Page 57 of California Wild

His mouth crashed against hers.

And she let it.

God help her, she let it.

It was raw.

Wild.

A collision more than a kiss.

His hands were already in her hair, fisting tight, tilting her head back like he needed to own every inch of her mouth. His lips devoured hers, hot and punishing, all tongue and teeth, all memory and want and fuck, I missed you.

Hayley gasped into him, her hands scrambling for his shoulders, her thighs bracketing his hips like her body remembered this even better than her heart did.

His fingers dug into the back of her thigh, dragging her closer, grinding her down against the hard, aching length of his cock through thin cotton and nothing else.

She moaned—shocked at the sound of it, at how quick he unraveled her—and he growled like an animal finally off leash, flipping her beneath him in one brutal, fluid motion.

The mattress groaned under their weight.

Her back hit the sheets.

His body covered hers.

Jesse kissed like he fought—with force, with heat, with zero apology. Like he knew her mouth better than she did. Like he’d been memorizing the exact pressure and angle it took to make her fall apart in his hands.

She gasped when his hand slid up under her dress—rough, calloused, familiar. She barely remembered dragging it on. He clearly didn’t care, because he shoved the thin fabric up her hips and swore under his breath when he realized how little she had on underneath.

“Fucking hell, Fox…”

She bit her lip, dragging him down by the front of his shirt until his weight pressed into her chest, her thighs tight around his waist.

He cursed again—lower this time—like the contact physically hurt.

“You still know how to fuck me up,” he growled against her neck, voice broken, like it was half hate and half worship.

“And you still let me.”

That did it.

He gripped her wrists, pinning them over her head, every muscle in his body vibrating like he was seconds away from breaking something—or begging for something.

“You really want this?” he asked, voice hoarse, mouth hovering so close to hers she could taste the heat of it.

“No,” she breathed.

“Liar.”

And then he kissed her again, full of everything he hadn’t said in three years.

It wasn’t romantic.

It wasn’t slow.

It was a goddamn reckoning.

She kissed him back like it would break her not to.

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