17. Sloane
SLOANE
Taking a man’s hand and leading him to the bedroom is a first for me. I’m one hundred percent a follower in the sexy times department. After being dumped on a high-country highway, I decided putting myself out there for romance isn’t worth the risk.
But I also just hiked four days through bear country to gently stalk my (possibly former) favorite author, so my list of firsts has been expanding at an alarming rate.
The bedroom is microscopic with a sloped ceiling and a small window looking out to the pitch-black darkness. There’s nothing five-star about the lumpy full-size mattress or the faded blue comforter where I spent hours curled into the fetal position earlier.
But I know the soft sheets hold another smell beneath the faint mustiness—an expensive floral perfume.
Like lotion you get at some fancy spa, or in a goodie bag from a swanky influencer party.
I’d bet money it’s left over from Kristen Quinn sleeping in this bed, because the scent is exactly how I imagine she smells—extravagant and slightly self-indulgent. Definitely above my pay grade.
For a second, I think about telling him I want to switch bedrooms. But no. It’s just the two of us. And we’re going to make this space our own.
He tugs on my hand and turns me to face him. I reach for the hem of his fleece, and he yanks it over his head like he was born to obey my every wish. Yeah, I’m definitely here for that.
The lantern I placed on the nightstand bathes his chest in golden light, and holy shit.
I already know his body from the long lean of his torso to the trail of dark hair down his stomach, but that doesn’t make it less devastating.
Oh, no. My heart goes wild, and the heavy weight of desire makes it hard to breathe, which is embarrassing and also completely his fault.
This feels different than those first nights in Nashville when I hadn’t even told him my real name.
Or how we came together last night in the tent, rushed and bumbling.
He knows the real me now—parts of myself I haven’t revealed to anyone in possibly forever—and I’m choosing to let him get even closer.
I’d like to brush it off. Pretend I don’t know what it means. But I do. It means I’m falling for him, and it’s happening without knowing or caring if I’ve got a soft place to land.
Talk about an adventure. Opening myself up to this man on all levels might be the bravest thing I’ve ever done.
He frowns, reading my hesitation as something other than complete emotional overwhelm of the best kind. “We don’t have to—” he starts.
I shut him up by going up on my toes to kiss him.
He angles his head and pulls me in closer, one rough hand snaking up under my flannel to unhook my bra with a deftness that should probably annoy me. Except, it feels like he’s been waiting for an excuse to handle me with this much certainty.
The flannel comes off, then the bra. Then it’s Jensen’s turn to pause, long enough to really look at me, and I resist the urge to cover myself. There are faint bruises on my hips from the pack and a post-chemo softness around my middle. And, most revealing, a port scar just above my right breast.
His gaze holds on that scar, and I let him see and acknowledge it, and everything it means. Because it’s part of me now. And as much as I want to reclaim the woman I used to be, I’m not going to deny everything that led me to this moment. Not anymore.
I shove the thought away. If I sit with it for two more seconds, I’m going to cry, and I’ve exceeded my quota of tears for the day. We’re done with the waterworks.
Instead, I drop to my knees.
“Sloane, you shouldn’t—” His voice catches. “I want to make you feel good.”
“This does.”
I unbuckle his belt, and the raw need in his stormy gray eyes short-circuits my entire nervous system.
The jeans and boxers come down, and when I take him in my mouth, he makes a guttural sound that I feel everywhere.
His fingers thread through my hair, firmly but gently, and I know he’s holding on for balance, not trying to control me.
“Christ, Sunshine.”
There was a time when blowjobs were a way to keep sex safe and transactional.
Something I could offer to keep men interested without risking true vulnerability.
I could give a man pleasure without ever giving him anything real.
Because real intimacy left too much room for rejection once someone saw the complicated, hurting parts of me.
This is not that.
This moment is the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced.
This man chased me into the wild, and I have him in my mouth with his fingers threading through my hair and his body trembling above me like he’s happy to let me undo him. It feels powerful in a way I can’t explain.
Me, on my knees, holding all the cards. I’ve spent so much of my life feeling like too much and not enough at the same time. This moment, and the way I feel powerful in it, are entirely right.
Before I can finish the thought, Jensen pulls away, then eases me up his body until we’re eye-to-eye. I’m dizzy from the sudden shift.
He cups my face in his hands. “I want to be inside you when I come.” He sounds completely wrecked. “I want to feel you come around me.”
A shaky laugh bubbles out of my mouth. “No arguments here, Nashville.”
