Chapter 20 #2
Their map, however, hadn’t survived unscathed. The rain was unrelenting, soaking through the canvas of their bags, and reducing the map to a papier-maché pulp. It crumbled in her hands, but that didn’t stop Fletcher from trying.
“I didn’t,” Waylon said without looking back. Still self-satisfied from his grand escape. Fletcher refrained from reminding him that his plan primarily worked because Rick got barbecued in an act of divine intervention. His ego was big enough as it was.
Fletcher’s waterlogged backpack dangled from his fingers. It weighed about a trillion pounds, and although Fletcher hadn’t complained, Waylon slipped it off her shoulders with just as little verbal recognition.
On the edge of the map’s last remaining legible strip, there was a smudge. If she squinted, maybe it looked like the marina. “Is this west? I thought we were supposed to be going west.”
“Can’t say.” His voice lilted unexpectedly. After an afternoon of getting strangled, becoming Rick’s target practice, and having her ankles nipped at by crocodiles, Fletcher’s nerves were already plenty frayed. This fully unraveled them.
“You’re enjoying this,” Fletcher said pointedly.
“A bit.” A smile. “When’s the last time Fletcher Spence went with the flow?”
Fletcher huffed. Never. She’d much prefer it if the flow went with her.
There was no end to the jungle. Green webbed in every direction. They could be heading straight back to the ruins of the estate, and Fletcher wouldn’t have been able to tell.
Despite the relentless onslaught of rain, Waylon forged confidently ahead, bending branches out of Fletcher’s way and offering her a steadying hand anytime they crossed a patch of dense roots.
They didn’t say anything else, the silence falling between them cut by the constant drum of rain against soaked soil and the babbling of a brook too small for piranhas or anacondas or any other evil aquatic animals Dyer may have imported for his own sick amusement.
The hike had rubbed Fletcher’s feet raw, and the water soothed her chafed skin as they crossed into a clearing.
“Almost there,” said Waylon.
One tree dominated the landscape. The shadows were denser here, and buttress roots braided together, wide and well-fed, leaving only enough light and nutrients for stubborn ferns and a patchwork of pink begonias. Even the rain softened.
Too late, she realized she’d let her guard down.
Waylon tugged her hand and spun her into his chest. Which could have almost been romantic if he hadn’t also shucked off his backpack and unsheathed a knife he’d smuggled from the kitchen.
“There’s just one catch,” he said with a voice like amber whiskey.
With her back pressed against him, she knew he felt the shake of her inhale, the purposeful way she blew her breath out through her mouth. Trying to quell a rising tide of panic. “What’s that?”
“I want to trust you.” His voice held firm.
“Then trust me.”
“But how do I know you won’t betray me?”
Tension lanced down her spine as he brought the blade to her neck.
He couldn’t know. Could he? She’d covered her tracks.
The deal she’d struck. The risk she’d taken forming an agreement with Jackie.
The way she’d hedged her bets by circling back to create an alliance of her own with Waylon.
It was wrong, she knew. All of it. Wrong, but necessary.
He’d do the same. Every trick she played, she’d learned from his father.
Fletcher bit her bottom lip. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“The difference is,” he said, measuring his words carefully, taking his time with each syllable. The blade’s cold bite against her pulse didn’t budge. “I’ve got nothing left to hide.”
Her mind raced. This was Waylon. The same man who doubled back when he could have abandoned her at the manor.
Who rescued her when she’d nearly run into an ambush.
Who kept finding new ways to surprise her.
Their past as sworn enemies had been set aside for a flimsy truce, but he was still a Cartwright, and she still had everything to lose.
And now—
She dared a glance down. His hand was steady. Not a tremor in his grip.
“What do you need?” she asked, keeping her voice level despite the fear rioting in her chest. “To convince you?”
Silence stretched between them, charged as storm clouds.
He craned his neck over her shoulder, eyes dark. Dissident heat rose between her thighs as his palm spread across her belly. The steel-sharp edge of his knife scraped the skin of her throat. In a voice softer than she expected, he murmured, “Tell me what you want, Spence, and I’ll let you live.”
Fletcher swallowed, her throat cording against the blade. “I want…”
She could almost see herself through his point of view: muddied and bleary-eyed, maybe, but still the quiet, rule-following assistant he’d met at the gala. A version of herself who had barely been brave enough to admit what she wanted, let alone chase it.
