"I'm up," he said.
I put my hand on the doorknob.
Forrest was in bed when I walked in, the only light the moon streaming through the window. It took me a second to realize he was shirtless, reaching for a t-shirt?—
“Don’t,” I said.
He went still.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I steeled myself, my fists clenched at my side…probably looking ridiculous in my pajamas. Then I took a deep breath, and said, “I need you to listen to me. I’m…I need to decide if I’m going to stay or if I’m going to go.”
He was quiet. Didn’t move a muscle. Just watched me.
I took a step toward him, and I could feel the heat bloom.
“I want you,” I said. “And I know you have some…some noble ideas about what’s right for me, but—I only want to know if you want me too. Not if youshouldhave me, I don’t care about that. My whole life, I’ve been surrounded by men who knew what I needed. Who knew what I should and shouldn’t do.”
I took another step toward him.
“So I’m not asking what’s right. I’m asking what you want. And I’m telling you that…if you don’t want me, I’ll go to the main house until I can save up enough, somehow, to leave Briar Hill, and I won’t look back. Not ever. I’ll go out and live like you think is what I need, and I’ll always…I’ll always wonder. Is that what you want?”
It took him a second to respond. Maybe not…maybe it justfeltlike a long moment, a held breath.
Then he said, “No. That’s not what I want.”
I swallowed hard. Exhaled. “If I…if I take my clothes off and get in your bed right now, will you make love to me?”
I could barely see him in the dark, but I saw his shoulders heave with a deep breath. “Yeah.”
I crossed the room.
My hands went to the buttons of my pajama top — small ones, white, four of them — and I undid them one at a time because my fingers weren't entirely steady and I wasn't going to rush this. I'd been rushed through everything my whole life. Not this.
The top slid off my shoulders and I let it fall.
Forrest hadn't moved. He was watching me in the dark with an expression I couldn't fully read but could feel — the weight of it, the attention of it, nothing like being watched had ever felt before. No assessment. No ownership.
Just want.
I pushed the pajama pants down and stepped out of them and stood there in the moonlight in nothing at all and felt — not ashamed. Not ashamed, which was the thing that surprised me most. Just myself. Just my own skin, my own choice, my own feet on the wood floor.
"Willa," he said. Low.
"I know," I said. "You want to say something careful."
"I want to say you're beautiful."
The breath went out of me.
He pulled the covers back.
He was wearing a pair of boxers, nothing else…and even in the dark, I could see he was hard, tenting his shorts, wantingme. I took a shuddering breath and put one knee on the bed…then slid into his lap, put my other knee by his hip to straddle him. I felt his bare chest against me, dark wiry hair brushing my nipples, and I shuddered again and rested my forehead against his because it felt like I was going to shatter.
“We don’t have to—” he started.
I kissed him.
