9. Willa #2
The books had described the build—the tightening, the heat, the way everything narrowed down to one point—and they'd gotten that part right, actually, that part was accurate, but what they hadn't described was crying.
What they hadn't prepared me for was the tears that slid sideways into my hair while my body came apart because it was too much, all of it, the want and the relief and the specific astonishing fact of being with someone who wanted to hear me.
Who had taken my hand away from my own mouth so he could.
I came apart completely and made no attempt to be quiet about it.
He stayed with me through every second of it.
And I was still coming down when I was grabbing at him, begging: more, more, please. I tangled my fingers in his hair and he kissed me hard, cupping the back of my head, moving between my legs…he was so hard, and I needed him.
He pulled back just enough to see me…and it ached to look at him, ached to be seen.
“You’re crying,” he said, reaching up to swipe a tear away. “Don’t cry, beautiful. You’re perfect. You’re perfect.”
"I'm not sad," I managed. "I'm not—it's not bad crying." I reached up and touched his face, needing him to understand. "I've never felt like this. Like someone actually wanted me. Like I was—" my voice broke a little— "like I was worth wanting."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Willa." He pressed his forehead to mine. "You have no idea."
"Then show me."
He kissed me again, deep and slow, and I pulled at him, pulling him closer, needing no space between us anymore.
"Please," I whispered against his mouth. "Forrest. Please."
He groaned, low in his chest. "I don't have anything. A condom, I haven't—it's been years, I didn't think—"
"It's okay." I pulled back enough to look at him. "I can't. I can't have babies." The words came out flat, factual, the way I'd learned to say things that hurt. "Four years and nothing. So it's okay."
Something moved across his face. Not pity—something more careful than that, something he filed away without making a production of.
"You're sure," he said.
"Forrest." I shifted my hips against him, watched his jaw tighten. "I have never been more sure of anything."
He reached between us; I felt him pull down his boxers, then the thick heat of him falling against my clit. I groaned and thrust up toward him, sliding his cock between my legs.
"Tell me if I need to stop," he said. Low and certain.
"You won't need to stop."
He pushed forward, slow, and I exhaled all at once — a long shuddering breath — my fingers digging into his shoulders, my whole body adjusting to the specific reality of him.
It was different than anything before. Everything before had been something happening to me.
This was something I'd chosen, something I'd walked down a hallway and knocked on a door for, something I'd unbuttoned my pajamas for in the moonlight.
Mine.
He went still, watching my face. "Okay?"
"Yes." My voice came out wrecked. "Don't stop."
He moved, slow and deep, and I made a sound against his shoulder that I felt no need to apologize for.
He watched my face the whole time…watched me moan, watched me gasp, watched my brow furrow.
“You feel—” he paused, his eyes closing. “God, Willa. You feel so fucking good.”
I arched up into him. "Don't stop."
"Not stopping." His mouth found my ear. "Not even a little bit."
I grabbed his shoulders and held on.
"Been thinking about this," he said, low, his lips dragging against my jaw. "Tried not to. Couldn't stop."
"Me too." The words came out breathless. "Since the second day."
He made a rough sound. His hips snapped forward and I gasped.
"Yeah?" His voice had dropped. "Tell me."
"I—" I didn't have the words, not sophisticated ones, not the words from the books. "I thought about you. At night. I didn't—I didn't know how to—"
"I know." He kissed me hard. "I know, beautiful."
He shifted, changed the angle, and whatever I'd been about to say dissolved entirely. I heard myself making sounds I had no control over and stopped trying to have control over them, because he'd told me he wanted to hear me and I was going to give him everything he wanted.
This was my book.
The thought arrived clear and certain even through the heat of it — this was my book, my story, the one I'd been reading toward for weeks without knowing it, and I was the heroine and he was the hero and we were in the third act and I was not going to miss a single second of it.
"Forrest." I pulled him closer, my legs wrapping around him, changing the depth of it, feeling him everywhere. "I want—" I stopped.
"Tell me." His voice was rough, ragged at the edges. "Tell me what you want."
