Then, his rhythm changed. It slowed down and gentled. I made a noise of protest, but when I looped my heels behind his back and tried to urge him on, he wasn’t having any of it. Instead, he moved even more slowly, pulling out until only the very tip of his cock was still inside me before sliding back inside, going until he was fully seated.
His fingers ghosted down my sides, leaving trails of fire to match the trails of wetness on the windows. I arched against him, one hand coming up against the window for leverage as I pressed down into his thrust, leaving a smear in the condensation that had formed there. But I was far from caring what this might look like if anyone were to happen upon the truck.
My orgasm swept over me right as the storm hit its crescendo. My eyes squeezed shut, and my mouth opened in a soundless cry of Trethan’s name. I shivered, both startled by the intensity of my orgasm and frightened by the boom of thunder overhead. But that fear, that spark of adrenaline, made my climax just that much more intense so that I hardly noticed Trethan coming as well, spilling hot, sticky lines of cum deep inside me.
Outside, the rain still fell heavily, streaking down the windows. Although, the lightning tapered off, only flashing in periodic bursts now, illuminating our naked forms only every so often. Trethan held me close in his arms, the blanket still tightly encasing us, keeping us warm there in the cool, dark, wet evening.
He pressed a kiss to my hair. “Did that help?” he asked, his voice sounding wrecked, as though he’d been the one screaming out his ecstasy.
I blushed and ducked my head, but I nodded all the same. “Yeah,” I told him. “That was just what I needed.”
Trethan smiled and trailed his fingers lightly over my skin. Then, he kissed my hair again, before beginning to root around for his clothes. “Well, it looks like the storm’s letting up,” he said, glancing up toward the sky where stars became visible. “How about we get you home?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Trethan
I counted the animals in the back pasture one more time and made some notes on my clipboard. Everything looked good. We had quite a few horses boarded here at the moment, and quite a few students were out taking lessons. I had a feeling it would be a big pay-out for John at the end of the season. Not enough to fund Vanessa’s gallery, but it might give him a little extra cash to help her.
But knowing Vanessa, she wasn’t going to wait until the end of the season before opening her gallery.
I kept trying to think of ways to help her, but nothing came to me.
I fished my out of my pocket as it started to ring. It was Brent, which was a bit of a surprise. I hadn’t heard anything from him since he’d first gone into the clinic. I’d been wondering how things were, but I’d known better than to bother him. He would contact me when he was ready.
“Hey, man,” Brent said, sounding tired, but more okay than I’d heard him in a while.
Now that I knew what to look for, I realized how long it had been since he’d been okay. I still couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed things sooner.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Things are actually… Well, they’re not good yet, but they’re getting there, I guess,” he said, sounding like he considered his words carefully. I could hear the grimace in his voice when he spoke again. “Not going to lie, the first couple weeks after I got in here were pure hell. Don’t ever get yourself mixed up in heroin, man.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I said, trying to keep things light. Or as light as possible, anyway, when one of my best friends was in rehab for drug abuse.
“You’re still feeling guilty,” he said, accurately assessing my tone.
I was silent for a long moment. Then, I sighed, running a hand through my hair as I stared out over the field. “I can’t help it,” I told him. “I should have realized sooner. I should have known that things had gotten rough for you. You shouldn’t have had to-”
“As soon as you knew about it, you got me into this place,” Brent interrupted, his voice firm. “Trethan, you need to stop beating yourself up over my mistakes.” He paused. “Anyway, I’m doing a lot better. I’m never going to be a hundred percent. It’s always going to be a struggle. My demon. But I’m making progress.”
“There’s something else that you’re not telling me,” I said suspiciously. I wasn’t sure where the hunch came from, if it was his words or his tone, but I was certain there was something more, some other reason he’d called me.
“I’ll be getting out of here soon,” he said, his voice quiet and careful. “I’m not sure that I’m going to be coming back to White Bluff.”
I whistled softly under my breath. “That would be quite the change.”
“I know,” Brent said. “But one of the best ways to keep from getting hooked again is to do away with that temptation as much as I can. I can’t let myself fall back into old patterns. You know as well as I do that that’s exactly what I’d let myself do. I’d come back to town and think, hey, I could get away with smoking a little weed. And then the next thing I knew, I’d start dealing again. And then it wouldn’t just be weed that I was doing anymore.”
“What made you start, anyway?” I asked suddenly. It was something I’d wondered about ever since I checked him into the facility.
Brent sighed. “Combination of things, really,” he said. “But to be honest? Probably it was just boredom, pure and simple.”
I could tell he was smiling, albeit in what was likely a self-deprecating way. “I grew up in this town, man. It’s not that I ever thought I was destined for something better because that’s really not my style, but maybe that’s exactly what the problem was. After a while, weed just didn’t do what it used to do to me. I needed something else.”
“Fair enough,” I sighed. I shook my head. “It’d be weird without you here, though. Who am I going to go to the Roasted Bison with?”
Brent laughed. “You won’t be going to the Roasted Bison anyway,” he said. “Come on, things are going good with Vanessa, aren’t they?”