30. Tessa
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tessa
For half a second, my brain does exactly what it’s been trained to do my entire life.
This is a mistake.
This is complicated.
This will ruin everything.
And then my hand fists in his jacket tightens on instinct, and I kiss him back hard.
I’m angry at him for saying the thing I’ve been carefully refusing to name. I’m furious at myself for wanting him this badly. The cold and the land and the feud and the fake engagement can all go to hell for just one minute.
His mouth is warm, insistent. This isn’t the careful, restrained kiss of a performance. It’s hunger, relief, a man who has finally stopped holding himself back.
My back hits a tree before I realize he’s moved us there, his hands braced on either side of me, anchoring himself to something solid, shrouding me with desire.
I kiss him back harder, biting his lip before dropping to my knees.
The movement is instinctive and intense all at once. My body already knows where he wants me. He’s hard, already straining against his clothing, and the ground chills straight through me, the shock making me inhale sharply.
Wide-eyed disbelief flashes first, followed by a slow, dangerous smirk spreading across his lips. I drag his trousers and boxers down slowly, making him wait. His hips jerk forward anyway. He hisses, breath breaking.
The wind snaps at my exposed skin, the tang of winter sharp on my tongue, heightening every sense as I wrap my lips around him.
I choke on the taste of him, salt and cold and want. Above me, his hands brace against the tree, and his whole body arches, straining toward something sharp-edged and urgent.
I close my eyes and let the panic and desire tangle, heat boiling up under my skin, the stupidest, bravest part of me winning out.
He mutters my name, a disbelieving prayer, and I dig my nails into his thighs, just to feel the tremor that shudders through him.
I flatten my tongue and open up, taking him as deep as I can, which turns out to be farther than he expects. He moans, and the sound punches straight through me, lighting everything inside me on fire.
My pulse throbs between my legs, hot and needy, echoing the tension in him.
His breathing is strangled with disbelief and gratitude and something a little petrified, nerves pinging off his bones.
Everything is sharp and full of him, and I can hardly breathe except through the sound of his voice above me. His hands leave the tree, hover uncertain, then land with a jolt on my head, just enough pressure to make my heart stutter, just enough to let me know he’s given up control.
I want to ruin him.
I hollow out my cheeks and push down, push until he knocks the back of my throat, and it hurts, and I love it, and he groans so beautifully I almost come undone just from the sound.
My fingers curl around his hips, bruising, holding him back even as I take more. He starts to shake, every muscle a wire about to snap, and his knees buckle a little, forcing my mouth deeper still.
I twist my tongue and pull back, dragging across the head, letting it pop free, and I look up at him, daring. His pupils are blown wide, mouth twisted open in a silent, animal sound.
His tie is askew, shirt riding up over a shock of pale skin. If anyone walked up the trail now, they’d see everything.
I lean in and taste him again, slower, gentler, then swirl my tongue with a flourish that makes him curse, low and ugly.
“Fuck, you’re…” He breaks, words vibrating through both of us. He glances around, frantic, as if someone might see, but then he shoves my face down, desperate, the pretense gone.
I let him, swallowing him, letting him use my mouth for leverage against his own undoing. He tastes of frost and brine, the strange, almost metallic honey of his sweat.
“I need to feel you,” Nash growls as he pulls me to my feet. “I need you, Tessa, you have no idea.”
With my head all in a spin, I know I need him too.
He's already kissing me, bruising my mouth, working me backwards until my ass hits the tree. My thighs grip his hips, slippery heat grinding up under his stomach as he lifts me rapidly.
Nash’s breath is sharp, deranged with hunger, the kind of desperation that only comes from someone who spent the entire day picturing this.
He sinks to his knees and tugs off my panties, parting my thighs further. His tongue lightly grazes my clit at first, making my whole body stiffen with anticipation. He’s teasing me, driving me over the edge, sending me wild.
I honestly don’t know how I’m still on my feet.
Every flick of his tongue sends me spiraling higher. The sounds coming out of me are incomprehensible. I can’t think. I can’t track time. There’s only sensation and the undeniable fact of him between my thighs.
“You’re close,” he murmurs against my core. “I can feel it.”
He’s right. I’m right there. I want to stay in this suspended moment forever, balanced on the edge, every nerve screaming. I want to remember this exact second for the rest of my life, forgetting about everything else, and all the drama that comes with it.
But my body betrays me.
The orgasm hits hard and fast, stealing my breath, my balance, my dignity. I shatter completely, every nerve lighting up as if I’m no longer real.
