Exes Rekindle Heat on the Trail

I’d been the designated human buffer for Vera and Jace’s spectacular post-breakup wreckage for three solid years. Practically speaking, that meant I was the guy holding the metaphorical fire extinguisher while they set various social events ablaze with passive-aggressive commentary. Today’s battlefield was an aggressively scenic hiking trail, chosen because neutral ground apparently requires an excess of pine needles and a mosquito population with the morale of a paramilitary unit.

We were marching in a loose, heavily guarded triangle. Jace was complaining about the absolute lack of cell service, Vera was complaining about Jace complaining, and I was simply regretting my choice of footwear. It was aggressively mundane. I spent twenty solid minutes calculating how much trail mix I could realistically inhale before I choked on a dry almond and finally escaped this outing via ambulance.

“Watch the roots,” I called out, pointing toward a gnarled patch of oak staging a hostile takeover of the dirt path. “The absolute last thing I’m equipped to do today is carry either of you back to the car.”

Vera scoffed, her boots crunching over gravel. “Says the man who confidently walked into a glass door at brunch last week.”

“It was immaculately cleaned,” I shot back, swatting a bug off my neck. “The Windex lobby is out to get me.”

Jace let out a dry, breathy laugh, though he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. The air between them was the usual cocktail of unresolved history and deliberate distance. Then the heel of Vera’s boot caught the edge of a jagged rock. She pitched sideways with a sharp yelp, arms flailing for balance. Jace moved on pure reflex, grabbing her upper arm and hauling her flat against his chest before she could eat dirt. I stepped in from the other side an instant later, my hand clamping onto her hip to anchor her weight.

My knuckles bumped square against Jace’s hand where he held her waist. A clumsy, accidental collision of skin.

Everything stopped. The shift from sweaty, irritable banter to absolute crushing gravity happened in a fraction of a second. The ambient noise of the woods seemed to flatline. Nobody pulled away. My fingers stayed locked over Jace’s, his heat bleeding through the grip and into Vera’s hip. The sarcastic remark about her coordination died on my tongue.

Vera’s chest heaved once, her chin tilting up as she looked between the two of us. No polite stepping back, no nervous laughter to defuse the proximity. The accidental touch had rewired the whole atmosphere on the spot, stripping away the detached facade we’d spent miles maintaining. Jace’s jaw set as his gaze slid from my hand on her hip up to my face, reading the sudden, unmistakable intent there. His fingers slid deliberately over mine, pinning my hand tighter against her body. Whatever was funny five seconds ago had vanished.

“Hands off,” Jace said. The bantering tone was gone, replaced by something cold, heavy, and considerably more dangerous. “I’ve got her.”

I lifted my palm away and let him take over completely. He didn’t rush. He slid the backpack straps off her shoulders himself, one and then the other, easing the weight off her like he had all the time in the world and the woods belonged to him. The pack hit the dirt with a soft thud. His hands moved to the hem of her shirt next, and he lifted it over her head in one steady, careful haul, mindful of her arms, of the way her hair caught and then fell loose. He reached around and unhooked her bra with a deliberate flick, let it slip down and drop. Then he crouched and worked her boots off one at a time, unlacing them properly instead of yanking, and peeled her jeans and underwear down her legs slow and even, steadying her by the calf as she stepped free of each. She stood bare on the grass, breathing hard, while he was still fully dressed and unhurried about it.

Jace pointed at the ground. “On your back. Knees up.”

Vera lowered herself without a word. He dropped to his knees beside her, gripped my shoulder, and pushed me down between her spread thighs. “Mouth on her. Flat tongue, two fingers inside. Curl them.” His hand settled on the back of my neck, the heat of his palm grounding me there as I licked up the slick heat of her and pushed two fingers into the tight grip of her body. Each curl dragged against the front wall while I kept steady pressure with my tongue.

Jace shifted lower onto his haunches to reach, sliding his free hand under her ass to tilt her hips up toward my mouth. “Deeper. Use all of it.” I pressed in harder, working through the wet folds until her thighs started to tremble against my ears, the muscles in them jumping. His fingers stayed firm on my neck, adjusting the angle until her hips jerked and a low, broken sound climbed out of her throat.

He hauled me back by the collar, unzipped, and freed himself. Then he shifted forward and knelt up close between her thighs, hooking her left knee high against his side with one hand to spread her open. He lined up and drove in with one controlled thrust, sinking deep until the base of him pressed flush against her. The wet sound of it filled the air as he leaned his weight down over her, planting his other forearm in the grass beside her ribs to brace himself, his torso lowered close over hers. He set a hard, even rhythm—each stroke pulling nearly all the way out before driving back in, the head dragging over the exact spot my fingers had worked.

Vera’s hands fisted in the grass on either side of her. Her body clenched visibly around him on every withdrawal, slick coating the length of him. Jace kept the pace exact, driving his hips down with his weight stacked over her through the braced arm, no change in depth or speed even when her back arched and her thighs locked around his waist. Her breathing collapsed into short, sharp exhales that matched the wet slap of skin. He stayed silent, jaw set, eyes fixed on where he disappeared into her.

Her orgasm hit without warning—her body pulsing hard around him, thighs shaking as a wordless cry tore out of her, all the clever edge gone from her mouth. Jace didn’t slow. He drove through the spasms, the friction turning messier, her slick spreading over him and down the curve of her ass. The second wave caught her while she was still twitching, her whole body jerking under the steady pounding, her hand grabbing blindly at his forearm. His thrusts finally turned shorter, rougher, and he ground in deep for his own release, his cock pulsing inside her, the hand under her knee gone white-knuckled.

The second he pulled out, they both moved. Vera pushed up to sitting and reached for her clothes, but her hands weren’t steady—her arms moved in rigid, jerking lines, fingers stiff as she pulled her shirt on inside out, then stopped, breathing hard through her nose, and dragged it off to fix it. Jace rose to his feet, tucked himself away, zipped his jeans, and took two full steps back. I got up last, knees damp and aching from the grass, one of them throbbing where it had pressed against a buried rock the whole time.

“Great,” I muttered, rubbing the dirt-printed dent in my kneecap. “I’m going to feel that for a week.”

Jace bent and snagged her backpack from the dirt, tossed it at her chest. “Then walk it off.”

Vera caught it, shoved her arms through the straps, and yanked a leaf out of her hair with a grimace. “I have grass in places I will not be describing to either of you.”

Nobody looked at anybody for longer than a second. We turned and started walking again, the same loose triangle reforming between us, my knee sending up a complaint with every step over the very roots I’d warned them about, the patch of flattened grass behind us already out of sight.