Page 81 of Wild Eyes
I want to prop him back up tall. Lift his spirits. Make him feel better.
My body moves toward him on instinct. Taking care not to tip the boat, I drop to my bare knees on the base of the canoe and delicately crawl across the few feet that separates us.
At first, he doesn’t react, but when my hands land on his knees, the muscles in his quads go tense beneath my fingertips.
His warm exhale fans against the tops of my breasts, the gooseflesh more apparent than ever.
“What are you doing, Skylar?”
I move closer, ignoring the warning in his voice. My knees press against the arches of his feet as I position myself between his legs and languidly slide my palms up his thighs. The boat rocks with the motion. We both sway in time.
I tilt my head just a fraction, angling my lips up toward his. “Seeking you out.”
He doesn’t respond, but that doesn’t deter me. My fingers clamp onto his jeans, and I squeeze his legs the way I’ve dreamed of doing since I first laid eyes on him.
I press my lips to his knuckles, still braided together before me. Place a kiss on each of the four tattoos that adorn them. This time, when I glance back up at him, I find his eyes tracking my every movement with rapt attention. They dive into mine right as his hands unlatch and move to cradle my head.
When he holds me, I let loose a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
“And when you leave?” he asks, eyes bouncing between mine like he might be able to will the answer he wants from me. But we both know I’ll leave. We both know this place is a stepping stone. Real life is somewhere else. Doing something else. I can’t throw away a life’s work to make promises to a man I barely know.
Still, my chest aches. My heart throbs uncomfortably. I’ve known West for what feels like a blink of an eye and a lifetime all at once.
People write songs about this feeling.
He calls to me the same way I call to him. Desperately. Thoroughly. Without even meaning to.
Which is why I look him in the eye and whisper the painful truth of it. “I will miss you terribly.”
The flash of pain in his dark blue depths is more than I can bear. I kiss him to cover it. Kiss him to apologize because this will feel good until it doesn’t.
One week to the day, I kiss Weston Belmont for the second time with everything I have, even though I know it’s going to hurt later.
This time, he kisses me back.
My hands on his thighs, his thumbs on my cheekbones—our hungry lips press together.
We kiss.
And we kiss.
And wekiss.
I can barely breathe as he stakes his claim. His teeth grazing over my bottom lip. The way his tongue tangles with mine. The soft lapping of water beneath us. The cozy cover of darkness above us.
All I want is to be closer.
I reach for him, slide my hands beneath his shirt. Warm skin, hard lines, and a light dusting of hair beneath my fingertips.
“You’re so beautiful,” I murmur between passionate kisses.
He chuckles against my lips, and a shiver racks my body. That sound. It’s a shot straight to my core. The twisting sensation behind my hip bones is unbearable.
Another shiver.
“Get up here,” he growls against my mouth, and I swallow the words, not wanting him to stop.
I fucking cling to him.
