Page 113 of Wild Sanctuary

She sets the phone on the nightstand and pulls her knees up, resting her chin on them. The shirt rides up her thighs, and I look at the ceiling because I need another second but she’s making it real damn hard to find one.

“Wyatt.”

“Yeah.”

“You said we’re not done.”

I look at her, taking in the resolution in her eyes and determination in the jut of her chin. Not a single nerve and no second-guessing. Just that Daisy directness that cuts through every wall I’ve ever built.

“I did say that.”

“Then come here.”

I cross the room in three steps. It feels like that’s all there’s ever been between us but I’ve been treating it like a goddamn canyon.

I stop at the edge of the bed and look down at her. She tilts her face up to me, and I push a strand of hair back from her jaw the way I did in the truck. My hand is rough and too big against her skin, and she turns into it the same way she did before, pressing her cheek into my palm.

“I need you to know something.” My voice is low and rough.

“Okay.” She nods, her cheek still cupped in my palm.

“If I get in that bed, I’m not getting back out. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not when this is over and you come to your senses about what you’re doing with a man like me.” My thumb traces her cheekbone and her breath catches, and I feel it in every part of my body. “You understand what I’m sayin’?”

“I’ve understood since I was twenty years old, Wyatt.”

The last thread of it snaps. Six years, a thousand reasons, the promise I made her father. All of it burns down to nothing because she’s looking at me the way Colt said she does and I can finally see it, and it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever let myself believe.

I lean down and kiss her slowly with one hand on her jaw, tilting her face up to mine. She tastes like the mint tea she drinks at night, and her fingers curl into the front of my shirt and pull me closer to deepen the kiss.

She tugs at my shirt and I pull back long enough to get rid of it. Her hands land flat on my chest and spread, and she goes quiet. Just looking. Her eyes tracing over me slow enough that I can feel the path of them moving along my skin.

“Take your time,” I tell her, and my voice comes out lower than I mean it to.

She leans forward and presses her mouth to the center of my chest, right over my heartbeat. I groan deep inside my chest, and she pulls back, looking at me with darkened eyes.

“Lie down,” she demands.

“Bossy.”

“Always.” She pushes at my chest with both hands and I let her tip me back against the mattress because this woman could steer me off a damn cliff and I’d thank her on the way down. She swings a knee over me and settles in my lap, and the weight of her there, perched on top of me with her hair falling around her face, makes my heart feel like it’s trying to break out of my chest.

I run my hands up her thighs. The flannel rides up under my palms, and I falter when I realize there’s nothing underneath it. My brain processes that information in about half a second as my cock throbs painfully hard against my jeans.

“Sweet Jesus.”

She smiles, but it’s not sweet. It’s dangerous. “Problem?”

“You’ve been sittin’ up here in my shirt with nothing under it this whole time?”

She shrugs impishly. “Figured I’d save you a step.”

I sit up so fast she almost slides off my lap, but I catch her with one arm around her waist to pull her flush against me. Her hands go to my shoulders and her breathing stutters.

“Christ, woman, do you have any idea what you do to me?” I press the words into the hollow of her throat and feel her pulse hammering against my lips.

“Show me.”

I find the first snap on the shirt and pop it open. Then the next. Then the next, all the way down, taking my time, while she watches my face with those amber-flecked eyes and her breathing goes shallow. When the last one gives, the flannel falls open and I stop.