“I was adamant you were just a distraction,” I told her, hoping she could feel how fast my pulse was beating. “Now I’m scared that you’re the only thing that keeps me steady.”
She didn’t reply. She just looked at me. Saw me. And that was enough.
Chapter 15
Something Big – Shawn Mendes
Tally
That night he didn’t knock.
The door to my cabin flew open like it had something to say, and Wilder stepped inside like he couldn’t stay away a second longer. The storm was still in his eyes, that same one he’d described earlier. The one he’d stood in, naked and unprotected. Except now, it was raging behind his clenched jaw and stiff shoulders, looking for somewhere to go.
He didn’t speak. He just looked at me, hard and then he was kissing me like it was the only way he knew how to breathe.
Hismouth was punishing. Desperate. His hands gripped my hips like he wasn’t sure whether to pull me closer or push me away. He did both. Again, and again. Until I was stumbling backward, bumping into furniture, not caring where we landed as long as it was under him.
There was a pause, and the words burst from me, because I needed to know. “This is still just…” I started.
“Yeah,” he said quickly, voice rough. “Just sex.” But neither of us moved to undress, and the lie hung heavy between us as we watched each other. When the anticipation morphed into the flames of need, Wilder’s mouth smashed against mine again.
By the time my back hit the wall, my shirt was somewhere across the room, and he was tugging at the waistband of my leggings with rough fingers and frustration.
“Wilder—” I managed, breathless, but he cut me off with a kiss so deep it felt like a promise and an apology all in one.
“I need…” he growled against my throat, biting just below my jaw. “I need to forget how much I feel right now.”
I let him.
Because I felt it too.
Because his pain was so loud I wanted to swallow it for him.
He yanked my leggings and panties down in one rough motion, and I stepped out of them, watching as he dropped to his knees like it was instinct, like kneeling was the only way he could beg without using words.
His hands gripped my thighs. His mouth. God, his mouth was heat and fury, and he didn’t let up even when my knees buckled, even when I gasped his name like a warning. He held me there, kept me upright with nothing but his shoulders under my thighs, and licked me like he needed to be wrecked by it.
When I came, it was sharp and sudden like an exhale after holding my breath under water.
He didn’t say a word. Just stood, unzipping his jeans with one hand, dragging me to the bed with the other. It was clumsy, fast, frantic. He didn’t even take off his shirt.
I lay back, open, waiting, heart pounding, lips parted, every inch of meready for him.
He didn’t slide in right away. He looked at me, really looked, and the way his jaw clenched made my throat tighten.
“I hate how much I need you,” he whispered. “And I don’t know who I am when I’m not pretending I don’t.”
“We’re both scared,” I whispered. “You’re scared that I’ll leave, and I’m scared you’ll make me disappear. But maybe…maybe we’re scared of the wrong things.”
He pushed in hard, in one breath-stealing thrust, and the moan that tore from my chest didn’t sound like mine.
He moved fast. Relentless. Deep.
His hand wrapped around my throat, not tight, just enough to ground us both, his thumb stroking the column of my neck, his eyes locked on mine like he was trying to memorize every second.
“Tell me that I’m the best you’ve ever had,” he rasped.
“The best,” I whispered. “You’re the absolute best, Wilder Miller.”