The only version of herself that existed for so long. Too long.
You could do it, Fletcher Spence.
Something changed the night they met. A seed buried in her chest, rooting around her ribs. Spiteful determination, yes. But also, a new kind of propulsive bravery, all because a dashing, dangerous stranger comforted and challenged her in the same breath.
Against all odds, they’d found their way back to each other. As much a surprise to him as it had been to her. Maybe this didn’t have anything to do with Jackie.
Fletcher eased the knife far enough away from her jugular that she could spin to face Waylon without him slitting her throat. Sans high heels, her nose brushed the center of his chest. She planted her palms against him and rose onto the highest tips of her toes.
Before she could rationalize her way out of it, think of a hundred different backup plans, or talk herself back from whatever proverbial ledge she was about to throw herself off, Fletcher kissed Waylon Cartwright.
Shocked and then settling, he kissed her back. His mouth was firm, steady. Somehow both urgent and patient. Confident. Smug. Waylon, right down to the lips.
Need pooled in every erogenous zone that had been forgotten for the past ten years: the cave of Fletcher’s collarbone, the crook of her elbow, the bend of her ear.
The hand that wasn’t holding a steak knife trailed down her waist, fingers tight against her hips.
She arched into him, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, teeth grazing.
His tongue darted across her bottom lip, and her mouth parted in welcome.
A noise—caught between a whimper and a plea—worked its way up her throat.
Kissing Kent had always been quick, chaste.
Another item on the long list of Fletcher’s duties. This was…not that.
Waylon drank her like top-shelf liquor. Immediacy raced through every movement. Fletcher’s fingertips toyed with the hem of his shirt, skimming the taut skin of his stomach.
His knife sank to the forest floor. Evidently, this was a two-handed task.
Waylon guided her back, back, back, until her skin met the roots of the kapok tree. Hands coming beneath her thighs, he lifted her onto a curve, the root ancient and unmoving beneath her. Her knees widened far enough for him to situate himself closer.
All that nervous energy she’d pushed down now snapped like a rubber band under too much force. There must have been enough epinephrine in her system to bring someone back to life.
Waylon pulled away first. Pupils blown out, lips swollen. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that.”
Fletcher caught a fistful of his shirt, suddenly wishing it were anywhere else. “I think I do.”
He kissed her again, savoring it. Savoring her. Making up for three years of lost time, or maybe making amends for it. This thing between them, it wasn’t just years of pent-up sexual frustration or a heat-induced delusion or the stress of survival.
Around him, she’d never been tasked with contorting herself into a box for his liking, shaping and molding herself into someone he expected her to be.
She’d met him at her lowest, and he hadn’t shied away.
She was allowed to simply be whatever she was.
Feel whatever she felt. Want whatever she wanted.
He pressed his palm to the back of her head, fingers weaving into the copper of her hair. Breathing? What was breathing? Fletcher barely remembered as his other hand traced the edge of her jaw, down the slope of her neck. He paused there, feeling the frantic skip of her heartbeat.
“I’m sorry I hated you for so long,” she said. Barely more than a whisper.
“I’m sorry I made you.”
His mouth latched on to the pulse point, lingering. She wanted more of him. More everything. Entirely too much wanting. So much it threatened to burn her to ash.
“Waylon,” she said, but what she really meant was yes and please and oh my god, are we actually doing this?
When he drew back, his thumb touched the crease of her mouth.
“Okay,” he said, as if convincing himself. To trust her. To give in to this thing between them. He leaned in for another kiss that left Fletcher’s lips tingling and then rested his forehead against hers. “Come with me.”
Around them, the chirp of the brush bugs had died, the birds had fallen silent. One monkey howled, and the branches above them shifted with the weight of them leaving until everything stilled.
As a general rule, anxious girlies should not trust gut feelings.
Fletcher’s gut frequently lied to her. Everyone in this meeting is staring at your unsteamed blouse.
Eat the cheese Danish—you’re not that lactose intolerant.
The restructuring meeting is at eleven, but if you don’t have these memos stapled three hours early, you’re first on the chopping block.
Usually she kept those thoughts at bay with an antianxiety prescription, a bottle of Lactaid, and a color-coded Google calendar.
In the wild, there was only instinct.
And as her fingers laced with his, instinct told Fletcher that taking Waylon’s hand might be the most dangerous thing she’d ever done.