25. Wilder
Wilder
My first mistake was letting my anger get the best of me after that call with Emmer Sandoval.
My second was not taking Oz up on his offer to talk right then and there.
Knowing we can’t get rid of Saint has my sense of possession at a ridiculous high.
When Emmer dropped that bomb on me, all I wanted to do was tie Oz to the bed and refuse to let him leave.
I wanted to possess him in a way I’ve never wanted anything before.
My fingers had trembled with the ache to lock him up and never let him go.
It’s unnerving. Past unnerving. And I haven’t been unnerved since I rode my first-ever bull.
What is this? It can’t be love. Not this fast. But I’ve never dealt with it. And now he’s out there somewhere in Pine Gulch without me, and with Saint running wild and free. I’m not there to protect him, and it makes me want to pull everything down to the ground.
It’s obsession, maybe. That’s gotta be it.
I’ve comm’ed Willa three times, but she hasn’t answered. She’s probably knee-deep in that lair, trying to figure out how to get past the door. Maybe there’s no service down there.
Rising, I grab the communication disk and toss it down on the kitchen table, directing it to call Marcy Lane. When my mother’s hologram picks right up, a smile splitting her heart-shaped face, I smile despite my current gloom.
“Wilder, my love, why do you look so glum?” She steps forward, clasping her hands together as her brows furrow in apparent concern.
“Hey, Mama.” I force a half-hearted smile. “How are you?”
“Psh,” she scoffs, waving away my question. “I know you didn’t call to talk about that, although I’ll happily update you afterward. Tell me what’s got those elevens between your eyes, baby.”
I chuckle at the familiar humanism, noting the pale green eyes we share. My father left after Willa was born, so my memories of him are vague at best. But most of my childhood memories revolve around my mother’s beautiful eyes wrinkling in the corners as she smiled down at me.
“I met someone here, but I think I’ve messed it up before we even got started.”
Five minutes later, I’ve shared the whole story, and she’s got her lips pursed together, considering everything I said.
After a moment, she smiles at me. “My love, this is pretty simple, really. You like him, right? You’re romantically interested in him despite the circumstances around how you met? ”
A memory of that night, of that first kiss, runs through my mind. His lips were so cool and soft, his tongue tangling with mine so deliciously.
“Yes,” I say. “I do, Mama.”
She shrugs. “Well, baby, then you need to find him and tell him how you feel. That other male doesn’t matter. He’ll be in your rearview soon. But find your guy, okay? I want to see that smile back on your handsome face.”
She’s right. It really is that simple. Except I don’t know where Oz might be right now, and I don’t know where he lives.
When he left, Ginger went with him, or I’d try to finagle the pretty little pit hell into taking me to him.
“How are you, Mama?” I repeat the earlier question. “I need you to come visit soon. I wanna show you the ranch and the bulls.”
She beams at me. “How about I come right after the paperwork’s settled as a little celebration vacay? Would you like that?”
“Gods, yes,” I admit. “We miss you like crazy.”
She snorts. “Please tell me Willa’s behaving as much as she’s capable of.”
I glance at the ceiling as I shift my head from side to side, trying to decide if I consider my baby sister’s behavior good or not.
She laughs. “Honey, I’ve got some stories to tell you, but for now, just go get your man and tell your sister to comm me. I’ve been trying to get ahold of her about a horse I want to buy.”
I snort. “She’s fully embroiled in a local mystery at the moment, but I’ll make sure she calls.”
“See that you do, baby,” she says with a laugh. “That sister of yours is wild; I bet she’s lovin’ it there.”
I’ll leave it to Willa to update our mother on everything going on with the Keeper’s poem. That’s a story for another day. For now, I need to find Oz and have that conversation he tried to have with me earlier.
Cutting the call with my mother, I lift my watch and direct it to call Bluebell. She doesn’t answer, so I try Lemon next. She, thankfully, answers on the first ring.
“Wilder? Everything okay?”
I don’t want to rehash the whole story, so I opt for a shorter version. “I need to talk to Oz. It’s important, but he’s not answering, and I don’t know where he lives. Any chance you can help me out?”
She chuckles. “Oh boy, am I gonna get in hot water with Oz if I tell you his address?”
I frown, considering it. “Yeah, maybe,” I finally admit. “But I promise to try to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Well, I’m a sucker for love,” she says with a cheerful, tinkling laugh. “Let me message his address to you, and keep me posted, alright?”
I promise I will, then I wait for the address to come through.
Thankfully, it’s right up on Main Street above Skylight Bakery, if I’m learning the layout of Main Street sufficiently.
If I know anything, it’s that I can’t show up empty-handed.
In the fridge, I find a small cake I bought at the bakery earlier.
I’d hoped to give it to him this morning but forgot with everything else going on.
After grabbing the cake and my coat, I head out of the cottage with the promise that we’ll both be back soon. She opens and closes the door for me, flicking the interior lights off as I head up the walkway and hook a right toward downtown.
It takes me all of ten minutes to hit the main drag and find the side entrance to Oz’s apartment above the bakery.
Nerves fill me, that same zippy twang I used to get before riding a particularly cantankerous bull.
