Chapter 33
Asher
Wilder’s house was quiet when we finally retired back to it later that evening.
Most of the lights had been turned out hours ago after his mother had shuffled off to bed, the only glow now coming from the soft, amber lamp by the bedside.
Outside the open window, crickets sang their lullaby into the darkness and the faint scent of hay and manure drifted in on the breeze floating in.
Inside, everything else was still except for us.
Wilder stood at the foot of the bed while I lounged up by his pillows. His eyes were locked on mine like he was still trying to believe I was really here.
That I’d come back. That I’d chosen him.
I found it too endearing not to reach out for him, beckon him closer until he wrapped his hands around mine and I could tug him down with me.
He didn’t need to say anything to me. I saw all I needed to in the way his chest rose and fell with every shaky breath he let out as he touched me, how his fingers teased and touched every inch of my body until there was nothing left for him to explore.
I crossed the distance between our mouths slowly. Not because I was unsure but because I wanted to savor every second of it. Every inch that brought me closer to the person I should’ve never allowed to let me go.
It had been stupid not to knock some sense into him that day, to crumble without fighting for what we both obviously wanted. The days after had been a blur I barely remembered, that haze of sadness pushing everything about but the dull pain left behind by my shredded heart.
Now, though, I’d been stitched back together. Made into something new that contained not only my own heart but Wilder’s as well. He’d given himself over to me, allowed me to take the shards from his own heart and weld them together with mine.
Right before our lips met, I lifted a hand to his cheek, brushing my thumb beneath his eye.
“I love you,” I said, barely above a whisper.
His breath hitched, lashes fluttering.
“I needed to say it,” I continued. “Before anything else. I need you to know I mean it. That I’ve felt it since long before I was brave enough to admit it.”
Wilder didn’t answer at first. He just leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling in the space between us.
We stayed like that for a moment, drinking each other in.
“I love you, too,” he whispered back, voice thick. “Even when I pretended that I didn’t. Even when I was trying to push you away and failed spectacularly.”
I slipped my hands beneath the hem of his shirt, fingers grazing his warm skin. “Don’t push me away.”
He shook his head, then raised his arms so I could lift the fabric over his head and toss it aside. “Never ever again.”
I sighed when he stripped me of my shirt, too, his mouth following the path his hands had traced earlier—slow and reverent—as he kissed from my collarbone, to my shoulder, and then to the center of my chest where my heart beat a little too fast.
He felt solid against me. Warm and real. Everything I had missed, everything I thought I’d allowed to be ruined.
He pulled me close until our mouths met, hungry at first before we softened, melted into something slower.
Wilder kissed me like he was trying to memorize me—every sound, every shiver that rippled through my body, every whispered gasp that spilled from my lips when he mapped his hands across my ribs and hips and thighs.
“I missed you,” he breathed against my neck, rocking into me.
I kissed the edge of his jaw. “I missed this.”
The rest of our clothes came off in pieces, scattered across the floor, long forgotten. None of it was rushed. It was tender and intimate in the best way. Like I was being claimed.
When he finally sank into me, my arms came up to wrap around his neck, pulling him down into another kiss. His body arched to meet mine while I tangled my fingers in his hair.
There were no more lies between us.
No fear.
No more running.
Just the soft gasps of his name on my lips, him pressing trails of kisses over my sweat-slicked skin as he thrust his cock inside me, our eyes locked while everything unspoken was laid out in touches.
“I love you.” He pressed his mouth into my skin.
“I love you more.”
He chuckled, sealing his mouth over mine again.
When it was over and our bodies stilled in the afterglow, I brushed damp hair back from his forehead and kissed the corner of his mouth just because I could—Wilder whispered something that shattered and put me back together all over again.
“You’re the safest place I’ve ever been.”
I closed my eyes, holding him closer.
For the first time in a long time, I felt like I’d finally come home.
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