Chapter Thirteen
Molly
I make it to my door with my keys clenched in my fist and my brain still buzzing. Midday light slants through the hallway window, bright and rude. I should be thinking about study guides and sleep and how to keep my life clean and controlled.
Instead, I’m thinking about Evan Wilder’s mouth.
He walks beside me like he owns the hallway — steady, not a hint of hesitation in him. Like the kiss the other night wasn’t a mistake. Like it was a promise.
At my door, I force a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. “Thanks for the drink. And the fries. And the ride.”
I can’t even look at him directly, so I aim my words at the spot over his shoulder where the landlord’s notice is peeling off the wall.
Evan stops when I stop. He doesn’t crowd me, but he doesn’t back off either. He’s close enough that I can smell him — soap and clean heat and something darker under it that makes my pulse skitter.
“You did good,” he says.
I blink. “On the test?”
“On not bolting out the window back in that bar when things got real between us.”
My jaw tightens. “I don’t run.”
“You tried.”
He’s not wrong. If I could have crawled out the bathroom window without shattering my dignity, I probably would have. I hate that he knows it.
I wrench open the door and mutter, “I have studying to do.” The inside of my apartment is a disaster of textbooks, highlighters, and empty ramen cups.
I haven’t even had time to light my dollar-store candle, the one I bought last week because it promised “tranquility” on the label.
All the tranquility in the world can’t erase the feeling of Evan’s eyes still burning into my back.
I expect him to leave. Instead, there’s a shuffling sound and then a heavy, deliberate step as he follows me across the threshold. Like it's already decided. I should tell him to leave. I turn around instead.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“You didn’t say no,” he says, in a voice as calm as a hand on the back of my neck. He turns and shuts the door with a soft click, then locks it. The sound lands in the room like a dare.
My breath catches. “That’s… bold.”
Evan’s mouth tilts. “You like bold.”
I do not like bold.
I like safe. I like predictable. I like men who don’t make my body feel like it’s betraying my brain. But he’s standing there in my living room — textbook on the table, flashcards scattered, my stupid candle unlit — watching me like he sees straight through the armor and isn’t intimidated.
“Evan,” I say, warning and plea all at once.
He waits, not moving. “Molly.”
He says my name as if it’s something precious. Like it’s a secret nobody else may know.
I lift my chin. “I’m not doing a relationship.”
“I’m not asking for a relationship.”
“Good,” I snap, too fast.
Evan’s gaze drops to my mouth. “I’m asking for you.”
I clench my jaw, desperate for some kind of anchor. “You don’t get to just—”
He closes the distance, slow enough that I could stop him at any second. He keeps his hands out to the sides, open and empty, like he’s letting me set the rules.
“You can say no,” he says softly. “If you want to.”
I open my mouth, ready to tell him to leave.
Nothing comes out.
He steps closer, so close I can smell the clean sweat on his skin, the faint tang of motor oil from his jacket. He’s so real it makes my head spin. Evan’s eyes sharpen, pleased and wicked.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “That’s what I thought.”
I hate him.
I hate that he’s right.
I hate that my skin feels too tight and my lungs feel too small.
So I do the only thing that makes sense.
I grab the front of his shirt, haul him down, and kiss him.
Hard.
The force of it jars a surprised sound out of both of us—his a low grunt, mine a hiss through grit teeth—and then our mouths find each other, desperate and brutal and so far from gentle it barely counts as kissing at all.
He doesn’t flinch this time. Doesn’t freeze or hesitate.
Evan opens to me, tongue and teeth and hunger, and meets my ferocity with his own.
I break it just long enough to glare at him. “Don’t get cocky.”
He puts his hands on my hips, thumbs digging in, but his smile gets sharper. “You came at me like you were hungry.”
I shove him, but I might as well try to move a brick wall. “You’re not that irresistible, Wilder.”
He tilts his head, eyes darkening. “You keep telling yourself that.”
There’s space between us now, just enough for air, and it makes every inch of my skin feel cold. I hate that I want him closer again. I hate that I’m panting.
“Bedroom,” he says, voice low and final.
I laugh, a bark of disbelief. “You always this direct?”
Evan dips his head, mouth near my ear. “Stop pretending you want to be alone. Take me to your bed, Molly.”
