Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Wren woke slowly, tangled in warmth and the lingering haze of sleep, her body heavy beneath the thick comforter. For one blissful second, she didn’t remember where she was.
Then she felt him stir beside her. The mattress shifted beneath his weight, the heat of him disappearing inch by inch as he eased from the bed.
Grayson.
The memory of last night crashed over her all at once—his mouth on hers in the dark, the soft scrape of his beard against her skin, the way his arm had tightened around her waist like he couldn’t get close enough. The low, guttural sound he made when she kissed him back.
Her eyes flew open. Gray morning light filtered through the hotel window, pale and soft, and she stared at the ceiling while panic and something more dangerous twisted together inside her chest.
She didn’t have it in her to face him yet.
Because…Jesus.
She’d kissed him back. Not only that, she’d melted for him. She could still feel the imprint of his body against hers, still taste Grayson on her lips. Her pulse jumped at the memory, a hot ache blooming in her belly.
That had never happened before.
She hadn’t frozen or flinched, which was a big improvement on the other times she’d been kissed.
Every other time a man had gotten too close, her body had shut down instantly, like someone yanking a power cord from the wall.
Each time, her lungs had tightened, her skin crawled, and her thoughts scattered into a blind terror until she couldn’t breathe.
Twice before, she’d tried for normal, convinced herself she could have what other girls had. Boyfriends, love, sex.
Ha ha.
Both attempts had ended badly. Like, spectacularly bad.
With Grayson, though, there hadn’t been any of that instant fight-or-flight response. At least not at first.
Nope. For about ten whole minutes, there was only heat and need and an overwhelming desire she’d never experienced before, as she held steady and kissed him back.
The thing that terrified her more than the kiss was the realization that she’d wanted him to keep going. She hadn’t wanted to stop. She’d wanted more. Another kiss, another touch, his hand under her shirt, his weight pressing her deeper into the mattress while she arched beneath him and…
And then she’d gotten what she wanted. Grayson started to climb over her, and it all turned to shit. Just like it always did.
Normal was for other girls. Not her.
A soft creak sounded from across the room, followed by the quiet click of the hotel door closing.
He’d left.
She breathed a quiet sigh of relief, then sat up, trying to calm down. She needed a few minutes to get herself together before she had to look him in the eye again.
Wren scrubbed both hands over her face and groaned softly into her palms.
What the hell was happening to her?
Her mind spun wildly, searching for some explanation about why last night had been different.
Maybe it was just exhaustion. After all, she’d been emotionally and physically wrung out, overwhelmed from pretending to be Lark all damn day.
Add in that asshole at the festival, the fact that she was sharing a bed with Grayson, and the strange yet wonderful intimacy of lying in the dark talking, and it made sense that her brain had temporarily malfunctioned.
Deep down, though, she knew better.
Last night happened because she’d wanted it to. None of it had been an accident. She’d been the one to move the pillow wall, to shift closer.
And when he kissed her, she hadn’t recoiled at all. She’d opened for him eagerly, instinctively, like some starving part of her had recognized him immediately.
The truth of that was undeniable.
Then another possibility drifted through her mind.
Maybe therapy was finally working.
If her mother knew that Sophie had accomplished more in the past year than Dr. Holloway had in over a decade of Wren’s childhood, she’d probably faint dead away.
Wren’s parents had put her in therapy when she was nine, and she remembered every detail about her childhood therapist. Dr. Holloway always smelled of cigarette smoke and peppermint gum, an oddly nauseating combination that clung to the office furniture and thick beige curtains.
She also wore the same gray cardigan with frayed sleeves every session, her sharp eyes missing nothing.
Except Wren.
Dr. Holloway had spent years asking questions in a gravelly voice while scribbling Wren’s one- and two-words responses on her yellow legal pad.
Wren had spent a lot of the earlier years answering with shrugs and sometimes outright lies, because she’d been a child and she didn’t know how to explain that talking to the woman made her feel worse instead of better.
Talking about things with Dr. Holloway didn’t make the fear go away. If anything, it made it stronger. But by the time she realized that, Wren had learned how to lock all her feelings away—the good and the bad—so she went through the motions without ever sharing anything real.
