“Morning,” I whisper, pulling her down for a kiss. She tastes like me, and it makes my body ache all over again.
My phone buzzes again, another text lighting the screen. This time from Nick.“We need to talk. This has gone too far.”
Wren glances at it and laughs. “Too far? Sweetheart, we’re just getting started.” She presses me back into the sheets, her hips sliding between my thighs, her voice rough with need. “Open for me.”
I do.
“That’s it,” she whispers, guiding herself against me, slow and deliberate. “We were made for this.”
“Wren…”
“Love how you say my name.” She pins my wrists above my head, her body moving with a rhythm that instantly lulls me into sweet, succulent bliss. “I love how you look with me all over your skin.”
I glance down—at the bruised bites blooming along my neck, my breasts, my hips. Proof of every place she’s worshipped me.
“Let them talk,” she whispers against my ear. “Everyone’s going to know you’re mine.”
She moves faster, the sound of our breathing and the creak of the bed filling the morning light. I lose myself again, the world no longer a place I consider small andintimate.I know better now. There really is a bigger world out there. And maybe I don’t have to face it alone.
Like a certainsomeonemade me feel earlier this year. When they left my body cold and my heart broken.
“If I have to,” Wren says, still attached to me, “I’ll carry you on my back with your arms wrapped around my chest. That way, everyone knows we go together.”
“You can’t say things like that…”
“Why not? It’s what I want.” Wren pulls back, eyes blazing with something too raw to hide. “Don’t you want it too?”
“We’ve been together three days,” I remind her, but even I’m second-guessing myself. Until now, we’ve been riding high on vibes. Maybe I should cling to that. Or maybe I should focus more onthoughts.Just because I’m on winter break from work… shit, that doesn’t mean I have to be acting like a teenager!
She touches my cheek, gentle where her words aren’t. “We’ve known each other most of our lives. We just couldn’t do a thing about it. Couldn’t act on it. You know that.” She kisses me, and I have to fight not to melt into it. “Tell me you don’t feel it, that this doesn’t feel right.”
I can’t. Because it does. Despite the madness of it all, being with Wren feels more right than anything ever has.
She looks down at me, her expression shifting, voice reverent. “I love you, Edie.”
The words hit like a punch and a caress at the same time. “You can’t say things like that,” I whisper, breath caught somewhere between panic and a deep longing for these to be thoughts as well as vibes.
“Why not?” she asks. “It’s true.”
Before I can answer, my phone rings again—Heather, this time, of course.
“Don’t answer that one,” Wren says, rolling off me, her warmth leaving me cold. “My mother can wait.”
“She’s been nothing but kind to me.”
“She also invited you to that dinner knowing it would blow up,” Wren says. “My mom loves to stir chaos and then act shocked when it explodes.”
I answer, anyway. “Hi, Heather.”
“Edie... I wanted to apologize for last night. Things got out of hand.”
“It’s fine.”
“I also wanted to invite you both to brunch tomorrow. A chance to… start over.”
I glance at Wren, who’s shaking her head.
“That’s very kind, but—”
