Chapter 15
Something Big – Shawn Mendes
Tally
That night he didn’t knock.
The door to my cabin flew open like it had something to say, and Wilder stepped inside like he couldn’t stay away a second longer.
The storm was still in his eyes, that same one he’d described earlier.
The one he’d stood in, naked and unprotected.
Except now, it was raging behind his clenched jaw and stiff shoulders, looking for somewhere to go.
He didn’t speak. He just looked at me, hard and then he was kissing me like it was the only way he knew how to breathe.
His mouth was punishing. Desperate. His hands gripped my hips like he wasn’t sure whether to pull me closer or push me away. He did both. Again, and again. Until I was stumbling backward, bumping into furniture, not caring where we landed as long as it was under him.
There was a pause, and the words burst from me, because I needed to know. “This is still just…” I started.
“Yeah,” he said quickly, voice rough. “Just sex.” But neither of us moved to undress, and the lie hung heavy between us as we watched each other. When the anticipation morphed into the flames of need, Wilder’s mouth smashed against mine again.
By the time my back hit the wall, my shirt was somewhere across the room, and he was tugging at the waistband of my leggings with rough fingers and frustration.
“Wilder—” I managed, breathless, but he cut me off with a kiss so deep it felt like a promise and an apology all in one.
“I need…” he growled against my throat, biting just below my jaw. “I need to forget how much I feel right now.”
I let him.
Because I felt it too.
Because his pain was so loud I wanted to swallow it for him.
He yanked my leggings and panties down in one rough motion, and I stepped out of them, watching as he dropped to his knees like it was instinct, like kneeling was the only way he could beg without using words.
His hands gripped my thighs. His mouth. God, his mouth was heat and fury, and he didn’t let up even when my knees buckled, even when I gasped his name like a warning. He held me there, kept me upright with nothing but his shoulders under my thighs, and licked me like he needed to be wrecked by it.
When I came, it was sharp and sudden like an exhale after holding my breath under water.
He didn’t say a word. Just stood, unzipping his jeans with one hand, dragging me to the bed with the other. It was clumsy, fast, frantic. He didn’t even take off his shirt.
I lay back, open, waiting, heart pounding, lips parted, every inch of me ready for him.
He didn’t slide in right away. He looked at me, really looked, and the way his jaw clenched made my throat tighten.
“I hate how much I need you,” he whispered. “And I don’t know who I am when I’m not pretending I don’t.”
“We’re both scared,” I whispered. “You’re scared that I’ll leave, and I’m scared you’ll make me disappear. But maybe…maybe we’re scared of the wrong things.”
He pushed in hard, in one breath-stealing thrust, and the moan that tore from my chest didn’t sound like mine.
He moved fast. Relentless. Deep.
His hand wrapped around my throat, not tight, just enough to ground us both, his thumb stroking the column of my neck, his eyes locked on mine like he was trying to memorize every second.
“Tell me that I’m the best you’ve ever had,” he rasped.
“The best,” I whispered. “You’re the absolute best, Wilder Miller.”
He groaned low in his throat and angled deeper, faster, every thrust a contradiction. Rough and reverent. Angry and adoring. He fucked like he was trying to lose himself inside me.
And maybe he did.
Because when I came again, clutching his forearm, he kissed me like he needed saving.
And when he followed, chest pressed to mine, breath hot at my ear, the only thing he said was my name. Just once.
Like it hurt to say it.
He didn’t pull out.
Instead, he bent to kiss my collarbone, his breath damp and uneven, chest rising and falling like he’d just run a hundred miles through everything he’d been trying to outrun.
His lips were hot, dragging slowly across sweat-damp skin, the scrape of stubble adding an edge that made me ache all over again.
“You’re shaking,” I whispered, my fingers threading through his hair, still mussed from my hands and his desperation.
“I’m drowning.”
His voice cracked, the words landing just above my heart. That was the moment I knew: this wasn’t just about sex. This was about him breaking open. And choosing to do it here.
Still inside me, he pulled back to his knees and flipped me effortlessly onto my stomach, dragging my hips back to meet him. The sheets rasped beneath my skin, warm from our bodies, and I moaned as he sank in again from behind, deeper, heavier, heat blooming low in my spine.
He braced one arm beside me, the other sliding down, fingertips dragging through slick skin and between my legs with teasing precision.
“Still with me?” he murmured, voice rough silk against my neck.
I nodded, too breathless for words, my cheek pressed to the mattress, hair sticking to the back of my neck.
“Good girl.”
His praise shot through me like lightning.
He moved faster now, every thrust echoing in the walls, skin slapping skin, his fingers never relenting until I unraveled again. I shattered with a cry, high and broken, clenching around him so hard he swore, long and low, and buried himself to the hilt.
But he wasn’t done.
Wilder hauled me up, bringing me around to cradle me against his chest, sitting back on his heels as I straddled him.
My skin was damp, sticking to his; our chests brushed with every ragged breath.