By the time she hit high school, Wren had gotten well-versed in “playing sick” on therapy days, managing to avoid every third session or so. Mercifully, by that point, her parents were only taking her once a month.
When Wren went away to college, she lied to her mother and told her that she’d found a new therapist near campus. In truth, she hadn’t bothered. She was convinced that she didn’t need therapy. She was functioning just fine.
Then, she moved home after graduation a year ago—Wren had stuck around an extra year to earn her Master’s—and Lark had called her “I’m fine” assurances exactly what they were.
Bullshit.
“You’re twenty-three and you’ve only had two crappy kisses from two lame guys,” Lark had said bluntly, while stealing one of Wren’s fries at McDonald’s. “That’s not fine. That’s emotional constipation.”
Wren had nearly choked on her burger laughing, but Lark didn’t even crack a smile. She also didn’t let it go, and Wren had instantly regretted telling her twin about her two failed attempts at dating.
For weeks, her sister had nagged relentlessly. “Try again with a new therapist. They aren’t all chain-smoking dinosaurs, Wren.”
So Wren took her sister’s advice and discovered she could do therapy online through an app.
That was how she’d found Sophie, an amazing counselor who lived in North Carolina and had the cutest Southern accent.
Every other week, she sat down on her lunch break for her scheduled Zoom session with the woman.
Sweet, patient Sophie had warm brown eyes that saw Wren in ways Dr. Holloway never had. She listened and she never pushed too hard, never made her feel broken or pathetic or weak. For the first time, therapy felt less like an ordeal and more like…hope.
Over the course of the last year, she’d slowly noticed differences in herself. Small things at first. She could handle crowded places a little bit better. She didn’t flinch whenever a man walked too closely to her.
Unfortunately, she was still afraid of the dark, but Sophie said there was absolutely nothing wrong with leaving a light on at night if it brought her comfort or helped her sleep better.
Wren found herself wondering if her therapy was the reason why last night had been different. Because kissing Grayson hadn’t felt terrifying or threatening, like it did with the other two guys. It had felt safe.
At least, until he’d pulled her beneath him. That was when she was cast back to—
She closed her eyes and stopped that memory from landing.
Wren’s next appointment with Sophie wasn’t for another week, which felt like a thousand years away.
She desperately needed someone to explain why one kiss from Grayson had turned her world upside down.
Sophie had a way of helping her understand her feelings, which she sure as shit needed right now, considering she was so confused.
A knock sounded. “Lark?” Grayson opened the door just a crack. “You decent?”
She was still buried underneath the blankets. She quickly finger combed her hair, which was probably a disaster. “Yeah.”
He walked in with two cups of coffee in his hands. His gaze locked on her, and something hot flashed behind his eyes before his mouth curved lazily. That look hit her like a physical touch. “Morning.”
She cleared her throat. “Morning.”
For a second, neither of them moved, the air between them thick with the memory of that kiss. And with the temptation to do it all over again.
Grayson crossed the room, holding out the coffee cup. “Grabbed these from the lobby downstairs. Tastes like shit, but I figure it’ll hold us until we find a decent coffee shop.”
Despite her nervousness, she laughed. “Thanks.” Their fingers brushed and her body reacted. Hard. From just that one tiny touch.
His eyes darkened slightly, and she knew he’d felt it too.
Wren wrapped both hands around the paper cup so he wouldn’t notice them shaking.
“Sleep okay?” he asked.
It took all she had not to snort. She’d spent most of the remaining hours replaying his kiss while regretting her overreaction, and the rest fantasizing about rolling over and asking him to kiss her again.
Her “seriously” expression must have been answer enough, because Grayson barked out a loud laugh. For the life of her, Wren couldn’t understand why Lark thought this man was grumpy.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he replied, studying her face carefully enough that her nerves skittered. Then she noticed that while she felt like she’d gone twenty rounds with a heavyweight champ, he looked wide awake and ready to take on the world.
“I hate you a little for looking so perky and alert.”
He chuckled. “Little bird, mornings are my time.”
“Ugh. Morning people. So annoying,” she groaned. Her breathing hitched when he reached over to ruffle her hair playfully. Between that and the term of endearment that she fucking loved, her stomach did a triple somersault.
“I didn’t sleep much either,” he admitted.
Something in his tone made her glance at him.