I'd never been asked that. Not once. Not about anything.
"I want you to—" I pressed my face to his throat. "I want you to finish inside me."
He groaned, low and deep, his whole body shuddering.
"Yeah," he said. "Willa." Like my name was the answer to something.
"Please." I moved with him, finding his rhythm, chasing it. "Please, I want—I want all of it, I want—"
"I've got you." His hand slid between us, finding the place that made me see white, and I cried out. "Come for me first. Give me that first."
The books were gone.
There was nothing left in my head but him — his voice low against my ear, his hand between us, his body moving with mine, and all of it building toward something I couldn't see yet but could feel coming from a long way off.
"That's it." His voice was rough, barely controlled. "Feel that? Feel how good you take me?"
I couldn't speak. I made a sound instead.
"Been wanting this." His lips dragged against my temple. "Been wanting you. Every morning with your coffee and your questions and your—" he exhaled hard— "God, you have no idea what you do to me."
"Forrest—"
"I've got you." His thumb moved and I gasped. "Stay with me. Right there."
I was shaking. My whole body, trembling at the edges, right on the verge of something enormous.
"Look at me," he said.
I looked at him.
Big mistake. The best mistake. His eyes dark and certain and completely present, no ghosts in them, nothing but me, and I felt that as much as I felt his hands.
"There she is," he murmured. "Come on, beautiful. Let go."
It broke like a wave — long and rolling, my back arching clean off the mattress, his name torn out of me. Forrest didn't stop, didn't slow down, kept moving through every second of it, his breath ragged against my throat, his control fraying at the edges.
"Willa." Wrecked. My name completely wrecked in his mouth.
"Yes," I breathed. "Yes, please, I want—give me—"
He buried himself deep and shuddered, a groan low in his chest that I felt everywhere, his whole body shaking with it, his arms tight around me like I was the only solid thing.
We stayed like that for a long moment.
His weight on me. My arms around him. Both of us breathing like we'd run somewhere.
Outside, the creek. The goats. The Hill Country dark and soft around the cottage.
He pressed his face into my neck.
I turned my face into his hair.
Neither of us said anything for a long time and it was the best silence I'd ever been in — full and warm and completely still, the kind that didn't need anything added to it.
Eventually he lifted his head and looked at me.
I looked back.
His hair was a mess…his eyes were soft. He had a red mark on his shoulder that I realized even in the dim light was from where I must’ve bitten him.
And it made me laugh.
He laughed too.
“That good, huh?” he asked.
I laughed. “Yeah,” I said. “Actually. Yeah…yeah, it was that good.”
He pressed his lips to my temple, my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth — not hungry anymore, just present, just warm, like he was learning the map of me now that he had time.
I let him.
"You okay?" he asked, against my jaw.
"Yes." I meant it completely. "Are you?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"Yeah," he said. Like it surprised him a little. "I really am."
I turned my face toward him and he kissed me properly, slow and unhurried, and I felt the last of the tension go out of my shoulders — tension I'd been carrying so long I'd stopped noticing it.
He pulled me into his side and I went, settling my head on his chest, his arm coming around me. His heartbeat was still coming down. I listened to it slow.
"You should've said something sooner," I said.
"I should've said something sooner," he agreed.
"I'm just—for the record—I'm right about most things."
He made a sound that was almost a laugh. "Noted."
I traced a line across his chest without thinking about it, just my fingertip along his collarbone, and felt him exhale.
Outside, something moved in the pasture. One of the goats, probably Dolly, always the last one to settle. The creek ran on past the tree line, low and steady.
"Forrest."
"Mm."
"What happens now?"
He was quiet for a moment. Not hesitating — thinking. I was learning the difference.
"Now you stay," he said. "If you want."
"I want."
"Then you stay." His arm tightened slightly around me. "Everything else we figure out."
I’d fallen in love with the boy next door. I knew that in my case…that meant I was still only a fence away from the men that wanted to take me prisoner again, punish me.
It should have felt overwhelming.
It didn’t. Because I was safe…safe with the best man I’d ever known.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
This was home.