Owen and Naomi scrambled out, their voices already receding toward the bar in search of a culinary concession. Neither of them looked back. Naomi tossed a distracted, "See you at six, Nick," over her shoulder, but she was already checking her reflection in the glass of the lodge doors.
Nick didn't move. He just sat there, his hands loosely gripping the wheel, his gaze fixed on the horizon through the dust-streaked windshield. Then, they were gone.
I reached for the door handle. My plan had been to follow them—to find a cold drink, a neutral corner, and perhaps a light lunch. But before my fingers could clear the latch, a hand caught my wrist.
Not a restraint—contact.
“You can put the mask back on in there,” he said, voice low enough to stop my hand on the door. “But not with me.”
Turning toward him left me with no cover. My sunglasses were gone, and nothing buffered the impact. No distance. Just the raw, intentional weight of him.
Pulling away would have been smarter. Instead, I stayed, exposed to the man who had just knocked every system I trusted off balance.
"I'm not pretending, Nick."
He didn't say another word. He shifted the jeep into gear, the tires spitting gravel as he turned the vehicle toward the three-mile track that led back to my suite.
The drive was the longest distance I’d ever traveled. Outside, the savanna was a blur of Acacia and heat shimmer. Inside, the air didn’t move. Nick didn’t drive like a man in a hurry. Hehandled the road with terrifying calm, his hand never leaving the wheel, his profile never softening.
When he finally cut the engine at the edge of my deck, the silence thickened between us before the bush could fill it.
No invitation followed. He rounded the front of the vehicle to open my door, his presence eliminating the exit. I stepped down, the ground burning through the soles of my boots, and for a second, we just stood there.
Six inches of air. The smell of sun-beaten leather and the faint tang of the dust. He didn't reach for me. He just watched me, his eyes dark and entirely focused, stripped of the mask.
"The Leica," I whispered, the word feeling like a fragment of a world that no longer mattered.
"Leave it," he said. He turned and walked toward the tent entrance. I followed, my heart hammering a rhythm that felt less like panic and more like a countdown. The canvas fell back into place behind us, the closure catching with that same mechanical snap, and the outside world ceased to exist. No other guests. No sisters. Just the low hum of the bamboo fans and the man who had just dismantled my every defense.
He turned to face me in the dim, filtered light of the suite. He didn't move to close the distance immediately. He just leaned back against the wood frame, his arms crossed, watching me with a deliberate, searching intensity.
I reached out. My fingers found the open edge of his collar, brushing warm skin beneath, and whatever distance remained between us disappeared. A steady, unrelenting fever from his chest soaked into my palms. I didn't pull him toward me. I just held the contact, my thumbs tracing the line of his collarbone, cataloging the way his breath hitched—just once—before leveling out into a deep, rhythmic pull.
“You don’t look away when something gets uncomfortable, Wilder,” he said, his voice a low, gritty vibration that seemed tosettle in the very base of my spine. “You solve it, challenge it, or dare it to move first.”
I didn't wait for him to move. I took the final step, my gaze meeting his with a level of awareness that stripped the room to nothing but him.
“Good,” I said. “Then you should know I’m not looking away from this.”
He brought his hand up, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a heavy, unhurried touch—just firm enough to tip my head back. His grip was deliberate—the hands of a man who’d broken trails and held lines.
“No more pretending this is control, Juliette.”
He said my name like it was an oath.
He leaned in slowly enough to make stopping him possible. His mouth found mine with steady, unhurried pressure, and the restraint in it undid me faster than urgency ever could. I matched his depth, my hands moving from his chest to the back of his neck, my fingers finding the hair at his nape, softer than anything about him had any right to be.
He shifted, his hands sliding down to my waist, pulling me flush against the hard, uncompromising line of his thighs. The contact was a jolt to my system, but I didn't jump. I leaned into it. I wanted the friction. I wanted the reminder that this was no longer disorientation.
He pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against mine. His breathing was heavy, but his eyes were entirely focused. He wasn't swept away; he was right there, anchored in the moment with me.
"Look at me," he commanded softly.
I did. There was a dark, assessing intelligence in his gaze, but it broke against the unexpected tenderness at the corners of his mouth.
"I see you, Wilder," he murmured. "You don’t hide as well as you think."
For one dangerous second, being seen didn’t feel like exposure. It felt like rest. No dry remarks, no deflections. I just reached for the hem of his shirt.
