.

Jake bent down, mouth open on my neck, teeth scraping just enough to make it hurt, and then soothed the sting with kisses. He whispered something—probably another chirp, probably something about how good I looked getting railed in his bed—but my brain wasn't translating English anymore.

My body took over from my brain, hips moving up to meet every piston thrust of his.

Jake's voice was ragged. "Shit, you feel good."

He altered his angle, and stars burst behind my eyes. I moaned something, probably his name, maybe only a vowel. He picked up the pace, got rougher, and my brain shorted out.

When I finally lost it—when my body locked down and everything went white at the edges—I heard myself say his name, over and over. I came, striping my chest, and he kept fucking me through it, relentless.

Jake followed a few thrusts later, hips jerking, head thrown back. He let out a shout that I was pretty sure the neighbors could hear, and then collapsed on top of me, both of us a heap of sweat, flour, and still-smoldering nerves.

Jake mashed his face into my shoulder, arms caging me in, legs tangled around mine. I let him stay, too wrung out to care about the mess or the sour-sweet smell of lube and sweat and everything else.

"Still think I'm a liability?" he asked, his voice casual

I considered the question seriously. The Jake Riley who'd moved in a month ago had been all sharp edges and defensive charm, turning every conversation into performance art. This Jake—flour-dusted and relaxed, asking real questions—was still relatively new.

"Only to my sense of control," I said. "And my flour budget."

His grin was quick and bright, but then it shifted, softening around the edges until it looked almost shy.

"I love you." The words escaped my mouth before I could organize them into something safer or more strategic.

For three seconds that felt like three hours, I wondered whether I'd just blown everything apart with poor timing and worse impulse control. Then, Jake's grin came back, slower this time but wider, spreading across his face like sunrise over Lake Superior.

No performance. No deflection. Only Jake, looking at me like I'd handed him something precious.

"Yeah? Because I love you too."

We lay there, letting our words land.

Jake finally spoke. "So, that happened."

"That happened."

"Good timing. Very romantic. Really set the mood with the flour explosion."

I chuckled. "I thought it added ambiance."

"Nothing says I love you like being the victim of a pastry chef attack."

The thing about loving Jake Riley was that it came with a specific kind of chaos I'd quit trying to organize.

I'd spent most of my adult life building systems. Color-coded calendars, alphabetized spice racks, and labeled containers that kept the world neat, predictable, and safe.

Jake was the opposite of containment. He was flour fights at four in the afternoon and labels that made no functional sense.

He was the laughter that started in your chest and worked its way out until your whole body shook with it.

He was midnight conversations, stolen glances across locker rooms, and how he said my name like it meant something important.

He was beautiful, uncontainable chaos, and I was completely gone for him.

Jake shifted beside me, pushing to the edge of the bed with that loose-limbed grace that made everything about him appear effortless. "I'm getting pie," he announced, padding toward the kitchen barefoot. "You want pie?"

"It's your pie. The label was very clear about ownership."

"Our pie," he corrected.

I followed and watched him pull open the fridge door and carefully extract the dented store-bought pie, handling it like something precious instead of a four-dollar impulse purchase from the grocery store. The sticky note was still there, crooked and proud: Carter's Boyfriend's Pie - Hands Off.

He could have peeled it off. Could have smoothed down the corners or straightened it or done any of the dozen small things that would have made it look more professional.

Instead, Jake carried it to the counter exactly as it was—label intact, handwriting tilted at impossible angles, the word "boyfriend" written in his distinctive scrawl for anyone to see.

He caught me watching and winked, pulling two forks from the drawer with theatrical flourish.

And there it was—Jake Riley, chaos agent and unexpected romantic, claiming me with messy handwriting and store-bought pie. Not hiding what we were or making jokes to deflect from its weight. Just... owning it. Owning us.

I knew I'd never loved anyone more in my entire life.