I hear my own words like I’m outside my body, listening to a woman who is braver than I feel. The room doesn’t move. Zach sighs in his sleep.
Prove it. God. What am I doing? What am I asking of him?
I want to be the person who chooses cleanly. I want my career. I want the plan I’ve clung to like a life preserver. I also want to be the person who walks straight into the thing she wants without apologizing for it.
Angie would say I can be both. Angie brought us both to the cabin to prove it. I should be madder at her than I am.
“Tabitha,” Henry says. “You need to answer me. Say yes or say no, damn it. You either want me to walk away or you don’t. Yes or no.”
A tremor starts in my knees. My brain tries to list reasons to leave right now—the seminar, my budding career, my own trauma that I haven’t dealt with—but everything goes quiet under the weight of how much I want him.
“Don’t be careful,” I tell him. “Stop worrying that I can’t deal with who you truly are. You like it rough, so own it. Don’t try to be slow and reverent because you think it’s what I need or want.”
His eyes darken. A muscle ticks along his jaw. “You sure?”
“Yes. Haven’t I made that clear? Didn’t I tell you I don’t want safe?”
“Tabitha—”
“Prove it,” I tell him again. “Prove to me that I’m not the only one who’s fallen.”
He’s on me then. His mouth finds mine like he’s been walking toward this kiss for days. Maybe we both have. It slams through me with heat, relief, fury turned inside out, and I’m moving before I can think about it, shoving the chair back, fisting his shirt, dragging him closer.
With his free arm, he pushes my tablet, notes, and the practice suture coil off the table.
My tablet lands with a clatter on the hard wood.
And I don’t even care.
I don’t fucking care.
He pushes me until the table hits the back of my thighs. “You said rough,” he mutters against my mouth, breath hot. “Tell me to stop if?—”
“I won’t,” I say, and then I prove it by dragging his lower lip with my teeth until he curses.
He lifts me to the table and steps between my knees like it’s where he belongs. Hands under me, around me, everywhere at once. There’s nothing polite about the way he kisses me now. No restraint, no care. He tastes like bacon and musk and darkness.
I yank at his shirt. He helps, and the fabric hits the floor. His skin is warm under my palms, all muscle and succulent flesh.
“Tell me what you want,” he says, voice low.
“You,” I say. “Fast. I don’t want to think.”
“Copy.” He finds my mouth again, deeper this time, and he slides his hands down and grinds against me.
He’s hard. My breath starts coming in small, quick gulps.
He grips the edge of the table beside my thigh, the tendons cording in his forearm.
He’s as close to losing it as I am. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull. He groans.
I reach down, loosen my jeans. “Off,” I pant. “Clothes off.”
He pulls the jeans over my hips and down my legs. Then he pulls the T-shirt over my head and removes his own jeans.
Then his boxer briefs. My panties.
Until we’re naked. Naked and sweaty and ready.
