Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
CLARA
Snow squeaked under my boots as I stepped inside, the blast of heat from the vents a welcome reprieve. I bent to kick off my shoes, my cheeks still warm from La Casita’s salsa and from the way Wes had watched me over the table like I was more interesting than the entire laminated menu.
I had one heel half out of my boot when the door clicked shut behind us.
Before I could straighten, his fingers circled my wrist. Gentle and sure.
I looked up just as he turned me.
My back met the inside of the door with a soft thud. Wes crowded in, all worn flannel and clean soap and winter air, his gaze dropping to my mouth like he’d been holding himself together by sheer force of will.
Then he kissed me.
There was nothing careful about it. His mouth was hot and hungry, teeth catching my lower lip in a way that stole the breath from my lungs.
His hands bracketed my hips, thumbs digging in just enough to make my knees wobble.
Every inch of him was solid against me, his thigh pressed between mine, the steady anchor of his prosthetic making it feel like the door and his body were the only things keeping me upright.
A broken sound slipped out of me, half gasp, half yes.
He pulled back an inch, his breath rough against my lips. “I’ve been waiting to do that all damn night,” he said, voice shredded.
Heat shot straight through me, low and sharp. This wasn’t a lesson. This was not a clinical, scheduled exercise. This was a man who had sat across from me in a vinyl booth, pretending to care about salsa choices while his mind was already here.
Any thought I had about rules or pacing evaporated.
My fingers fisted in the front of his shirt, and I dragged him back down, kissing him like I’d been just as useless at waiting.
His mouth opened under mine with a quiet, wrecked groan, one hand sliding up my spine, into my hair, tugging just enough to tilt my head the way he wanted it.
I pressed closer, chest to chest, hips rolling in a slow, helpless grind that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with the anticipation of what could come next.
The prosthetic didn’t matter. The accident didn’t matter. There was just his tongue stroking into my mouth, his palm curving over my ass, the way my body reacted like it had been primed for this very moment.
Yes, yes, yes thrummed through my veins, tangled right up with a wild flash of we have rules and I do not care about a single one of them.
We broke apart on the same ragged breath.
He rested his forehead against mine, eyes closed, like he needed to recalibrate his entire nervous system. His chest rose and fell against mine, not entirely steady.
“Your brother,” he said eventually, voice still rough, “is the ultimate cockblock, you know that? I couldn’t even buy condoms without him materializing out of nowhere.”
I blinked, and then the picture hit: Wes in the aisle of a store and Hayes appearing like a cursed jack-in-the-box. Laughter punched out of me, bright and breathless.
“Good thing I trust absolutely no one with my sex life but myself,” I managed.
He drew back just enough to see my face. “What does that mean?”
My heart hammered. Nerves and giddy anticipation collided as I slid my hand into my purse, fingers closing around cardboard.
I pulled out the economy-size box and held it up between us like a rabbit out of a hat. “Ta-da.”
His brows shot up.
“You got the big box,” he said, a low, pleased rumble that stroked over every raw place inside me as his hips pushed into me.
Heat crawled up my neck. I forced my chin up anyway. “Optimism looks good on you, Vaughn,” I said. “I thought I’d try it too.”
Something loosened in his face. Old Wes flickered through—the one who would have made a filthy joke and backed it up, the one who walked into a room like he knew exactly what he could do with his body.
It mixed with the new version of him, the one still relearning his edges, and the combination nearly knocked my knees out.
The joke settled between us, softer at the edges, like we both recognized what we were actually doing here. This wasn’t just optimism. It was intent. Choice.
I let my hand drop and pressed the box between our palms. Step by step, I tugged him deeper into the house, away from the door, away from the chance of anyone seeing us framed in the entry like a confession.
“Are you ready for lesson three?” I asked, my voice not nearly as steady as I wanted it to be.
His grip tightened around my hand. When he looked at me, there was nothing teasing in his eyes. Only heat. Only want. Only a kind of raw gratitude that scared the hell out of me because it felt an awful lot like trust.
“Lesson three,” he echoed, the words more promise than joke. “I want all of you tonight, Clara.”
Upstairs, Wes’s room felt smaller than usual, like the air had thickened the second we crossed the threshold. The lamp on his nightstand threw gold over the bed, the dresser, the long mirror propped in the corner and a sturdy wooden chair that would be perfect for what I had planned.