He kisses me again, and the sweetness makes my chest ache. This is supposed to be a wilderness anomaly. Another fling between two consenting adults before we go back to our regular lives. And I keep telling myself that even as I keep finding new evidence that I’m full of shit.
But that’s a problem for tomorrow’s Sloane. Tonight is part of the adventure, and I don’t need to know what comes next.
He picks me up, lays me on those worn sheets, then hooks his thumbs into the waistband of my panties and slowly pulls them down, watching my face the whole time. I want to crack a joke about the scenic route, but there’s no chance my voice will cooperate.
I expect him to slide into me, but he pushes my legs apart, kisses the inside of my knee, and works his way up with a patience that is frankly ridiculous.
By the time his mouth finds my center, I’m already shaking.
And when he licks my clit, I make a sound I can guarantee is brand spanking new for me.
“Jensen—”
He hums against me like this is his moment to savor, and his hands pin my hips down when I squirm from the intensity.
His tongue is relentless, and when his thumb finds a spot I didn’t know existed, the orgasm that hits me is the full-body, eyes-rolling-back, making-noise-that-Rick-can-probably-hear-from-his-cabin kind.
I come with both hands fisted in his hair and Jensen’s name half-stuck on my tongue.
I’m still spiraling somewhere in the afterglow as he climbs up my body, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and kisses me before I’ve caught my breath. I taste myself on his lips. It’s messy and perfect and a level of intimacy I can’t imagine sharing with anyone else.
When he positions himself and pushes inside me with one long, deliberate stroke, I shut my eyes and cry out from the pleasure of how right it feels. But also from something else I’m not willing to name.
Will I ever get used to how perfectly we fit together? It’s as if the universe is showing off by sending me a man who feels like he was built to give me pleasure.
He braces his forearm near my head, and when I open my eyes again, he’s looking at me with more than just desire. If I had to name it, I’d tell you it’s the face of a man who’s in love. Which feels both impossible and undeniable, and I don’t have the first clue what to do with either of those.
But some moments are too big for words, so I draw his head down to taste his mouth again and lift my hips to roll into him. He groans my name, and we find a rhythm that’s just ours, two people claiming each other because we can’t do anything else.
God, that’s sappy as shit. I blame the orgasm.
I don’t expect to come again. I mean, I’m still half-dazed and pretty sure I’ll be replaying that first round in the shower for the next year. But then he hooks his arm under my knee and changes the angle, and the pressure building inside of me has one inevitable outcome.
“Yeah,” he says, voice husky. “Let it go, Sloane—”
I might have enjoyed a prolonged rebellious phase, but never let it be said that I’m incapable of following directions.
I come a second time, pulsing around him in a way my body has never done with anyone else.
He follows right after, his breath hot against my ear and his hand finding mine on the pillow like he was meant to hold it.
For a long minute, we don’t move, and then…oh, hell no.
I am not crying. The moisture on my cheek must be sweat. Is the cabin roof leaking? Okay fine, maybe there’s a single tear, but more than that, I’ll deny to my grave.
Of course, Jensen notices.
He brushes it away without saying a word, then eases out of me, rolls to his side, and pulls me to his chest. He grabs the comforter that has migrated nearly to the floor and covers both of us.
The cabin air is cool, but nothing compared to sleeping in the tent, and his arm settles across my middle, his breath warm on my neck.
This is the part where I should make a joke. Did you know I’m the queen of post-sex deflection? I’ve compiled an impressive list of one-liners to keep men (or me) from being lulled into believing physical intimacy is more than scratching a biological itch.
Not one comes to mind as I listen to the gentle patter of rain against the cabin roof.
The bears are out there doing bear things, and fifteen hours away is a woman I was desperate to meet who doesn’t know I exist. Yep, I’m using the past tense.
Because I don’t feel desperate now. I feel loose-limbed and content and quite possibly dickmatized by the man holding me like he has no intention of letting go. Ever.
And I know it’s about more than the sex. Jensen gave me space to fall apart and didn’t demand I put myself back together. Without realizing it, he took care of me in the best way possible—by letting me decide how I wanted to be taken care of.
I am so tired of being taken care of, and also, apparently, tired of pretending I don’t want it.
“Stop thinking, Sunshine,” he murmurs into my hair, clearly having found a direct access point to my brain.
“Make me.”
His arm tightens around my waist as he kisses the back of my neck.
Oh, yeah, that’ll work. I close my eyes and savor his achingly slow touch.
There’s plenty of time for worrying tomorrow when the sun comes up, and this spell breaks again.
Tonight, it’s enough to just be happy. I haven’t been just happy in a really long time.