Chapter 21 Wells
WELLS
The couch creaks when Elsie shifts, blanket rustling. I know she’s not asleep. Not even close. How could she be when I’m over here suffering every inch of space between us?
I have two quilts beneath me, one on top, but the rug doesn’t care how many layers I stack up. It’s still unforgiving. My shoulders ache, my knee’s stiff from earlier. But I keep still because she drew a line tonight, and I’m not crossing it before she’s ready.
Firelight rolls across the ceiling beams. I let myself look at her for a second. Her profile, soft in the glow. Her ankle sticking out from under the blanket. Hemingway curled in the crook of her knees like he’s her personal guard.
If I weren’t so disciplined, I’d reach for her. Hook a finger in the blanket. Anchor myself by her wrist and admit the truth: I like her here. I like her within reach. I like that wanting her feels like breathing again after months of holding my breath.
The wind bellows against the shutters, and the house groans back.
Elsie flinches.
“You’re not sleeping,” I say.
“Neither are you,” she answers, eyes on the ceiling.
“Floor’s a bastard.”
She twists again. “Can’t be worse than this couch. There’s a spring trying to sever my spine.”
Another squirm. Another huff. She’s so fed up she bolts upright, drags the blanket with her, and drops onto the rug beside me.
I lift my head. “So much for the gentleman thing.”
She ignores me, flattening herself on her side. She rolls. Scoots. Wriggles around like she can bully the floor into softness. Pinches her eyes shut, stubborn as anything.
I almost laugh. She’s hopeless.
“Comfortable?” I ask.
“Perfect,” she lies. “Absolutely blissful.”
Her hair falls forward in a loose curl, tickling her nose. She blows at it once. Twice. On the third try, I give in. I prop onto an elbow and brush it back for her. My knuckles skim her temple.
“Don’t force it, Els.”
Her eyes snap open. “What?”
“Sleep,” I say, close enough for her to feel it. “It’ll come when you stop fighting it.”
“It’s . . . freezing in here.”
“I can help with that.”
She doesn’t look away. When my hand moves from her temple to her jaw, then settles flat over her collarbone, she doesn’t stop me, either.
The heat under her skin hits my palm. Her breath hitches. I feel her tremble, not from cold—from whatever’s coiled tight inside her. I’m starving to touch her, to learn the language of her body in the dark, to give her something steady to hold on to.
“Wells,” she whispers.
“Elsie.”
Her throat works over a hard swallow. “Why does it feel like this? Like something’s clawing out of my ribs, like the room can’t hold it? Like I need you to touch me more than I need air?”
My thumb drags slowly over her pulse. It’s racing.
Mine is worse.
“Desire. Arousal. Want,” I tell her quietly. “You’ve never felt it before?”
Her breath trembles. “Not like this.”
That admission snaps something in me I’ve kept locked down for weeks. I lean in, close enough that her breath ghosts across my cheek. Her lashes flutter, and I swear I can feel every centimeter of distance we haven’t yet crossed.
“Elsie,” I murmur, my hand still firm at her collarbone, “you’re shaking.”
“I don’t know if it’s the cold or—” She breaks, swallows hard. “Or something else.”
“It’s something else.” My thumb traces the hollow at the base of her throat. “You think I don’t feel it, too?”
Her eyes lock onto mine, wide, searching. I see the flicker of doubt there—the fear of wanting the wrong thing, of stepping off the edge without a safety net. So, I stop myself.
“I want to kiss you,” she says. “I want more than that. But—”
“Listen to me.” My voice is rough, low. “I won’t let doubt wreck this. I won’t let regret touch it.” I keep my palm firm where her heartbeat gallops. “You can forget it in the morning if you want. But tonight, we can choose one thing. Just one. Without tearing it apart before it’s even begun.”
Her lips part on a shaky exhale. “We can?”
“We can try.”
Her fingers curl in the blanket between us, knuckles white. I watch her choose—fear or fire. When she lifts her chin the smallest inch, I feel it like a hand to the chest.
“Oh,” she whispers.
That single syllable undoes me.
My hand drifts from her collarbone to her shoulder, thumb brushing the cotton of her shirt before it finds bare skin at the dip of her neck.
