Page 48 of Stay Wild Darlin’

Life had been so damn cold lately. That was the truth of it.

Not just the air, not just the nights alone with a baby monitor and a million thoughts I didn’t say out loud, but everything. My world. My past. The way people looked at me, the way I looked at myself.

Standing a foot away, she was warmth. I needed—selfishly, desperately—a piece of it.

Not because I deserved it.

Not because I’d earned it.

Because something inside me was unraveling, and she was the only thing that felt steady.

“I’m going to hug you now,” I said quietly, trying to make it sound casual. Like I wasn’t falling apart. Like I didn’t feel like this hug might be the only thing keeping me from splitting in two. “I, uh, I think I need it.”

Her beautiful amber eyes lit up for a second, but she followed it up by nodding with no hesitation.

The gravel crunched beneath my boots, and the wind blew gently between us as I stepped toward her. All I could hear was the pounding in my chest.

When she opened her arms, I didn’t fall into her—I melted.

I slid my hands around her waist, her body pressing against mine like it belonged there. She wrapped her arms around my back, one hand curling into the fabric of my shirt, and that was it. That was the moment.

Every wall I’d built, every weight I’d carried, it cracked under her touch.

She was soft where the world had been hard. Steady where I’d been shaken. Holding her, God, holding her felt like breathing for the first time in months.

It wasn’t hugging the nanny.

It was hugging the person who saw me when I didn’t even recognize myself.

It was a need. It was warmth. It was so much want buried beneath the skin.

I turned my face slightly, burying it against her neck, breathing her in.

“I-I’m sorry,” I choked out, the words brushing against her skin.

Her arms tightened around me.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, softer this time, my voice barely holding together as I closed my eyes and breathed her in like she was oxygen and I’d been starved for air.

I was in a slow song.

I was in a moment that would never come again.

I was standing in the middle of the dark, wrapped in a blanket of warmth I didn’t deserve.

She—she was my savior in the middle of my storm.

I held her tighter, my hands settling on the small of her back, fingertips pressing into her through the fabric like I was afraid she might slip away if I let go.

“You are enough, Dalton.”

Four words. Four simple words that tore into a sore spot I’d long since covered up with sarcasm and indifference.

A single tear slid down my cheek.

I didn’t even feel it at first, but when the wetness hit my cheeks, I pulled back.

Her eyes met mine, searching.