It’s a mix of excitement and fear, mashed up together into an intoxicating concoction that sets my teeth on edge, my fingers itching to do something.
Voices drift down from upstairs.
Bluebell. Her mate.
Oz.
Oh gods, so this will be a public apology, then.
I don’t know Bluebell that well, but from what I’ve seen in the last few days, she and Lemon are extraordinarily protective of Oz the same way he is of them.
Between her and Ginger, he is thoroughly guarded.
They’re all bonded at the hip. I can only hope Ginger doesn’t attack me the moment I knock on the door if she senses Oz is unhappy to see me.
After climbing the stairs, I hold the cake in one hand as I rap on the door with the other.
The voices fall silent as soft footfalls thud toward me.
When it opens, Oz stands there in jeans and a loose tee, wings tucked like a cloak at his back.
His beautiful tail is wrapped around his thigh.
Dragging my eyes back up, I offer him the cake, very aware of our audience.
“Oz, I’m sorry about earlier. Can we talk?”
Behind him, Hadrian rises off the sofa, grabbing Bluebell and throwing her over his shoulder. “We were just going. Have fun, you two.”
“And don’t you dare hurt him,” Bluebell shouts, tossing a spoon at my head. “Or you will have me to contend with, mister, and it doesn’t matter that I’m half your—”
Hadrian sidesteps past me with a wink and flies down the stairs and out the door.
Oz stares for a long moment, then fully opens the door. “Come on in, Wilder.”
I follow him into an apartment that’s exactly how I pictured Oz’s home looking—mismatched furniture somehow looks perfectly in unison.
His sofa’s ragged and old but looks wonderfully comfortable.
Plants dot the space here and there, and a huge chunk of the back wall is a window he can probably leap out when he wants to.
The kitchen’s all warm honey tones and ivory countertops, almost mid-century human decor, a style I’ve always loved because it’s my mother’s favorite.
Ginger trots over as I enter.
Setting the cake down on his counter, I resist the urge to simply pull him into my arms, cover him in kisses and say with my body what I’m not great at saying with words.
“I’m sorry.” I can manage that, at the very least. “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that earlier.”
He’s silent as he grabs two forks from a drawer by his sink. He hands me one and leans over the countertop, sticking his into the cake. “And?”
Oh gods. “Umm.” I run a hand nervously through my hair. “I’m not good at this, talking about feelings. I…my mother was always so expressive, but my father never was, especially once Willa was born. I never saw them have these types of conversations, and I…I’m already doing this wrong, I’m sure.”
Oz takes a bite. “There’s not really a wrong way to apologize, Wilder. I pushed you, and I should have stayed quiet and given you the space you asked for.”
“No,” I say vehemently, rounding the island so I can press my body to his.
“I grew up straddling two worlds, never really fitting into either one. I’m quiet because I’ve learned through a lifetime of not fitting in that sometimes silence is just easier.
Earlier when you wanted to talk, I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to admit what I was feeling because I was so angry about Saint. And…you make me feel things.”
He takes another bite of the cake, a crumb sticking to the edge of that pretty little mouth. “What kinds of things?”
Gods, he’s making this hard.
“Like that night meant something,” I admit. “I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, and I don’t like that.”
He stands tall and sets his fork down. “Anything else, Wild?”
Back to Wild and not my full government first name. That must be progress, right?
I plead with my eyes for him to help me.
For a long moment, he just stares, his expression neutral.
Then he stabs the fork into the cake and rounds the island, hopping up onto it with thighs spread wide.
He grabs my belt buckle and pulls me between his legs, then sits back on the palms of his hands.
“This was just a business transaction,” he says, and my heart sinks, “in the beginning. But that kiss last night…it was real for me, Wild. Everything about last night was real.”
Everything inside me goes tense and tight, poised and hanging on his words.
I press forward until our upper bodies touch, but before I can speak, he silences any attempt by pressing his mouth to mine.
It’s the lightest of touches, his lips cool.
Everything that follows that touch is pure heat, though.
It flares through me like a wildfire when he slants his mouth over mine and closes those sinful lips softly over my lower one.
“Are you real?” The words leave me without conscious thought as I stare at the beautiful smartass with his eyes closed.
He opens those amethyst eyes and pulls back, lips curving into a smirk. “I’m as real as—
He’s interrupted by the sound of the giant window at the back of the apartment slamming open. I jerk my head up as he spins in my arms.
Willa leaps through the window with a big smile. “Boys, this little reunion is taking too long, and you’re never gonna believe what I found. We gotta go. We gotta go now.”
Oz’s mouth drops open as I glower at my sister. “The absolute worst timing, Willa,” I manage, putting a little bit of distance between Oz and me.
She waves my comment away. “You’ll have plenty of time for that later. I really need you two, alright?”
Oz sighs and turns back to me. “Well, honey bun, you ready for another adventure?”
Looking between Willa’s expectant face and Oz’s, I smile. What was about to be a romantic moment might have been interrupted by my sister’s trademark exuberance, but I know one thing for sure—this thing between me and Oz?
It’s real.
It’s real.