Page 122 of Stay Wild Darlin’

By the time we got back to the house, the sun had set. I helped Dalton carry Cora in, and together, without a word, we got her bathed, changed, and into pajamas.

It wasn’t easy; she’d slept enough to make bedtime a fight, but eventually, we managed. I brushed out her curls while he zipped up her sleep sack. She clung to him like she always did, tiny hands gripping his shirt until her eyes finally fluttered closed.

When she was asleep, he stood there for a long moment watching her.

Then he turned and walked out of the room without saying anything. I followed, not because he asked but because I didn’t want him sitting in that silence alone.

“I need to shower.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t take it personally—I understood his need for quiet. The kind of silence that wasn’t about shutting down, but processing.

While he disappeared down the hall, I stepped outside and grabbed my bag from the truck. As I turned back toward the house, my eyes caught on the garage.

I paused.

The ropes. The silence. The way he laid me out bare like I was something precious and ruinable all at once. How he touched me—not with his hands, but with his trust. His control. His craving.

That night in the garage hadn’t been only sex. It had been something deeper.

He had strung me up in the place he usually kept locked up tight, and in doing so, he gave me a part of him no one else had ever seen, and I gave him all of me.

After everything—his parents, my sister’s party, the ache of being unwanted—it felt like the only thing that made sense.

Us.

That connection. That hunger. That surrender.

We didn’t need words tonight.

We needed that, and I was going to let him take all of it, again.

The side door to the garage was cracked open. I stepped through quietly, the familiar scent of leather, dust, and something distinctly Dalton wrapping around me the moment I entered.

I moved to the drawer tucked beneath the workbench, the one I’d come across one afternoon while putting away a box of Cora’s old baby clothes. When I pulled it open, the ropes were right where he’d left them, coiled neatly.

I ran my fingers over the thick, worn jute, the memory of them against my skin flashing through me like a pulse. That night had been raw and intimate, more than control—it had been connection. I took a few, looping them in my hands with quiet purpose, then slipped out the same way I came.

Back inside, I moved quietly down the hall toward my room. I had almost unpacked when I got here, but there was one thing buried at the bottom of the largest bag, something I hadn’t touched since college.

I unzipped it and pushed aside a folded sweater I didn’t need because it was too hot, a pair of old jeans, until my fingers landed on smooth lace.

The strappy black lingerie.

I’d bought it back at the University of Isles, when one of the sorority girls convinced me it was a must-have for one of those infamous frat sex parties. I never went, but I did buy it.

I guess now’s a better time than ever.

I pulled it out and stepped into it slowly, piece by piece.

The bra was delicate and sheer, hugging my breasts with a thin underwire and scalloped lace that did little to hide anything. The matching underwear sat high on my hips, and the garter wrapped around my waist before connecting down to thin, crisscrossed straps that clung to my thighs.

Before I left the room, I cracked open the door to make sure I didn’t hear anyone in the hallway. The house was still. The only sound was the soft pad of my bare feet against the hardwood as I moved down the hallway, the ropes looped loosely in one hand, the black lace clinging to my skin.

It was bold, but I needed this. Dalton needed this. It was to remind ourselves that we were wanted. Fully.

I reached his bedroom door and didn’t knock. Instead I opened it and stepped inside.