A shiver crawls up my spine. “You’re—”
“Confident,” he finishes, hands sliding up my sides, not quite under my shirt but close enough to make my skin spark. “And you’re about to stop thinking.”
I should slap him. Instead, I grab his wrist and drag him down the hall, nearly tripping over my own boots as I go.
I slam the door behind us, hard enough to rattle the frame.
Light pours through the slatted blinds, painting stripes across the bed and turning every flaw in my apartment — wrinkled sheets, mismatched pillows, laundry basket in the corner — into something raw and exposed.
“This is insane,” I whisper, half to myself.
“You’ve been sane for a long time.”
“I’ve been smart,” I snap, but my voice comes out thin, brittle.
He catches my chin in his hand, thumb against my jaw, touch gentle but absolute. “Smart doesn’t mean numb.”
My cheeks burn. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
He smiles, not unkind. “Wasn’t planning on it.” His gaze flicks to my lips, then back up. “I’m just telling you what I want.”
“And what’s that?” I challenge, but it’s a bluff and we both know it.
Evan leans in, just short of kissing me, letting the anticipation burn. “You. Under me. Saying my name like you mean it.”
Heat floods my chest. I want to spit at him. I want to melt. Instead, I fist his shirt and drag him in. “Arrogant asshole.”
He laughs, low and pleased, and kisses me again.
His hands are under my shirt before I realize it, palms spanning my ribs, his thumbs tracing the rise and fall of each shaky breath.
I try to wrench his shirt off at the same time he tries to do the same to mine, and we get tangled, arms and elbows and lips and laughter, until he pins me to the wall with his weight and just holds me there, chest to chest.
“Arms up,” he growls.
I glare at him, but my body’s already obeying, hands over my head as he peels my shirt off with a smooth, practiced motion. It’s humiliating how easy I make it.
“Bossy,” I mutter, even as goosebumps chase across my skin.
He tosses the shirt aside and drinks me in, eyes roaming slow and hungry. “You like it.”
“I like a challenge.”
His hands slide to the waistband of my jeans, fingers pausing just under the button. “Tell me to stop,” he says, and for the first time his voice is tight, like he’s actually ready to let go if I say the word.
I stare him dead in the eyes. “Don’t you dare.”
His smile falters, replaced by something raw and genuine, and he kisses me again, softer this time, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other undoes my jeans with brutal efficiency.
I grapple at his belt. “Your turn.”
He lets me for a moment. Lets me undo the buckle, slide the leather free, pop the button and drag down the zipper.
Only when I push them lower does he grab my wrists and pin them, wrists over my head against the wall, and he presses in until I can’t tell if I want to knee him in the balls or let him split me open.
He nudges me backward, stumbling and breathless, until the backs of my knees hit the mattress and I drop onto the bed. He follows, knee on the edge, climbing over me with a deliberate slowness, like he’s giving me time to protest.
I don’t.
He kisses down my jaw, my throat, the sharp bone of my collar, sucking bruises into my skin like he means to mark me. I arch into him, nails raking across his back. He hisses and bites my shoulder in retaliation.
“Evan—”
He lifts his head, eyes dark and wild. “Do you remember high school?”
My pulse spikes. I do, and I don’t want to. “Don’t—”
“I remember,” he says, voice gone thick.
“I remember how you looked at me in the parking lot, like you wanted to bite and run all at once.” His hand slides lower, fingers trailing down my stomach, teasing the edge of my underwear.
“I remember how you said you’d never get involved in a real relationship, how you were too smart for that shit. ”
I glare at him, but my glare is a whimper. “I was eighteen.”
“And you’re still you,” he says, and this time when he kisses me, it’s almost gentle. “Just smarter. Meaner. Hotter.”
My laugh turns into a gasp when his hand finds its destination, fingers clever and unrelenting. I curse, try to dig my nails into his shoulders, but he’s relentless, and I’m so close to the edge I could scream.
“Holy shit,” I moan, as every bit of resistance within me breaks beneath the touch of his finger. Shaking, quivering, I lose myself beneath him, my mind becoming a brimming mess of colors and my nerves lit up with electricity as Evan Wilder shatters my world with his hands.
