I should lie. Should tell him I don’t think about him, don’t dream about him, don’t wake up aching for his touch. But looking into his eyes, feeling the tremor in his hand against my face, I can’t.
“I can’t tell you that,” I whisper. “That I don’t think about you. Because I do.”
He makes a sound that’s part groan, part surrender, and leans down until his forehead rests against mine. “This is going to ruin everything.”
“I know.”
“Our families will never forgive us.”
“I know.”
“But I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Stop yourself from what?”
He doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he tilts my chin up, his eyes searching mine for permission. I give the tiniest nod, and then his lips are on mine, hungry and demanding. Just how I like it.
The kiss is nothing like I expect from Wyatt McCoy. It’s intense, controlled, but desperate. I melt into him, holding on like he’s the only solid thing in a spinning world.
When we break apart, we’re breathing hard.
“That was—” I start.
“A mistake,” he finishes, but doesn’t let go of me.
“Right. A mistake.”
“We should forget this happened.”
“Absolutely.”
But neither of us moves. We stand there, wrapped in each other in the moonlight, both knowing we’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross.
That’s when we hear it—the sound of a truck turning into my driveway.
The headlights sweepacross the yard, illuminating both of us in stark detail, me in my barely- there pajamas, Wyatt’s hands still on me, our lips swollen from kissing. Dad’s truck, barreling up to the house.
“Shit,” I breathe, my heart hammering for entirely different reasons now. “I thought he was at home in bed.”
Wyatt doesn’t waste time with words. He grabs his toolbox in one hand and my wrist in the other, pulling me toward the barn. His grip is firm but gentle, and even in our panic, I’m aware of how his thumb strokes across my pulse point.
“Move,” he mutters, and I don’t argue.
We run, slipping through the barn door just as Dad’s truck rounds the corner of the house. The barn is dark and dusty, smelling of hay and old leather and the faint scent of horses from when we used to board them here. My eyes haven’t adjusted yet, and I can barely see anything except a sliver of moonlight through the cracks in the walls.
Wyatt pulls the door closed, leaving a crack to see through. In the darkness, he misjudges the space and pulls me against him, my back to his chest. We’re pressed together in the narrow space between the door and a stack of hay bales, both of us breathing hard.
“Is he getting out?” Wyatt whispers, his breath hot against my ear.
I peer through the crack, trying to ignore how every inch of my back is pressed against Wyatt’s front, how I can feel his heart racing against my spine. “Not yet. He’s just sitting there.”
“Checking his phone?”
“Probably. Hard to tell.” My voice comes out shaky because Wyatt’s hand is on my hip and his thumb has found that strip of bare skin again.
“Or wondering why the fence rail looks different than it did this morning.”
I hadn’t thought of that. The new wood is lighter than the old post, and Dad notices everything when it comes to property maintenance. “Think he’ll notice?”
