Page 84 of Freeing the Wild
Fuck it.Bottoms up.I stuff the spicy popcorn vanilla mixture into my mouth, bracing myself for how disgusting it will taste.But instead I pause.
“Holy hell,” I mutter.Cassie’s smile takes up her whole face.
“Good, right?”
“Fucking delicious,” I say, crunching down on my popcorn.
She giggles.“Okay, I won’t make you watch a romcom.You’re off the hook.”
I raise an eyebrow.“I wasn’t fucking kidding.I like romcoms.”
“Oh yeah?”She isn’t buying it, but I love taking her by surprise.“What’s your favorite thing about them?”
I take another bite.
“What’s not to like?Slightly jaded bachelors?I’ll take it.A little clumsy, sweet, never-been-properly-loved female lead?I’ll take that too.Funny and off-the-wall side characters?Perfection.Oh, and toss in a few steamy sex scenes, dramatic third acts and an ending that makes you feel like there’s actually hope for true love?I’ll take that any fucking day.”
“Well, alright then.”Cassie grins.“The Holidayit is.”
I lean in and kiss her.I can’t help it.She tastes like caramel and vanilla but she smells like me.I don’t think I could dream up anything better if I tried.
“One of my favorites,” I tell her honestly.
“That so?”
I look at her as a serious expression takes over my face.
“When Jack Black tells Kate Winslet he wrote that song for her and that he used ‘only the good notes’?”I blow out a breath and tap my chest.“That shit hits me right in the feels.It’s fucking iconic.”
Cassie laughs and snuggles her feet into me even more.
“Knows how to properly fuckandwatches romcoms?Where’d you come from, Haden Westbrook?”
“Kentucky, darlin’.Born and bred.”
“Hmmm,” Cassie muses.“I was thinking more like my dreams.”
“Always the writer, aren’t you, Princess?”
“That’s what I’m hoping … someday when I’m allowed to do what I want, when I don’t have to contain my dreams or pretend to care about something I don’t.”
I lean in and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, letting my thumb graze her soft, warm cheek.
“When I met you, I could see the wild in you.The untamed.It was fucking beautiful.”I continue tracing her jaw.“They say people pick a horse that is just like them.That’s why, after you left, I realized you were destined to pick Outlaw that day.He was wild at heart.Still is.And I think you knew it.Maybe part of you just wanted to free him.”
I press my lips to hers, kissing them softly before pulling back to look at her again.
“But what about freeing the wild in you?No one is gonna do that for you.Onlyyoucan do that, Princess.You deserve to be free.And you deserve to follow your dreams.”
Cassie breathes out a shaky breath and just smiles in response.Its fucking mesmerizing.I drop my hand as she presses play on the movie, taking her bottom lip between her teeth,
“Haden?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s easy to write when I have a muse like you,” she says, turning her eyes to the TV and taking another bite of her ice cream.
I don’t say anything in response.I just eat my weird, delicious ice cream as the movie starts with Cassie tucked right into me.Because something way beyond physical is happening here and it’s almost suffocating to think about her leaving in a couple weeks.One thing is for certain: I’ve waited twenty-six years to feel anything like this for a woman, and the more time I spend with her, the more I’m sure I’m nowhere near ready to let my princess go.