Her breath hitches.
“Is this all right?” I ask.
“More.”
God help me.
I slide closer, the quilt bunching between us. Her legs draw up, folding toward mine until we’re sharing the same heat. I can feel every tremor rolling off her—nerves, want. My palm cups the side of her throat, not holding, only feeling. Her pulse slams against my hand.
She presses her forehead to mine. “Why does it hurt?”
“It’s not pain,” I murmur. “It’s wanting too much and not knowing where to put it.”
Her breath shudders, warm against my lips. “Then where do I?”
“Here.” My thumb strokes her jaw, patient, steady. “Give it to me.”
She tilts forward, so small, so sure, and the first brush of her mouth against mine steals every last reason I’ve ever had for waiting. It’s tentative only for a blink. Then it’s her hands on my shoulders, my thumb angling her jaw, our mouths slanting together perfectly.
The fire cracks sharply behind us, but all I hear is the sound she makes when I catch her lower lip, when I finally take what’s been living in my chest since the day she walked back into the parlor.
Her hands trace the lines of my torso, like she’s proving I’m real. I press her back onto the quilt and follow, bracing above her, kissing her again. Slower this time, longer, too. I think I could spend all night kissing her, and it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me.
“Wells,” she whispers into my mouth.
I drag my lips down her cheek, to her ear. “I want you. God, Els, I want you everywhere, all at once.”
She arches beneath me, and I feel the yes in her body before she speaks it. Her fingers push under my shirt, skim my ribs, tentative and hungry both. The contrast makes me groan.
“I shouldn’t,” she says, a last-second protest, weak as paper.
“You should,” I counter, catching her gaze again. “Because I’m here. Because I want you. Because this doesn’t have to be forever to be true for us tonight.”
Her eyes shine in the firelight, uncertain and wanting, and I kiss her again. She answers with a sound that sets me on fire. My hands find her waist, her hips. She’s all warmth and curve and hesitation, giving way to need.
When she pulls me closer, I can’t stop the words that break free.
“Do you know how many nights I’ve wanted this? Wanted you?” My lips trail down her throat, teeth grazing the edge of her pulse. “How many times I’ve told myself no, only to picture this anyway? You take me apart, Elsie.”
The storm howls outside, but inside it’s only heat and hands and mouths finding their way. She clings, done holding herself back. I kiss her like it’s the last chance I’ll ever get.
The quilt slides. Her legs shift, opening, pulling me down where I’ve wanted to be since the first night she stood in the doorway and ruined my quiet life.
“You feel this?” I whisper against her skin, my hand spanning her ribs, her waist, her thigh. “This is what happens when I stop holding back.”
“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”
I kiss her again, hard and deep, and when she gasps into me, when her nails press my back through my shirt, I know there’s no going back. We are inevitable.
“Are you sure you don’t want this just because I’m here?” she asks. “Because I’m a woman who’s close and willing? Because it’s cold, and sharing blankets and body heat will help us get through this storm?”
She’s testing me. Testing us.
I press my forehead to hers. “If this were about convenience, I wouldn’t be doing it with you. Besides, I don’t touch what I don’t want.”
She shakes her head. “We disagree on everything. What you want. What I want. How can you ignore that?”
“I’m not ignoring it,” I say, rough. “I’m choosing this anyway. I have never—” I swallow hard, thumb brushing her cheekbone. “I have never wanted anything like I want you.”
She kisses me again. This one is different, and certain. We’ve crossed the line together.
And wow. Just fucking wow.
I brace one hand beside her head, the other sliding under her spine to pull her closer. The storm can raze the whole town tonight for all I care. Nothing has ever felt like this before—like stepping into fire and finding out it doesn’t burn.
I lift her gently, shifting the blanket beneath us. Her sweater bunches at her ribs. My hand coasts underneath, palm grazing soft, heated skin. She arches into me. I think I might die from the feeling of her breath hitching right there in my mouth.
“Let me,” I say, voice low.
She nods, once, and that’s all it takes.
I push her sweater up and away. Her skin glows in the firelight, chest rising fast. My mouth finds the delicate path between her ribs, her breast, her collarbone, painting worship in every place I’ve imagined a hundred different ways.
