Page 92 of Wild Sanctuary

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it, Daisy-girl.”

Then I’m back on her because I don’t know how not to be. Her bottom lip between my teeth, then the corner of her mouth, and every sound she gives me hits my system like a drug I’m going to spend the rest of my life chasing.

Her fingers leave my shirt and slide up my chest, over my shoulders, into the hair at the back of my neck. She tugs, and my hips press her harder into the door. The sound she makes this time isn’t soft. It’s the kind of sound that rewires a man’s brain.

I drop my mouth to her jaw. Her neck. That spot below her ear where her pulse is hammering so fast it feels like a hummingbird trapped under her skin. She smells like that shampoo, the one that’s been slowly killing me since she got here. Honey and warmth, and underneath it, just her. I taste the hollow of her throat and she arches into me and I want more.

I want all of it.

“You’re shaking,” she whispers against my lips.

“I know.”

“Is that because you want this or because you’re fighting it?”

I pull back far enough to see her face. Her hair is a mess from my hands. Her lips are red and her cheeks are flushed and she’s so goddamn beautiful standing in my porch light that it physically hurts to look at her.

“I stopped fightin’ it about three sentences into that speech.”

Her mouth curves. “Which three sentences?”

“The ones where you said you were done pretending.”

Her breath hitches. “That was more than three sentences.”

“I stopped countin’.”

She inhales sharply. Her fingers tighten in my hair and she pulls me back down, and this kiss is different from the first two. This is the one where we stop pretending we’re going to stop. Her tongue slides against mine and I groan into her mouth and she arches into me and every single thought in my head goes quiet for the first time in years.

My hand slides from her back to her hip. The dress is thin enough that I can feel the heat of her through the fabric, and the noise I make when my thumb traces the curve of her waist would be embarrassing if I wasn’t too far gone to care.

She’s so small under my hands. So warm. So goddamn perfect for me.

Her fingers skim down my chest. Over my belt buckle. My hand catches her wrist before she gets any lower, and I pin it against the door beside her head, our fingers tangling together.

“Daisy.”

“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “Don’t say my name like that and then tell me we should slow down.”

“I wasn’t gonna say slow down.” My voice is hoarse, and I barely recognize it. “I was gonna say I’m about thirty seconds from doin’ somethin’ I can’t take back. On this porch. Where anyone with a pair of headlights could see.”

She holds my gaze. Steady and sure without an ounce of hesitation.

“Good.”

Just like that, my restraint snaps, and the release of it is almost a relief.

I lift her. Both hands under her thighs, and she wraps her legs around my waist like she was built to fit there. The height difference disappears, and for the first time tonight she’s looking down at me. Her hair falls around both our faces like a curtain, blocking out the porch light, the ranch, the mountains, every single thing that isn’t this.

She cups my face in both hands and kisses me. Slow and deep and thorough, like she’s memorizing the shape of my mouth. I press her into the door and hold her there with my hips, and the sound she makes when she feels exactly how hard I am goes straight through me like an electric current.

“Been thinkin’ about this,” I murmur against her throat. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “Longer than I should’ve been.”

“How long?”

“Christmas. The red dress. You walked in and I couldn’t breathe. And then you laughed at somethin’ Colt said and I knew I was in trouble.”

She pulls back far enough to see my face, and tips her head to one side, her expression soft and fierce and aching all at once.