Her name was Miranda Blake. Forty-one. A stunning woman with a smoky voice, soft laugh, and curves that made heads turn even when she wasn’t trying. She was the kind of woman who walked with the confidence of someone who knew she had options—and had chosen Jack anyway.
Her breasts still heaved as she caught her breath, skin slick with sweat and sawdust, her hair a wild halo. She lay back on the workbench, utterly spent, dress bunched at her waist, lips parted in the aftermath of the kind of orgasm that left her dizzy.
Jack ran a hand over her thigh, his other arm bracing beside her, watching her with that trademark slow-burning stare. “You alright, darlin’?”
Miranda smirked up at him, dazed. “I don’t think my legs work right now.”
He chuckled, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to her sternum. “That’s the goal.”
Just then, something flickered in the corner of Jack’s vision—movement—just beyond the open workshop door.
He froze.
Miranda followed his gaze, but it was too late. The trees beyond the clearing swayed with silence, nothing more than shadows now. But Jack’s eyes narrowed. He’d spent enough time alone up here to feel when he was being watched.
He moved toward the door, jeans half-fastened, bare chest still rising and falling.
“Jack?” Miranda sat up, pulling her dress back down over her flushed skin. “What is it?”
He stepped out into the open air, his boots crunching lightly over the gravel. He scanned the tree line.
Then… he saw it.
A car door. Cracked open.
A figure ducking low behind it.
He stepped forward quietly—like a hunter in his own woods—and when he turned the corner around the vehicle, he came face to face with her.
Delilah.
Miranda’s daughter. Twenty-one. Big green eyes wide with panic and something else—something hotter, darker, tangled up with guilt and fascination.
She was crouched low beside the car, face flushed, her soft pink top tugged slightly off one shoulder. Her lips were parted, breath coming shallow.
“Delilah,” Jack said, his voice calm but firm. “What’re you doin’ out here?”
She looked up at him like a deer caught in the headlights. “I—I came to bring something to my mom… her sunglasses. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…”
Jack took a breath, reading her. She wasn’t trembling with fear. She wasn’t crying. She was aroused. Her thighs were pressed together tightly. Her arms hugged her middle like she was trying to suppress something inside.
“You saw,” Jack said evenly.
She nodded.
He stepped closer. Not menacing. Just… dominant. Controlled. His body still radiating heat from the scene she’d just witnessed.
“You didn’t look away.”
Delilah blushed deeper. “I—I wanted to.”
He arched an eyebrow. “But you didn’t.”
Her silence said everything.
Jack took another step, towering now, not touching her—but close enough that she could feel the gravity of him. His scent: woodsmoke, sweat, and Miranda. It clung to the air between them like static.
“You’re not a little girl anymore, are you?” he murmured, voice like velvet over gravel. “You’re not out here by accident. You stayed. You watched.”
Delilah swallowed hard, her lips trembling, her eyes wide. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Tell me the truth,” he said, soft but unrelenting. “You wanted to see what it was like.”
She hesitated—then nodded.
Jack’s jaw clenched. There was a tension building now, thick and electric. One misstep and it would crack wide open.
Just then, Miranda stepped out of the workshop, brushing her hair back, her heels echoing softly against the concrete.
“Jack? What’s going—”
She stopped cold when she saw her daughter.
Delilah stood quickly, too quickly, guilt painting her cheeks. “Mom—I—I just—”
Miranda looked from her daughter to Jack, then back again. Her lips parted, and Jack could see the moment realization hit her. Her eyes widened. She took a half step forward.
“You saw.”
Delilah looked down. “I—I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even know you were—”
Jack waited, tense. But to his surprise… Miranda exhaled. Slowly. A strange calm settled over her face.
“Well,” she said, voice low. “I suppose you saw what a real man can do.”
Delilah blinked up at her mother. “You’re not mad?”
Miranda walked forward, placing a hand gently on her daughter’s cheek. “Mad? No. I was your age once too.”
She looked at Jack then, and her voice dropped. “And I remember what it felt like to want something… or someone… so badly it made you ache.”
Delilah’s breath caught.
Jack stepped back, giving them space, but neither woman moved.
“You’re an adult now,” Miranda said softly to her daughter. “You make your own choices.”
Jack felt the shift like a pulse in the air.
Delilah looked at her mother. Then at Jack. Then down again, her voice barely audible.
“I want to know what it feels like.”
Silence.
Jack’s chest rose and fell.
Miranda’s eyes flicked to his, giving him that same smoldering, defiant look from earlier.
“You’re not gonna break her,” she said. “But you are gonna teach her.”
Jack stepped forward, slow, deliberate. His hand reached up, and he brushed a lock of hair from Delilah’s cheek.
“We take it slow,” he said, voice like a promise.
Delilah nodded, wide-eyed.
Miranda stepped back into the shadows, watching now—her face unreadable. But her hand slid slowly down her own thigh… and she stayed.
Jack took Delilah’s hand, leading her back toward the warm light of the shop, the sawdust and the scent of desire still heavy in the air. His touch was firm but reassuring.
Tonight wouldn’t be about frenzy. It would be about awakening. About power, control, patience… and the first steps into something dangerous and addictive.
And in the shadows, Miranda stayed to listen.
To watch.
To remember.
And maybe… to join again, in time.
Jack’s Page