She gasps when I take her pert nipple in my mouth, trembling against me. I roll it with my tongue. Her hands tangle in my hair, then splay over my shoulders.
“Wells,” she whispers.
“Still okay?”
She pulls at my shirt, dragging it off by the collar. Her hands trace down my chest, over the old scar under my ribs.
“I’ve wanted this,” she says, “for a while now.”
Her jeans take effort. So do mine. But we make it—fumbling, laughing softly once when her heel gets caught in the hem, cursing the cold, the storm, the way everything feels like it might unravel. But it doesn’t.
We’re bare beneath the quilt, the fire painting the ceiling gold, our breaths thick and uneven. I settle between her open thighs. Her hands frame my face, her fingers in my hair. I can’t look away from her.
“How can I make it good for you?”
“Stay,” she says. “Don’t rush. Let me feel it all.”
So, I press forward, into her, and we both exhale like we’ve broken something open.
God. She’s warm, tight, exquisite. Her head tips back with a soft gasp, her hands gripping my shoulders. I think she might need an anchor, and I want to be that for her. I hold still, let her adjust, feel her melt around me.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper. “Tell me if you need—”
“Just move,” she says. “Please.”
I do. Carefully, slowly at first. But the rhythm finds us quickly. We were made to move this way, together. Her body rises to meet mine, again and again. Each gasp, each moan, each whisper of my name makes my control fray.
She wraps her legs around me, pulls me deeper. Her eyes close, then fly open again, dazed and shining. My name falls from her lips. She can’t stop saying it, and God, I don’t want her to.
“Wells, God—Wells—”
“Right here,” I say. “I’m right here.”
The need for release builds between us, sharp and unbearable. I kiss her through it, my hands everywhere. I want to feel her come apart. I want to give her that. I want to be the reason.
She moans when I shift deeper, her body taking every inch of me. She was made for this. To be fucked by me, to fall apart in my hands. To let someone cherish her without forcing her to disappear. To be fully seen and still be wanted.
My cock drags through the tight heat of her, slick and pulsing, and I can feel her flutter around me, already so close. I grip her thigh, press in harder, and she gasps—head falling back, throat exposed, a soft whimper escaping as I rock into her again.
I want to bite her neck. I want to kiss her pulse point. I want to fuck her until her body forgets every reason she ever gave herself to resist this pull between us.
“You feel—fuck—so good,” I breathe against her jaw, kissing the hinge of it, the skin behind her ear. “You have no goddamn idea.”
Her nails rake down my back, desperate now, and her hips jerk to meet mine. She needs me deeper, needs me all the way. I thrust again, harder, and she cries out softly—biting her lip to muffle it.
“Don’t hold back,” I growl. “Let me hear you.”
She clenches around me, hips stuttering, mouth parting in a gasp. Her body pulses beneath mine, her head pressed to my shoulder, breath catching. She’s still afraid to fall, and she shouldn’t be.
I’m right here, ready and willing to catch her.
“Let go,” I murmur into her ear. “You’re doing so good, baby. Let yourself feel.”
I told her I don’t bite, but I nip at her shoulder while she shudders, rolling my thumb over her clit in slow, relentless circles.
Her whole body tenses, trembles—her thighs locking around my waist—and then she breaks, a low cry spilling out of her as she comes hard, clenching and pulsing around me.
She’s trying to pull me under with her.
And I can’t hold back. I thrust once, twice, and then my orgasm slams through me—white-hot, ripping the breath from my lungs. It feels like crashing into shore, like surrendering everything I’ve held too tightly for too long.
I bury my face in her neck and breathe her in. Coffee, cinnamon. Everything good.
We lie there tangled, slick with sweat and heat, the quilt half kicked off, the fire still burning low. I curl my hand around her hip, thumb stroking the curve of her waist.
“Stay close?” she whispers.
“Of course.”
I gather the quilt around us both, pull her flush to my chest, and press a kiss into her hair. Her breath fans warm over my collarbone. I wouldn’t leave her side if the house itself tried to tear me away.
The storm hasn’t eased. The windows still rattle. But inside this space—wrapped in firelight and her quiet, steady breathing—everything feels, briefly, impossibly, still.