Page 118 of The Wildest One
Jolie
“Good morning.” Those were two words I hadn’t expected to whisper toward the other side of my bed while I was in Vegas.
I also didn’t think that what had gone down yesterday afternoon, once I left the pool, and what had followed into the evening and the very early hours of the morning would happen either.
But as I lay under the comforter, facing the opposite end of the mattress, all I saw was Beck.
A sight that made me the happiest girl alive.
His arm was extended across the little space between us, his hand holding my cheek, his gaze still as hungry as when he’d carried me into this room. “Morning.”
That gaze—my God, I couldn’t get enough of it. The way it made me feel, the confidence it triggered inside me, the warmth it spread over me. I hoped he never stopped looking at me.
But as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and the silence began to tick between us, I knew a conversation had to happen.
Yesterday had changed everything. When I’d leaned my back against my door and watched him walk down the hallway, I had known that I wasn’t just making the decision to sleep with him. I was giving myself to him.
And the last thing I wanted after mentally making that commitment was to hang in this unknown place full of questions.
I’d lived far too many years with those eating away at me.
“I want to talk to you about something.”
I massaged the outside of my chest, trying to calm the beating inside. Anxiety was so fickle. I never knew when it was going to appear, how it would morph, what face it would wear, if it was going to seep in or pour out.
Right now, not only was it living in my chest; it was digging a hole in my stomach.
“Talk to me.”
“It’s about this …” I added more volume to my voice and traced the air between us when I said, “Us.”
He bent his arm behind his head and sat up a little. “Are you going to tell me it was a mistake? That it can’t happen again. That professionalism bullshit you’ve been saying on repeat?—”
“No.”
“Jolie, you’ve been playing this game with me for weeks. Giving me a little and backpedaling. You want me to flirt with you, and then you seem to regret it. You love when I fight for you, and then you don’t give in.”
He was right.
About all of it.
But it hadn’t been a game.
That was me struggling between wrong and right. That was me trying to weigh which side of regret would cut deeper.
That was me trying to do what my father would want and attempt to completely ignore my heart.
“But I gave in yesterday, and I told you, when that happened, I’d have to admit to you and to myself how much I truly cared about you.”
He chuckled. “A lot of people say a lot of shit the night before. It’s what they say in the morning that matters.”
I sat up, pushing my back against the headboard, and pulled up the comforter to cover my bare chest. In the process, his hand left my face. “Yesterday was a long time coming.”
“So was putting my face between your legs. But that doesn’t mean you want me to do it again right now. Or that you want to spend the rest of the morning with me or the afternoon or wake up tomorrow in my arms.”
“But I do.” The anxiety was coming in thicker, running sprints between my chest and stomach. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
I didn’t know why this was so hard for me to say. Was it because it felt like things had been dragged out for so long between us? Or my role with the Whales? Or the thought of having a chat with my dad about this and how it made me want to dry-heave?
