Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NOW
W ells drives me back to the ranch, one hand spread wide across my leg the whole twelve minutes it takes for us to get there. We wind up the long driveway and past the main house as he steers us toward his cabin, and my stomach flips in anticipation when it comes into view. My body is a live wire, my desire a tangible, violent thing that rocks through me.
He turns his headlights off as we approach, and the world around us disappears in the night. It takes four or five heartbeats for my eyes to adjust to the starlit slope of the cabin’s roof, to the shadowed corners of the window in the front. My cheeks burn hot as I picture us inside, exploring each other and all the things we can do under the blanket of night, tucked away from the rest of the world.
When the truck rolls to a stop, he pulls his hand from my thigh, and my skin is cold in its absence. We look at each other across the cab, nothing but the sound of shallow breathing between us. Even in the cover of darkness, I see his want take shape in his eyes.
We barely make it through the front door before he’s crowding me against the nearest wall. His hands tremble as he cups my face, thumb pressing roughly into my bottom lip. And then he pulls me in for a kiss that scorches me right to my core.
“Layla,” he whispers urgently against my cheek. “What I said earlier, about making a mess of this . . . I think I need to take it back.” I tilt my head back to look at him, really look at him. For the first time tonight, I see small traces of his fear. “If we do this, it’s going to mean something to me.” His eyes move across my face. “I need you to be sure.”
His shirt bunches in my fists as I hold him tighter, desperate to make him feel as warm and shimmering and good as he’s making me feel. “I’m sure,” I breathe. “Please.”
“Okay.” He nods, slack-jawed. “Okay.” And when he slants his mouth over mine again, it feels like home.
He tastes me like he’s been deprived . . . like I’m his first meal in years. Our tongues slide together as I catch his groan in my throat. I press myself further into him, wind my arms around his neck and pull him in deeper—I want to coax another groan out of him so I can taste it again.
“Tell me how to do this.” He drags his teeth across my jaw as his hand ghosts up my back, pulling a shiver out of my bones.
It’s a soft demand that throbs through me. But I don’t know how to articulate the ache that’s winding tight enough to be just on the edge of pain. “I . . . I—” I can’t think .
“Tell me what you like. Be selfish.”
“Selfish?” I ask, mind spinning.
His eyes drop to my mouth, to my neck. “ So selfish, Layla. Please.” He presses his lips to my mouth, less of a kiss and more of a fix. “Tell me how to please you.” His hand spreads over my ribs as he not-so-gently pushes me further into the wall—he’s coming undone, and it knocks me off my mental ledge. “Tell me how to make you feel good.”
I nod. “Touch me.”
He grunts, the hand on my ribs squeezing. “Where?”
I slide my palm over the back of his hand and guide it down to my thighs, slipping it beneath my dress and between my legs where he already had me with his mouth. “Here,” I say, and then gasp as his fingers curl into me, pushing against my panties.
“Fuck.” He kisses me hard as his fingers plunge a second time. “I want to make you come again,” he murmurs. “Show me how you like this.”
When I circle my fingers against myself, his focus sharpens. His gaze drops, and he lifts the hem of my dress to watch what I’m doing. It nearly sends me to the moon to see him look at me the way he does. “Like this,” I force out.
“Hm,” he hums. His eyes rise to meet mine, shining and steadfast. “My turn.”
His hand replaces mine as he sucks against my neck, and I close my eyes in euphoria. The edges of my vision blur as his fingertips sink deeper into my skin. His teeth rake against my jaw as his hips pin mine to the wall, and I want him to leave a mark.
He looks at me with a reverence I’ve never seen before, and I know it for what it is: the secret that’s been buried in the layers of his heart for so long. Everything he’s been clutching so tight for his best friend’s girl.
Wells keeps a perfect rhythm against me with his fingers, and I know it won’t be long before I’m collapsing at his feet. He reaches with his free hand to pull the strap of my dress down over my shoulder, exposing a sliver of my bare nipple, and goes utterly still when he sees it.
“Are you bare under this dress, Layla?” he asks, swiping his fingers roughly between my legs.
My hips buck from the sensation, and I can only nod as I reach up to brace myself against him—I feel my orgasm coming, like a building wave across the surface of the ocean, bigger and brighter than anything I’ve ever felt before.
It’s a dizzying thought. The only other person I’ve been with was Jason . . . but it was nothing like this—I don’t know what to make of it.
Wells forcibly pulls the top of my dress down further until my full breast is on display, and he’s completely entranced, as if he’s discovered a trove full of riches. “You’re so beautiful.”
There’s an odd sensation behind my sternum, as if my ribcage is expanding beneath my very skin. I’m desperate for the man who’s already pressed against me. It feels white-hot and dangerous, like it will destroy me if I let it.
He bends his head down to take my nipple into his mouth, his tongue hot as it flattens against the peak, and it’s all I need to tip into the unyielding pool of pleasure. And this time when I cry out from the force of it, he does nothing to quiet me. Instead, he beams .
“That was so hot,” he says, mouth curved high. He winds his fingers through my hair and tugs my head back, exposing my neck to him. “Can I have you like this?” He presses a soft kiss to the center of my throat as the hand beneath my dress glides across my hip to palm my ass. He rocks against me, and I feel him everywhere. “Please?”
