Brittany
I don’t remember the walk back to the cabin.
I remember water in my lungs. I remember the way it burned like I swallowed fire instead of lake. I remember something brushing my leg in the dark, slow and heavy enough to make my mind go numb.
I remember Oaks’ arms locking around me like I was the only thing in that water that mattered.
By the time we reach Lottie and Holler’s cabin, I can’t feel my fingers.
The door shuts behind us with a solid thud that cuts off the noise of camp. It’s warm. Too warm compared to the lake. My body doesn’t know what to do with the change. The cold still lives in my bones. The fear still hums under my skin. I start shaking harder like my nerves are finally catching up.
“Sit,” Oaks orders.
I don’t argue. I lower myself onto the edge of the bed and realize my clothes are dripping onto the quilt. My shorts feel like they're glued to my thighs. My hair hangs in wet ropes down my back. Everything about me feels heavy and waterlogged, like the lake is still holding on.
Oaks stands in front of me for a second and just looks. His chest is bare. Water tracks down the grooves of his abs and disappears at the waistband of his soaked jeans. His teeth crack and his eyes sharpen in a way that makes me feel seen and exposed at the same time.
“You scared the hell outta me,” he says quietly.
I try to make a joke. I can’t find one. My throat feels scraped raw from coughing and panic. “I didn’t mean to fall,” I whisper.
“I know.”
His hands come to my shirt first. He grips the hem and pauses like he’s asking permission without saying the words. I nod once because my pride has no strength left. He pulls it over my head. His fingers brush my collarbone and the contact is hotter than it should be.
My bra is plastered to my skin. He notices. His jaw shifts like he wants to curse at the whole world and can’t decide where to aim it.
“Jesus,” he mutters.
“I’m fine,” I insist, even as my teeth chatter hard enough to shake the words.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold.”
He grabs a thick blanket from the back of a chair and wraps it around me in one sure movement. He tucks it under my arms like I’m something fragile. His hands don’t leave right away. They rest at my ribs, firm and warm, holding me in place like if he lets go, I might vanish again.
“You don’t get that close to the edge again,” he says.
I look up at him and the stubborn part of me flares even through the shaking. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
His eyes darken. “The fuck I don’t.”
“Why?” My voice cracks. “Because I fell in? Because you decided I’m yours to guard?”
“Because I almost watched you disappear.”
The words land heavy and raw. Whatever fight I had left drains out of me like water from a cracked glass. He drags a hand through his wet hair and exhales hard like he’s forcing his heartbeat to behave.
“You think I’m overreacting?” he says, voice tight. “You didn’t see what I saw. The bank gave way and you were gone. I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t…”
He stops. His hands fist at his sides. For the first time since I’ve known him, he looks shaken. Not furious. Not guarded. Shaken.
“You dove in without thinking,” I say softly.
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t hesitate.”
“Didn’t need to.”
Something in his voice flips my stomach. It ain’t bravado. It’s instinct. Honest and ugly and unfiltered. I swallow hard and push to my feet, legs unsteady, blanket shifting around me.
We’re close now. Too close. I can see the faint scar along his collarbone and the pulse beating at the base of his throat.
His hand comes up slowly, fingers sliding along the edge of the blanket until they settle at my waist beneath it. Warm. Solid. Possessive without pretending it ain’t.
His thumb presses into my hip, not hard, just enough to change the meaning of his embrace. “You scared me,” he says again, quieter.
The fight leaves me all at once.
My hand moves before I can stop it. I place it flat against his chest. His skin is still damp. Warm. Alive. His heart is beating fast under my palm.
His eyes search mine like he’s looking for something that will let him pull back. He doesn’t find it.
“Brit,” he starts, voice rough.
I don’t let him finish. I’m done pretending I don’t want this. I rise onto my toes and kiss him.
It ain’t careful or sweet. It’s a collision.
His breath catches. For a suspended second he doesn’t move, like his body is arguing with his conscience.
Then he’s there, hands coming up. One tangles in my wet hair.
The other slides around my waist and pulls me flush against him.
The blanket slips and falls, and the loss of it feels like stepping off a ledge again, except this time I’m choosing the drop.
His mouth is hot and hungry, as desperate as I feel.
He kisses like a man who almost lost something and doesn’t intend to again.
I kiss him back like a woman who’s tired of being scared.
Scare of wanting him. When he drags back enough to look at me, his pupils are blown wide and his chest is heaving.
“Tell me to stop,” he says.
I shake my head.
“You’re shivering.”
“Not from cold anymore.”
The smallest curve of his mouth appears, but there’s no humor in it. “You know this complicates everything.”
“It’s already complicated.”
His thumb traces my jaw, down my throat, and I shiver again. “You think I don’t know what they’re gonna say?” he murmurs. “What Bethany’s gonna do?”
“She already hates me.”
“That ain’t the same as what she’ll do when she’s sure.”
The warning lands, but it doesn’t stop me. It just makes the moment sharper.
“Are you sure?” he asks, and it ain’t about the club or his wife. It’s about us. About crossing a line we can’t uncross.
I slide my hands up his shoulders and into his hair. “I’m sure,” I say.
He kisses me again, slower now, intent instead of frantic. His hands slide down my back, over my hips, pulling me close until there’s no space left between us. I feel the hard line of his cock against my stomach and my breath catches. His forehead drops to mine like he’s fighting himself.
“Jesus, Brittany.”
His hand slips under my bra, fingers against my bare breasts, and heat flashes through me so fast I jerk.
He skids to a stop. His hands are gone.
“You don’t have to stop,” I whisper.
He exhales, shaky. “I do.”
“Why?”
“Because if I start, I’m not stopping,” he says, voice rough with restraint. “And this ain’t some quick fix. You deserve better than that.”
My heart twists. “You don’t get to decide what I deserve.”
“No,” he agrees quietly. “But I do get to decide how I touch you.”
I almost whine, pushing my body into his.
“You almost drowned,” he says. “I ain’t turning that into something reckless.”
“Then don’t make it reckless,” I breathe.
He kisses me again, slow and consuming, until the world outside the cabin disappears and all that’s left is breath and the steady realization that this is a choice. Not mine. His.
When he finally pulls back, I know he’s decided not to take it further. We’re both breathing hard. He brushes his thumb over my lower lip like he’s memorizing it.
“This changes things,” he says.
“I know.”
“Not just for us.”
“I know.”
He leans his forehead against mine and closes his eyes. “For what it’s worth,” he murmurs, “I don’t regret diving in.”
“I’m glad you did.”
His lips ghost over mine one last time before he steps back. He grabs a dry shirt from a duffel and tosses it to me. “Change,” he says softer. “You’re still freezing.”
“And you?”
“I’ll turn my back.”
I laugh faintly because the absurdity helps me breathe. “You just had your hands under my bra.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
He looks at me over his shoulder, eyes dark and heated.
“How?” I ask, again.
He doesn’t answer right away. Then he says, low and certain, “This is something I’ve been trying like hell not to do.”
He turns away and gives me privacy. I slip out of my wet clothes, down to my panties, which I refuse to take off.
My skin is still buzzing where his hands were.
I pull his shirt over my head. It hangs past my thighs, soft and warm and smelling like him.
When I tell him he can turn back around, he does.
His eyes drag over me slow, appreciative, possessive. This time neither of us pretends it’s anything else.
We don’t go further. Not yet.
But the line we’ve been dancing along since the first night is gone. We crossed it, and there’s no pretending anymore.