We don’t go further. Not yet.
But the line we’ve been dancing along since the first night is gone. We crossed it, and there’s no pretending anymore.
Chapter 26
Brittany
He tells me to stay put.
That should be the first warning.
Instead, it feels like a dare.
He steps outside the cabin without another word, the screen door slapping softly behind him. I stand in the middle of the small room, his shirt hanging loose on my body, bare legs still warm from where he held me. The space feels different now. Charged. Sexually. Lightning finally struck and hasn’t decided if it’s finished.
Through the window I see him.
He walks past the porch railing and disappears around the side of the cabin. A second later he comes back into view beyond the tree line, stopping beside a thick oak. He plants his boots in the dirt and leans back against the trunk like he’s trying to hold the whole world upright with his spine.
His head tilts back. His hands drag through his hair.
He looks wrecked.
Not angry. Not annoyed. Wrecked.
And something inside me snaps.
I don’t think. I don’t weigh consequences. I open the door and step outside barefoot. The air wraps around me, cool anddamp from the lake. Bugs hum. Somewhere farther down camp, a bottle clinks against another and someone laughs low.
Oaks hears me approach.
His head turns slowly.
His eyes drop from my face to the shirt, his shirt, brushing my thighs.
He exhales once through his nose, controlled in the way men get when they are one second from losing it. “What’re you doin’, Brittany?”
I stop a few feet away. “What are you doing?” I counter.
He pushes off the tree, arms crossing over his chest. “Cooling off.”
“From me?”
He studies me like I’m something dangerous. Like he’s measuring the distance between want and need. “From what I’m about to do if you don’t give me space.”
My pulse kicks hard enough to feel like it’s in my throat. “And what’s that?”
His voice dips deep and rough. “I’ll claim you.”
The word hits me dead center.
Claim.
Possession.
Not just worry. Not just sex. Something deeper. Filthier. Older.
Claim.
