Page 54 of Off the Beaten Path

I lean in, unable to breathe with the space between us, my lips dragging across the slope of her neck, not quite a kiss, just a brush of my mouth trailing up to her ear. “If that’s the only thing you’re going to say,” I whisper, my voice a harsh rasp. “Then I’m going to give you something to sayohabout.”

She clears her throat, another soft “Oh” falling from her lips.

With that, I slide my hands down the curve of her hips, curling under her thighs and lifting, until she lands on the counter, her thighs bracketing my waist.

I press a kiss against the shell of her ear, and she shivers, a full body shudder that I feel in every place we touch. It’s electric, a pounding beneath my skin. I think I could feel her against me every day for the rest of my life and never get enough of it. Of her. Her soft, sweet scent. Her enticing, unruly strawberry curls. The thousands of freckles I want to trace like constellations in the sky. The lips that drive me mad in so many ways.

I want all of her, and this is just the first taste.

When my teeth scrape against her neck, she lets out another “oh,” urging me on, and my hands tighten on her hips, pulling her closer.

“Thank you,” I say into her skin, and she scrapes her nails against my beard.

“For what?”

I sigh into the hollow of her throat. “For tonight. For showing up for June. You didn’t have to do that.”

She backs up, moving away until she’s no longer a peachy blur, until I can see every curve and freckle and blue hue of her eye with complete clarity. “I wanted to, Holden. You don’t need to thank me.”

There’s a lump in my throat, cutting off my words, because I can see she means it. I’ll never understand why we were too much for Mia yet just the right amount for Wren. It will never make sense to me that Mia couldn’t make it work but Wren stepped in so effortlessly. I won’t get it. But I’m so thankful for it.

Suddenly, not kissing her feels like torture, like holding my breath underwater for too long until everything in my body is screaming at me to go back to the surface, to get air. Wren is like that for me. She’s the thing I’ve deprived myself of until everything inside me is rebelling at the distance between us.

I don’t wait any longer to press my lips to hers, to give into what I want more than anything. And Wren doesn’t hesitate to give it right back. We meet each other move for move, as if this isn’t only the second time we’ve done this, as if we’ve been doing this forever. She feels like pancakes on Saturday morning and family dinner on Saturday night and late-night movies on the couch, like all the familiar, comforting things in my life wrapped in one. Yet also wholly new. And I want to find out every single thing—what makes her gasp, what makes her throw her head back, what makes her shiver against me—until she’s no longer a mystery, until she’s as permanent and imprinted on me as the tattoos on my skin.

I slide my tongue along the seam of her lips, taking advantage when she gasps against my mouth. When her hands find my hair, tugging until the hair tie falls out somewhere around my feet, my hands tighten on her hips, pulling her closer to the edge until there’s no space left between us.

Wren makes a noise in the back of her throat, one that’s going to haunt every single one of my dreams for the rest of my life, taunting me, and I pull back, resting my forehead against her, trying to quell my desire. She’s so responsive, her mouth following mine as I back away. It almost snaps my control, seeing her so mussed and undone like this, her dress bunched up around her hips, her hair messy and untamed.

“You look stunning.” The words slip out of my mouth, unfiltered, but I can’t bring myself to regret speaking without thinking when that breathtaking blush steals into her cheeks again.

“You look,” she says, and then pauses, catching her bottom lip between her teeth.

I reach up, tugging it free. Her jaw is red from my beard, her lips bee-stung, and I can’t help the surge of masculine pride that sings through my veins.

“I look what, Red?”

Blue eyes meet mine, startling in their intensity. “You look like how I’ve always wanted to see you,” she says.

I squeeze her hips. “What’s that mean?”

She trails her finger along the inside of my arm, starting at the wrist and moving her way up. We both watch the progress until she smooths over the curve of my shoulder, slipping her hand behind my neck. Her skin is warm against mine, and so, so soft. I want to know if she’s this soft all over, if she’s got freckles everywhere.

“Undone,” she says simply, holding my gaze. The word sends another jolt through me, desire so strong I feel weak in the knees. It’s been too long since I’ve touched a woman, but I’m glad I waited for her, that it’s her body beneath my hands, that it’s her lips I can still taste against my own.

Maybe that’s what makes me extend the offer so easily. Because it feels right to trust her with another part of my life when she’s proven to be safe enough to have this piece.

Eyes never leaving hers, I say, “Come to breakfast tomorrow. June and I always make pancakes on Saturdays.”

Her brows arch high on her forehead, and I know she understands how important this is, how big of a step this is for me.

“Are you sure?”

I should be nervous. I should feel worried about letting someone into June’s life. I should be afraid of getting my heart broken again.

But not with Wren.

“I’m sure, Red. Have breakfast with us.”

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