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But it did happen.

And as recollection sweeps through me in a charged wave of muscle memory and gentle heat, the space between us narrows without either of us seeming to move at all. No rush, no hesitation. Just an inevitable brush of lips that asks a question we don’t need answering out loud.

Oscar’s mouth meets mine like sunshine creeping over fertile fields. A homecoming when you don’t realise you’ve been gone. My heart thumps, rhythm not sound. Then something shifts—he shifts, and steals my balance, tipping me over, protecting my skull with his big palm cradling the back of my head.

It’s a rush.

A sudden one.

I snatch a breath as he covers me, his weight pinning me down. Then he kisses me again, deeper, losing whatever softness we started with, and the rough edge to it—the hunger, the possession—releases something in me.

It shouldn’t. I’m versatile, but big men manhandling me has never lit me up. I like it the other way round. But in a split second, Oscar cracks a code I didn’t know was there. I feel it in the way my hands find him in the dark and grip, not fighting back, not taking control. The way I let this buried thing in us both have its moment. Let Oscar’s mouth press harder, let his tongue tangle with mine. Let myself revel in the scrape of his beard against my skin, in his hot and uneven breath as he anchors me to the ground.

Sensation.

In the dark, it’s all I have, and I root my hand to his chest with immovable intent. Get my reward in the humming vibration of whatever sound he makes in response. A growl, maybe, resonant enough to pull something raw and answering out of me. Something that makes me forget we’re in the dust of a sandy lay-by.

My breath hitches and the heat in my blood pools south. Oscar’s hard too. I flex my hips a fraction and he bites at my lips, like a warning before he rips his mouth from mine. “What is this thing you do to me, Poet Whitlock?”

I don’t answer because I don’t know how he’s feeling or what I’ve done to contribute to that. All I know for certain is that whatever it is, I want more of it. Want it enough to kiss him again and feel him shudder as if he’s been hit by something he didn’t see coming. Enough to pull back with a smile that seems to undo him.

“I really should go,” he says.

I thread my fingers into the silky hair at the nape of his neck. “Then go.”

6 OSCAR

Then go.

Poet whispers the words like a dare. And for a while, he wins. I cannot stop kissing him and I grow addicted to the unyielding hardness of his masculine frame beneath me. It’s hard to believe I could barely see straight when I pulled my car into the lay-by. That in the time that has passed since, my life has become this. With him. A soul I knew I’d see again one day, but not like this. Not here, in Porth Luck.

Because you didn’t listen.

To Folk, or to Rubi and River. To Aras when he told me he saw lights in the fields beyond his bedroom window in his mama’s house. And now I am kissing Poet Whitlock under a lead-heavy sky that will give us rain soon. I am cradling his head in my hand, my fingers in his wheat-blond hair. I am wedging my thigh between his legs and grinding my cock into solid flesh and I feel…

Unhinged.

Alive.

And so aroused I forget nothing more than this can happen without treating him in ways I swore never to treat anyone again.

“Why do you always act like you took something from me when I gave it to you so willingly? When what I got in return was the best thing that ever happened to me?”

I always turn away from Hanna when she says things like that. But I find I can’t turn away from Poet. Can’t disengage and pull back. Can’t pry my mouth from his to even fix my gaze on his beautiful face.

Because that is what this man is.

Beautiful.

From his golden hair to his bluer-than-blue eyes. From his tanned skin and his wise smile to his strong limbs and work-calloused palms.

I like how hard he is.

And I don’t mean the imprint of his cock against my hip, though I do not shy away from that—I cannot shy away from it and how dizzy with untapped want it leaves me. This is more than desire. It’s the awakening I’ve heard the men in my life talk about before. I just never thought it would happen to me.

I’m out of air.

He must be too.