Page 183 of Wild Then Wed
I brush a strand of hair off her cheek. “Why would you think I’d want that?”
She swallows nervously. “Because this is all fake, remember?” She forces out a breath. “And people usually don’t want more than that, anyway.”
She looks so small all of a sudden, in my shirt, her fingers twitching where they rest on my chest like they don’t know if they’re still allowed to be there.
“We had champagne,” she adds. “Kind of a lot of it. So maybe this was just…we got caught up in it. You know?”
I shake my head immediately. “I wasn’t drunk.”
She blinks up at me. “You weren’t?”
I smirk, hand drifting into her hair again, twisting a soft strand around my finger. “Not even a little. Were you?”
Quiet as ever, she whispers, “Not even a little.”
“Trust me,” I tell her. “The last thing I want is for things to go back to the way they were before you, Wren.”
She’s looking at me like she’s trying to lock this in. Like she’s filing it away in case she needs to pull it out later and remind herself it happened—that I actually said it. That I meant it.
And it breaks my heart in this slow, suffocating way because someone—maybe a few people—taught her not to trust this. They taught her to be suspicious of joy. To hold love at arm’s length. They made her think it always ends. That even when someone stays the night, they still leave in the morning.
I hate that.
I hate that she flinches when something feels safe. That she keeps waiting for the part where it all goes wrong.
She shouldn’t have to question this. She shouldn’t have to wonder if she’s safe with me.
And I swear to God, I’ll spend as long as it takes proving she is.
“You’re just saying that because it’s three in the morning,” she murmurs, her eyes not quite meeting mine. “You’re delirious. You’ll come to your senses once you’ve had some decent sleep.”
She’s trying to play it off. Turn it into a joke. Something easy to brush aside. But I see it anyway—the way her fingers pull at the edge of the sheet, like she’s already preparing for me to say something that hurts.
I shift closer, slow and careful, leaning over her just enough to keep her in my reach. The strands catch on my fingers and I don’t stop touching her because I think maybe that’s the only thing keeping her here with me. She swallows, and my gaze tracks the movement before it slips back to her face.
“You think this is me being delirious?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
Her eyes flick to mine, cautious. “You’ll feel differently in the morning. Most people do.”
I shake my head. “I won’t.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I see the way her chest rises and falls like she’s trying to fill it with air that’s suddenly harder to find.
“When I wake up tomorrow,” I go on, “I’m still going to want you next to me. And I’m still going to want this. At three in the morning when I can’t sleep. At two in the afternoon when the day feels endless. At noon, when the world is loud and messy and we’re both too busy. I’ll want you when it’s easy, and when it’s not, and all the hours in between. Because I like you, Wren. I mean that. Not just now. But tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Okay?”
But even as I say it, I know it’s more than that. I don’t just like her. I think I passedlikea long time ago.
It was probably that night on the balcony—slow dancing while the whole world faded out around us. I remember the way her head felt resting against my chest. The way I didn’t want to move because everything finally felt…right.
Or maybe it was earlier. When we ice skated and her cheeks were red from the cold, her fingers laced with mine. Or that day in the feed store.
Maybe it happened in pieces.
That’s how it goes sometimes—you don’t realize you’re falling in love until you’ve already landed. And by then, you’re so far in, it feels like you’ve been there forever.
I didn’t make a decision. I didn’t weigh it out. I just started caring about her. Then needing her. Then looking for her in every room, every conversation, every day.
And now I’m here. All the way in.
