He’d do the same. Every trick she played, she’d learned from his father.
Fletcher bit her bottom lip. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“The difference is,” he said, measuring his words carefully, taking his time with each syllable. The blade’s cold bite against her pulse didn’t budge. “I’ve got nothing left to hide.”
Her mind raced. This was Waylon. The same man who doubled back when he could have abandoned her at the manor. Who rescued her when she’d nearly run into an ambush. Who kept finding new ways to surprise her. Their past as sworn enemies had been set aside for a flimsy truce, but he was still a Cartwright, and she still had everything to lose.
And now—
She dared a glance down. His hand was steady. Not a tremor in his grip.
“What do you need?” she asked, keeping her voice level despite the fear rioting in her chest. “To convince you?”
Silence stretched between them, charged as storm clouds.
He craned his neck over her shoulder, eyes dark. Dissident heat rose between her thighs as his palm spread across her belly. The steel-sharp edge of his knife scraped the skin of her throat. In a voice softer than she expected, he murmured, “Tell me what you want, Spence, and I’ll let you live.”
Fletcher swallowed, her throat cording against the blade. “I want…”
She could almost see herself through his point of view: muddied and bleary-eyed, maybe, but still the quiet, rule-following assistant he’d met at the gala. A version of herself who had barely been brave enough to admit what she wanted, let alone chase it.
The only version of herself that existed for so long. Too long.
You could do it, Fletcher Spence.
Something changed the night they met. A seed buried in her chest, rooting around her ribs. Spiteful determination, yes. But also, a new kind of propulsive bravery, all because a dashing, dangerous stranger comforted and challenged her in the same breath.
Against all odds, they’d found their way back to each other. As much a surprise to him as it had been to her. Maybe this didn’t have anything to do with Jackie.
Fletcher eased the knife far enough away from her jugular that she could spin to face Waylon without him slitting her throat. Sans high heels, her nose brushed the center of his chest. She planted her palms against him and rose onto the highest tips of her toes.
Before she could rationalize her way out of it, think of a hundred different backup plans, or talk herself back from whatever proverbial ledge she was about to throw herself off, Fletcher kissed Waylon Cartwright.
Shocked and then settling, he kissed her back. His mouth was firm, steady. Somehow both urgent and patient. Confident. Smug. Waylon, right down to the lips.
Need pooled in every erogenous zone that had been forgotten for the past ten years: the cave of Fletcher’s collarbone, the crook of her elbow, the bend of her ear.
The hand that wasn’t holding a steak knife trailed down herwaist, fingers tight against her hips. She arched into him, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, teeth grazing. His tongue darted across her bottom lip, and her mouth parted in welcome. A noise—caught between a whimper and a plea—worked its way up her throat. Kissing Kent had always been quick, chaste. Another item on the long list of Fletcher’s duties. This was…not that.
Waylon drank her like top-shelf liquor. Immediacy raced through every movement. Fletcher’s fingertips toyed with the hem of his shirt, skimming the taut skin of his stomach.
His knife sank to the forest floor. Evidently, this was a two-handed task.
Waylon guided her back, back, back, until her skin met the roots of the kapok tree. Hands coming beneath her thighs, he lifted her onto a curve, the root ancient and unmoving beneath her. Her knees widened far enough for him to situate himself closer.
All that nervous energy she’d pushed down now snapped like a rubber band under too much force. There must have been enough epinephrine in her system to bring someone back to life.
Waylon pulled away first. Pupils blown out, lips swollen. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that.”
Fletcher caught a fistful of his shirt, suddenly wishing it were anywhere else. “I think I do.”
He kissed her again, savoring it. Savoring her. Making up for three years of lost time, or maybe making amends for it. This thing between them, it wasn’t just years of pent-up sexual frustration or a heat-induced delusion or the stress of survival.
Around him, she’d never been tasked with contorting herself into a box for his liking, shaping and molding herself into someone he expected her to be. She’d met him at her lowest, and he hadn’t shied away. She was allowed to simply be whatever she was. Feel whatever she felt. Want whatever she wanted.
He pressed his palm to the back of her head, fingers weaving into the copper of her hair. Breathing? What was breathing? Fletcher barely remembered as his other hand traced the edge of her jaw, down the slope of her neck. He paused there, feeling the frantic skip of her heartbeat.
“I’m sorry I hated you for so long,” she said. Barely more than a whisper.