“Fuck me,” I cry out, too loud since we’re in public. “I need you, Nash.”
He’s on his feet in a second and pushes me back, holds me against the tree, kisses my cheek, my jaw, everywhere.
His hands find my ass, and, fuck, he lifts me up against the tree. A branch cracks somewhere behind me, but I don’t even flinch.
I tangle my arms around his neck, grind against the thick line of his cock, not caring about the sticky mess between us. There is no decorum, no pretense left, just the animal fact of wanting.
He lines himself up with one hand, the other splayed on the tree trunk. The tip of him presses, the tease almost too much, and I think he’s going to string me along, make me beg for it.
I hook my knee around his hip and drag him closer, opening myself up as an offering, and finally, he pushes into me, no warning, no soft lead in. I grip his shoulders, digging in with my nails, and he’s so deliciously thick and deep I scream.
“Oh, Nash, don’t stop.”
He ruts against me hard, the bark scrapes my ass, but I wrap my body around him, desperate for leverage. I claw at his back, thighs locked tight around his waist, and meet every thrust with the last shreds of my focus.
This… this madness is what we both need right now, I can feel it.
He fucks me until I’m nothing but nerve endings. Every thrust slams me flat against the chill bark, every grunt is a demand. My arms burn, twisted up behind me, and I chase the pain.
I need it to help me forget.
The friction is relentless, the angle brutal. My body convulses, and in a split second, the pleasure explodes outward. I arch so hard I might break my own spine. The orgasm crashes through, yanking the air from my lungs, white hot and catastrophic.
All the while, Nash’s still pounding, chasing his own finish. I want to tell him to let go, but all I can make is animal noise. The pace finally breaks, he fucks me wildly, then slams into me hard, one last time as he screams out through the remaining shudders of his pleasure…
The moment after is worse.
Not because of regret, at least not right away, but because of the sudden, brutal quiet that rushes in to fill the space where heat and urgency were just burning everything down.
Nash stills against me, breath ragged, forehead dropping to my shoulder. He needs the contact to stay upright. His hands stay firm at my hips, pinning me in place.
For a heartbeat, I let myself stay there.
I let myself feel the weight of him. The warmth. The way my body is still humming, oversensitized, loose-limbed, and trembling. The way my pulse is everywhere at once.
This is real, a traitorous voice whispers.
This isn’t the act.
And that thought is what breaks me.
Because reality crashes in all at once, sharp and unforgiving.
The tree at my back. The frozen lane under our feet. The barn lights not far away. The town, my uncle, his family, the land.
The fact that I just crossed a line I can’t redraw. Not after Nash said the word ‘love’.
I don’t know whether he means it or not, but that, more than anything else, scares the shit out of me.
I pull back.
Nash looks at me immediately, concern flashing across his face, hands loosening as if he’s giving me the option to leave.
“Tessa?” he says quietly.
My name sounds different in his mouth now. Less careful. Less guarded.
That makes my chest ache.
I look down, gathering up and fumbling with my clothes, my fingers clumsy and unsteady. I feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with skin.
“Hey. Talk to me.”
I shake my head because if I open my mouth again, I’m not sure what will come out. Fear. Want. Guilt. It’s dangerous and unmanageable.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” I admit, the words scraping their way out. “And I hate that. I don’t do this. I don’t lose control like this.”
His expression softens, and somehow that makes it worse.
“Tessa,” he says gently, “you don’t have to decide anything right now.”
But that’s exactly what terrifies me.
Because if I don’t decide, I might keep choosing him. Again and again. Without thinking. Without accounting for the cost.
I take a step back.
Then another.
Nash straightens, sensing the shift. “Where are you going?”
“I need…” My breath stutters. “I need space.”
The word feels inadequate. I need distance. I need clarity. I need my spine back where it belongs instead of tilted toward him like gravity rewrote itself.
He nods once, even though I can see how much it costs him. “Okay.”
I hate him a little for making it so easy.
I hate myself more.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for anymore.
He opens his mouth, then closes it again. Finally, he says, “You don’t have to run.”
But I already am.
I turn before he can say anything else. Before I can change my mind. Before I can lean back into him and let this become something I can’t undo.
The cold bites as I move down the lane, boots slipping slightly on the packed snow, heart hammering like I’ve just fled a crime scene.
I don’t look back.
If I do, I might stop.
And I don’t trust myself to do anything except keep running, away from the man I just let inside every wall I’ve spent my life building.