He closed the door with a soft click, and we just stood there, facing each other in the warm pool of light, the rest of the house falling away.
“So,” I said, my voice coming out softer than I intended. “Game plan?”
With a shake of his head, he said, “Missionary’s out.” His gaze flicked between my eyes. “Without two good knees, I can’t really get”—he cleared his throat—“leverage.”
I nodded, silently letting him know I understood, though my cheeks flamed.
“Standing’s still iffy,” he admitted. “If things go sideways, I’d rather not take us both out.”
I huffed a shaky laugh. “Fair. No concussions on lesson three.” I tipped my chin toward the chair. “Sitting might work.”
“A chair is solid.” He tapped it with his knuckles. “Foot planted. Back supported. Low risk of me face-planting into the dresser. Very dignified.”
“Sexy and practical.” My heart squeezed. “I like it.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said, and meant it. He wasn’t less of a man because he thought about stability and the physics of his prosthetic. He was more himself. More careful, more deliberate.
More Wes.
We stepped closer at the same time, some invisible tether pulling us in. He stopped an arm’s length away, chest rising, eyes dark.
“Strip for me,” he said, voice rough as gravel.
Heat shot straight through me.
I met his gaze and held it, letting myself bask in the sheer hunger there. “Yes, sir,” I murmured, because apparently my mouth wanted to get me in trouble.
His jaw flexed. “Clara.”
I reached for the hem of my sweater, fingers suddenly not as steady as I wanted them to be. The cotton slid up my stomach, cool air kissing my skin as I pulled it over my head and dropped it to the floor. His eyes tracked the movement like he couldn’t have looked away if the house caught fire.
I took my time with the rest, because it felt like the only power I had over how wildly my heart was beating. Jeans button, zipper, the slow tug of denim over my hips. His gaze followed every inch, knuckles whitening on the back of the chair as I shimmied them down my thighs.
By the time I stood in front of him completely bare, my skin felt too tight for my body. My pulse thudded in my ears. He was breathing harder, eyes blown and hungry, like I was both a miracle and a problem he fully intended to solve.
His hands flexed on the chair before moving in front of it. “Jesus, Duchess.”
The nickname rolled over me like a touch.
“Your turn,” I said, stepping closer until I stood right in front of him. My fingers found the hem of his shirt, the soft cotton stretched over the expanse of his chest.
“Is this okay?” I asked, checking in one last time.
He nodded once, jerky. “Yeah.”
I lifted the shirt, inch by inch, revealing a strip of warm skin, the trail of hair, the carved muscles of his stomach. Scars cut across the planes of him—white lines, a map of what he’d survived. My throat went tight as I tugged the shirt over his head and tossed it aside.
He went still under my hands, like he wasn’t sure what to do with being looked at. I let my palms skate slowly over his shoulders, down his chest, following the curve of muscle and bone, making no effort to hide how much I liked what I saw.
“This is ridiculous,” I whispered, because it was either that or burst into flames. “You’re offensively hot.”
A startled laugh punched out of him, some of the tension leaching from his shoulders.
I slid my fingers to his waistband, popping the button, easing the zipper down. The thick bulge straining against the fabric made my pulse spike. I worked the denim over his hips, careful of the liner at his thigh, careful not to tug anything that would yank him out of his head and back into fear.
He caught my wrists.
For a beat, we froze there—him half out of his jeans, me bent close enough to feel his breath on the top of my head, the room holding its air.
His hand felt tight around my wrist, not harsh, just . . . hesitant.
I straightened, following the tension up his arm until our eyes met. There it was. The line. Not the sexy one we’d been toeing all night. The real one. The moment where he either let me see all of himself or put the mask back on.
“I want all of you, Wes,” I said quietly. “Not just the parts you think are easy to look at.”
Something flickered—pain, disbelief, a little bit of anger at whatever part of his brain insisted that couldn’t be true. It all moved behind his eyes, then slowly, finally, his grip loosened.
He let go.
“Okay,” he said, voice hoarse. “All of it, then.”
We pushed his jeans down together, working them over his prosthetic with a weird chorus of grunts and laughter when they caught on the edge.