His hands settled at my hips, but softer this time, like he didn’t know what part of me to hold onto first.
“Look at me,” he said again, voice like gravel softened by rain.
I did.
His gaze was still storm-dark, but something else flickered there too, something that scared me more than his anger ever could.
“This is supposed to be just sex,” he whispered, and I felt the break in him as he spoke.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
He kissed me, slow and deep, his tongue tracing the seam of my lips before I opened for him. Rolling my hips until we were both lost again. When I clenched around him again, he groaned like it physically hurt.
“You’re killing me.”
I kissed the words from his mouth. Then the hollow of his throat.
“Then die here.”
He flipped me back down, hooked one leg over his shoulder, and thrust into me with a rhythm that bordered on worship. My third orgasm hit like a wave pulled too tight, crashing hard, my whole body going rigid as I came with a sob and a shiver.
When he followed, his face buried in my neck, the growl he made was raw. Wrecked. Beautiful. He held himself over me, unmoving, and all I could hear was the sound of our breathing, jagged and tangled in the stillness.
The bed was soaked. The air was thick with sweat, sex, and everything we weren’t saying.
Wilder pulled away first, silent as he sat up. But instead of reaching for his clothes, he stood, then turned and held out a hand.
I took it.
The bathroom lights were low, golden. Steam was already curling up the walls as he twisted the shower knob and let the water heat. I leaned against the sink, watching his reflection. He looked lost in it, a man caught between guilt and need, between leaving and staying.
But when I stepped in, he followed.
The water was hot, hitting my shoulders like a weighted blanket.
Wilder pressed me back against the tiled wall, and this time when he kissed me, it was slow.
His hands were everywhere, gently smoothing soap over my body like I was breakable, cupping my face like he didn’t know how to let go. Reverent.
His voice was quiet now, breath feathering over my jaw.
“Let me make it good,” he said. “Let me make it slow,” he said, voice husky. “Let me show you what it means when I care.”
I nodded.
He moved inside me like he was memorizing the feel of it.
Like this mattered in ways neither of us were ready to name.
And maybe it was the vulnerability in his eyes, or the way his hands trembled slightly against my skin, but I stopped pretending this was just comfort. This was something else entirely.
There were no sharp moans, no frantic gasps, just deep breaths, slow whimpers, the wet slide of skin against skin and the hiss of water rushing around us.
He kissed my eyelids. My cheek. The corner of my mouth.
And when I came for the fourth time, soft and full and aching, it felt like letting go. He wrapped both arms around me and came with me buried deep, holding me so tightly I could feel the storm break in his chest.
We didn’t say much after the shower.
He dried me off with one of my softest towels, careful like I was made of silk instead of sweat, and nerve endings. Then he pulled one off the hook for himself and followed me back into the bedroom, quiet, watchful, like the storm inside him had finally softened into rain.
Then he led me to the fire and wrapped us in the wool throw from the back of the sofa.
We curled up on the rug tangled and warm.
The flames crackled low, casting amber shadows across his chest and cheekbones, softening the sharp lines that made Wilder Miller look like trouble even when he wasn’t trying.
With his arm around me, the silence between us wasn’t awkward. It was safe.
“What?” he murmured when he caught me looking at him.
“You’re less grumpy when you’re warm,” I said.
His arm around me tightened, a small smile curling at the edges of his mouth. “Keep that to yourself. I’ve got a whole moody cowboy thing to protect.”
I ran my fingertips over his chest, feeling the slow, steady rise and fall. “Also didn’t peg you as the blanket-and-firelight type.”
“I wasn’t,” he said. Then quieter, “Maybe I just didn’t know what it felt like to want this.”
I turned slightly to face him. The firelight caught in his lashes, softening everything that made him look so confident from the outside.
“Careful,” I said, voice teasing but gentle. “You’re bordering on poetic.”
He leaned forward and kissed my temple, slow and lingering. “That wasn’t poetry. That was honesty.”
“And what’s the rest of your truth?”
Shifting, he brushed a damp curl away from my cheek with the kind of tenderness that made my breath catch.
“The truth is, I don’t know what this is between us. But I know it feels like peace. Like the kind I never thought I’d get to have.” He breathed out, his gaze pinned to mine. “Like I never thought I wanted.”
Resting my head on his chest, heart thudding, his hand traced slow circles on my back.
“So,” I licked my lips, “you do think about this?” I asked, my gaze flicking to the door that he’d stormed through earlier. “What we’re doing here.”
His voice came after a pause, low and certain. “Every damn day.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t dare.
“Despite what you said, I’m not poetic. Can’t put it into words and any I’d use wouldn’t be adequate. Would make it feel smaller,” he said. “And this... doesn’t feel small, Brownie.”
I closed my eyes, let the warmth of the fire and the man beside me sink into my skin.
For the first time in a long while, I felt something like stillness.
Like the storm had finally passed.