Page 184 of Wild Then Wed
I’m still getting used to the feeling. To how good it is. How terrifying. So I don’t say any of that yet—I just stay here, lookingat her, thinking about how easy it is to love her, and how impossible it would be to stop.
Her gaze lifts fully now, searching my face, looking for the lie.
“It’s not fake for me,” I add. “None of this is, not even a little.”
She exhales, and I watch the tension ease from her face.
“Why?” Her voice is careful now, but there’s something else threaded through it. Hope, maybe. Or fear. Maybe both. “Why do you like me? You don’t even know me that well.”
I tilt my head, half-smiling, not because it’s funny, but because she really doesn’t see it. “I know enough. The important stuff.”
She arches one eyebrow, skeptical.
I shift onto my elbow, letting my hand trail from her hair to the side of her neck. My thumb brushes the spot just below her jaw, and I feel her pulse there—fast, unsteady.
“I know how much you care about the animals you work with. How much of yourself you give away without even thinking twice.” My voice is quiet, steady. “I know you get quiet when things get too loud. I know you act tougher than you feel, and that Hank doesn’t even look at me first anymore when we walk into a room—he looks for you.”
Her eyes flick down to my mouth, then back up again. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t look away either.
“I know you wrote me that note just because you remembered I liked them. I know you do things like that—soft things—without expecting anything in return.”
She swallows hard, and I keep going, lower this time.
“I know you’ve had people walk away. And I know some part of you is still waiting for me to do the same. But I’m not going anywhere.”
I don’t know how to tell her she’s everywhere now. That she’s made a home in places I didn’t even know were vacant. It wasn’t loud, or fast. She didn’t barge in or ask for anything. She just…fit. Quietly. Naturally. Like she was always supposed to be there, in my life. And now I catch myself reaching for her without realizing it. Wanting her in the way you want air when you’re underwater—without hesitation, without restraint.
Her hand moves slowly at first, but then her fingertip brushes my mouth, tracing the shape of it, and something in my chest stirs—something deep and quiet. Her touch is feather light but steady. I don’t blink. Don’t breathe. I just let her touch me.
She nods, just barely, her voice almost smaller than the space between us. “Okay.”
My throat tightens. “Okay.”
She hesitates—only for a second—then says, “I like you, too.”
Something tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Yeah?”
She nods again, this time with more certainty. Her fingers drift from my mouth to the back of my neck, curling into the nape of my hair. Then she pulls, drawing me down towards her until our lips meet and our mouths move together. And it’s not just a kiss. It’s an offering. The tying of loose ends without the need for words, like she’s trying to say—this is what I’ve got, and I hope it’s enough.
I kiss her like I’m answering back—it’s more than enough.
She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat—just the tiniest moan—and shifts, her knees, her legs wrapping around my hips to pull me closer.
And I go. Of course I go.
Because I could stay right here, in this tangle of limbs and slow kisses, in the early gray stretch of morning when the sky hasn’t quite made up its mind yet. I could stay here kissing her until the sun finds us.
And maybe even longer, if she lets me.
Chapter 31
SAWYER
The first thing I notice is the space beside me.
It’s empty.
The sheets are cool, the weight’s gone, but there’s still the faint dip in the mattress where she’d been, like her absence hasn’t fully settled yet.