Evan’s mouth curves against my lips. “There you are.”
I dig my nails into his shoulders. “Shut up.”
“Make me,” he says, and his voice is pure sin.
So I do.
I flip us, using the momentum of his surprise to roll him onto his back, and I straddle his hips with a fierceness that makes his eyes go wide.
For one perfect second, I have the upper hand.
His chest heaves beneath me, muscles taut, and I can feel exactly how much he wants this pressed against my thigh.
"My turn," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel.
His hands find my hips, grip tight enough to bruise, but he doesn't try to flip us back. He just watches me with those dark, burning eyes, like I'm something worth studying. Something worth keeping.
I hate how much I like it.
I lean down, press my mouth to the hollow of his throat, and taste the salt of his skin. He makes a sound—low, almost pained—and his hands slide up my back, pulling me closer. I bite down, just hard enough to make him hiss, and feel his whole body jerk beneath me.
"Molly…"
“You talk too much,” I murmur against his skin, and then I'm kissing down his chest, mapping the ridges of muscle, the scattered scars I don't let myself think about too hard. He's been through something. We all have. But right now, none of it matters.
Right now, there's just skin and heat and the desperate need to forget everything else.
When I finally take him in hand, he curses, head falling back against my pillow. The sight of him — undone, vulnerable, completely at my mercy — sends a thrill through me that's almost better than the touch itself.
“Look at me,” I say.
His eyes snap open and find mine. There's something there I wasn't expecting. Something soft beneath all that hunger.
It terrifies me.
So I don't let myself think. I shift, position myself, and sink down onto him in one smooth motion that steals the breath from both of us.
"Fuck," he breathes, hands clamping down on my hips hard enough to leave fingerprints. "Molly, you feel fucking incredible."
I roll my hips, cutting him off, and watch his face contort with pleasure. This is what I need. This control. This power. The ability to take what I want without giving anything away.
But then he sits up, one arm banding around my waist, and suddenly we're chest to chest, foreheads pressed together, and I can't hide anymore. He moves with me, inside me, and it's not just fucking anymore. It's something else. Something dangerous.
“Stay with me,” he whispers, and I don't know if he means right now or something bigger, something I'm not ready to name.
I kiss him instead of answering, pouring everything I can't say into the slide of my tongue against his, the dig of my nails into his shoulders, the rhythm of our bodies finding something that feels terrifyingly like harmony.
When I fall apart this time, he's right there with me, his groan vibrating against my throat as he shudders and spills inside me. We cling to each other, trembling, breathing ragged and loud in the quiet of my disaster of a bedroom.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
Then reality seeps back in, cold and unwelcome, like water through a cracked foundation.
I notice the sweat cooling on my skin, the ache in my thighs, the way his heart pounds against my chest like it's trying to break free.
I should pull away. I should make a joke, something sharp and dismissive to put distance between us. That's what I do. That's who I am.
But Evan's hand comes up to cup the back of my head, fingers threading through my tangled curls, and he just... holds me there. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't try to fill the silence with bullshit.
"This doesn't change anything," I finally manage, but my voice is wrecked, barely a whisper.
He presses a kiss to my temple. “I know.”
"I mean it. This was just—"
"Molly." His voice is soft, but there's something underneath it. Something that sounds almost like regret. "I know."
I glare at him. “You’re not sleeping over.”
He laughs, soft and satisfied. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good.”
He moves his thumb, slow and deliberate, caressing the underside of my breast in a way that sends tingling sensations through my body. “You kick everyone out after?”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t make a habit of this.”
He tilts his head, studying me like I’m a puzzle he can’t quite solve. “Seemed like you needed it.”
I tense up, bristling. “Don’t start thinking this is some kind of therapy session. And don’t start thinking this means you get access to my life, either.”
Evan meets my eyes without blinking, then they flicker away from mine to look at where our bodies still meet. “I think it’s too late for that, Molly.”
My stomach drops. He doesn’t say it like a threat; he says it like a fact.
And the terrifying part is that I know he’s right.
With a sigh, I shift in bed, plant a soft kiss on his chest, and look him in the eyes. I hate myself for what I’m about to ask, but I know there’s no fighting it.
“What if you stay for a while?”