“Yes,” I pant, reaching for his belt—he can have whatever he wants. Right now, I’m willing to give him anything he asks for—my body . . . my heart. He’s rock hard beneath his jeans, the shape of him almost unbelievable. I want to get him out , want to see him for myself.
As soon as I get past the clasp of his buckle and the button of his worn jeans, he helps me push them down his muscular legs—and my mouth goes dry at the sight of him. He’s all hard angles and sharp edges, his thighs straining against the fit of his jeans where they’re bunched halfway to his knees. He reaches over his shoulder to grab the neck of his T-shirt and pulls it over his head. For the second time tonight, my mind completely blanks.
His shy smile tells me he notices the effect he’s having on me, but it slips as his eyes dip to my exposed chest. And once again, he’s enraptured.
Moving to close the short distance between us, his hands wrap around the backs of my thighs behind the skirt of my dress as he lifts me, pinning me against the wall. He settles his hips between my legs, burying his face in a sensitive spot between my chin and collarbone that has me gasping for air. I feel every inch of him pressed firmly against me, and it winds me right back up again.
“Is this okay?” he rasps, fingertips digging into my hips.
“Yes,” I hiss through the pain, loving the way it feels. Loving how much he seems to need this as much as I do.
“Tell me again,” he murmurs, his lips against my jaw. “Tell me I can have you like this.” His voice grows softer. “Tell me this is real.”
I moan as he palms my breast, warmth radiating through my skin. I reach to press a hand to his jaw, forcing him to look at me. His need is obvious, but I can still see traces of his worry. Of a quiet shame in giving in to what he wants most—knowing what it means.
“Wells,” I say firmly as I heave out a breath. “This is real,” I insist, watching his molten eyes clear as he hangs on to every word. “I’m right here, in your arms, and there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.” My eyes sting with the truth. I know this probably won’t end well—how could it? But all I see is him. All I feel is his body against mine, anchoring me to something that feels a lot like hope, and I know with a newfound clarity that it’s always been like this: Wells has put my needs first for so long, over and over and over again.
I lean forward to kiss him, and it’s not long before we become a frenzied tangle of limbs and mouths and sticky heat.
“Can I fuck you bare?” he asks, winded. “I haven’t . . . I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”
The question sends a shiver through me, an electric edge of power. He’s already positioned where I want him most, it would take only the smallest adjustment to make it count. “ Yes ,” I breathe.
My body is pliant, especially after the two orgasms he’s already pulled out of me. I feel loose and heavy, but he has no problem holding me up with his hefty thighs and strong arms. He reaches to shove the cotton of my underwear to the side and, despite his size, rocks into me with a single, blazing thrust.
Immediately, his eyes squeeze shut, one palm slapping the wall beside my head to steady himself. “ Fuuuck ,” he whooshes out. He keeps his body completely still like he’s in anguish.
My chest heaves as I stretch around him, burning and pulsing and at once utterly bent to his will. “Oh my god,” I whisper, pressing my mouth to the notch at the center of his collarbone. Wells trembles around me, his quiet vulnerability shining like a beacon in the otherwise dark room.
I find him looking at me, his eyes a liquid pool of emotions: euphoria, anticipation, shame, and a palpable layer of grief that mirrors my own. Because we’ve done it—we’ve irrevocably crossed this line. It’s a freefall plummet into the chasm of everything this could lead to—both good and bad—and neither of us is wearing a parachute.
Somehow, I’m struck by what a relief it is.
“This is real,” I say again with clarity. And I’m grateful when it seems to wash most of that anxiousness away as he leans in to kiss me, open and raw.
And then he starts to move.
I become nothing but flesh and bones as an electric tendril of pleasure pulls taut. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he admits before biting into my shoulder, showing he’s not quite in control. He keeps a hand braced against the wall, his thrusts brutal and vicious and so perfect in all the ways that light me up.
The sounds he makes are guttural, his heat blistering as he sinks further into me. His body cocoons around me, a temporary home that I never want to leave. I lose myself, pinned between the wall and the weight of him, a whole new wave of satisfaction scorching me from the inside out as my boots knock against his bunched jeans.
My mind spins as my body tenses, right on the cusp of losing it. His mouth is hot against my ear as he tells me over and over again how beautiful I am, how he never wants to let me go. It’s when tells me all the ways he plans to fuck me on every surface inside the cabin that I finally launch over the edge. I come hard, so hard my vision blurs and stars seem to float around us. They’re so captivating and beguiling that I almost don’t hear him say it.
“Layla.” His voice is low, frantic. “Fuck, Layla, should I—should I pull out?”
I shake my head, mind buzzing, body deliciously numb. And when I smile, he erupts, concealing his sounds in the crook of my neck. The sounds of his pleasure, of his undoing.
I plan all the ways I can keep them there, to save them for later.
When his eyes find mine, they’re awestruck. “Do you see it, too?”
“See what?” I ask, breathless.
“The light,” he says, so clearly. “All around us.”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer—just kisses me long and slow. But I can’t help but wonder . . .
“The stars?” I ask, pulling my mouth away only enough to say the words.
“No.” He smiles. “It was the sun.”