“You trust me?” His breath shuddered out. “I am a dumb fuck?—”
“Not exactly, but it’s about goddamned time you realized that my distance was a form of grace.” A sad, knowing smile touched her lips as she said it.
Her hand moved from his jaw, her fingers trailing down the side of his neck, leaving a path of fire in their wake. They came to rest over his heart, pressing flat against the frantic, hammering beat. It was a possessive, comforting gesture, as if she were physically claiming the organ he’d kept locked away for so long.
Her touch satisfied something so deep in him, he couldn’t draw breath, and her unspoken words crushed him. I'm here, I see you, and I'm not going anywhere. The certainty in her eyes was a lifeline, pulling him out of the churning sea of his own making.
His mouth dropped down to hers in an instant, devouring, a frantic, desperate attempt to crawl inside her and find that kick-ass core strength he could hold on to. The words broke from his lips against her sweet mouth, a ragged and torn whisper, “You scare the fuck out of me. I don’t know how to do this!”
The confession was a catalyst. He was done holding back. Done with the restraint that had only ever brought him pain. His hands roamed down her body, gripping her hips, before one slid lower to cup the perfect curve of her ass. He pressed himself into the apex of her thighs, a hard, undeniable grind that left no room for doubt about what he wanted. He deepened the kiss until his chest heaved, his lungs burning for air that he refused to take, because breathing meant breaking this contact.
“Teach me,” he begged, his voice a raw, shattered thing. “Blair, please. I want to know what it is to be in your heart.” He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against hers, his eyes squeezed shut, as if the sight of her might be too much to bear. “The last goddamn thing I want to do is hurt you. I’ll never forgive myself if I hurt you.”
Her response was a soft, shuddering breath against his lips. Her hands, which had been holding his face, slid down his chest, her palms flat against the frantic beat of his heart. She didn't speak. Instead, she showed him. She rolled her hips against his, a slow, deliberate circle that sent a bolt of pure, unadulterated pleasure straight to his cock.
Feelings had always been a liability, a weakness that left him bleeding out on the battlefield of life. He’d built his entire existence around a single, foundational lie. If he could just avoid them, he could stay whole. Numbness was his fortress. Every calculated, emotionless fuck, every flash of carefully wielded anger, every reckless, near-death stunt, every single person he’d ever pushed away. It was all mortar and stone, reinforcing the walls around that one, core belief. It was a strategy for survival. A goddamn masterpiece of self-preservation.
But now, holding her, feeling the frantic, steady beat of her heart against his own, he saw the truth. The lie was exposed, raw and ugly, in the light of her presence. His avoidance wasn't a fortress. It was a prison. It wasn't keeping him whole. It left him empty. It was a solitary confinement cell, and he’d been the one to lock himself inside, throwing away the key to anything real. Anything as real, as terrifyingly, beautifully real as this woman in his arms.
The fear was still there, a cold knot in his gut, a voice screaming at him to run, to push her away before she could see the need inside him. But for the first time, something else was louder. Refusing her wasn’t an option anymore. The need he’d spent years locking down rose up and took over.
A groan tore from his chest, low and guttural. He was finally allowing himself the pleasure, letting the sensation wash over him instead of fighting it.
Every nerve ending was on fire, alive and screaming for more. He wanted to feel every inch of her, to memorize the softness of her skin, the strength in her hands, the way her body fit against his like it was made for him, precision-sculpted, detail by detail, just for this.
A shadow curled in the back of his mind. But for the first time, it was drowned out by the overwhelming, all-consuming need to have her, not to mindlessly take, but to merge, to lose himself in the one thing that felt real enough to stand in the wreckage of his unraveling.
But not here. Not now. His pulse still thundered. His mind was still reeling. His body ached with the need to finish what they started, but some deeper, more sacred part of him… wouldn’t let him.
He couldn’t take her like this. Not with dirt in his palms and blood roaring in his ears and emotional debris still spinning like shrapnel through his chest.
He wanted her, all of her, not the fuck, not the release. He wanted to go slow.
She had caught him when he’d fallen farther than he’d ever meant to go. That deserved more than instinct and adrenaline and heat in the woods. That deserved intention.
His hands flexed on her waist. His breath came rough and uneven.
Then he bit her lower lip softly to pull away. To anchor. To slow himself down before the fire turned uncontrolled.
His head dropped to her shoulder, and he shuddered. God, she smelled like sweat and soap and forest air, and she grounded him better than anything else ever had.
“Take me somewhere,” he whispered. “Someplace we can do mundane things.” He felt her breath catch near his temple. “I need…” His voice cracked. “I need to breathe. I can’t when we’re like this. My mind just shuts down, and I don’t want that to happen.”
He eased back just enough to look at her.
Those intense green eyes were calm and steady like deep water over bedrock.
“You don’t scare me, Kelly,” she said quietly.
“I should,” he rasped. “Not because I’d hurt you, but because I don’t know how to be this. With you. I don’t want to get it wrong.”
“You don’t have to get it perfect,” she said. “You just have to show up.”
He nodded once. That was what he wanted. To show up for her. To stop reacting and start choosing. To get this one thing right.
She gave him a tiny nod, then slipped her hand into his.
“My cabin isn’t far from here,” she said.
