It was like she could see it, written there on his face.
All the better to eat you with…
Oh yes, he was the Big Bad Wolf.
But unlike Little Red Riding Hood, she’d known it from the first moment. He hadn’t tricked her into anything. He’d been nothing but openly this from the first moment she’d met him, and it hadn’t done a thing to stop her from wanting him.
This man was scarred. He had been completely wrecked by life, and anyone would be with a past like that. This couldn’t be about what he could offer her.
It had to be about what she wanted to take from him.
She had been clear on what she wanted from the beginning.
She wanted him to tear her apart and rebuild her. She wanted him to dismantle her because she didn’t like the way that she had been built. Too delicate, and too burdened at the same time. Somehow sheltered, and yet having taken on too much responsibility all at the same time. And she just wanted something that was for her. Something wild and hedonistic, and maybe she could find it going out and howling at the moon, surviving in the wilderness, but she wanted to find it here, in his arms.
She wanted it more than she wanted her next breath.
He lifted her up off the ground, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist as he began to walk them both toward his front porch. He held her like she weighed nothing, propellingthem up the stairs and into the house, the cool air inside making her shiver.
He didn’t set her down. Instead, he slammed the door shut behind him and pressed her up against the wall, kissing her like he was a dying man, and she was the elixir that could save him.
It was so… electrifying.
This was it. This was the adventure that she’d come to Oregon for. The rough and rugged that she wanted. Forget sleeping on the ground, she wanted to sleep on him.
This was what she wanted.
Those words just played over and over in her mind. She had never been so sure of anything.
And whatever happened afterward, it didn’t really matter. This was what was happening right now. She wanted it. Wanted to rebel in it, wanted to live in the moment. Wanted to grab hold of it and cling to it tightly for all the time she could. She wanted it to go on forever.
He peeled her t-shirt up and over her head, casting it onto the floor where it landed in a sodden thunk. He moved his hands to cup her breasts, squeezing them tight, and she gasped. She was wearing a serviceable bra, one that couldn’t be called sexy, but he made her feel sexy.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he growled.
She forced herself to make eye contact with him. Forced herself not to look away. Because this was it, this was everything. And she wanted to experience all of it. She didn’t want to get nervous, didn’t want to soften whatever this was about to be by showing him that she was inexperienced, that she didn’t really know what she was doing. So far, it hadn’t seemed to matter. It was instinctive. Kissing him back felt as easy as breathing.
He reached behind her, where she was still pinned against the wall, and unhooked her bra, pulling it away.
The sound he made in the back of his throat was like a large, wounded beast.
Then, he was cupping her again, but it was his bare palms against her bare breasts, and it felt better than anything else ever had. His hands were so rough.
She had been dying to have them all over her.
Just like she had been dying to have her hands all over him.
It was almost absurd.
Had they really done this whole dance, this whole outdoor training exercise just so they could end up here?
Because it was what both of them wanted, she was sure of that now.
She had been a little bit tentative up until the point where he had grabbed her and kissed her. But then, it had been like a bomb of clarity had gone off inside her head. Of course, he wanted this.
He wasn’t just being nice when he came and helped with the shelves, when he came to get a pastry in the morning. When he offered to help her with survival skills. He wanted to get in her pants. Historically, something like that might be said as a negative. He was doing all these things to be close to her because he wanted to sleep with her.
Well, she didn’t see it that way. Because she was sick to death of being a virgin. She had felt very strongly that he was out of her league. That this was batting above her average, swinging above her weight, and whatever other poor sports metaphor she could possibly conjure up in her sex addled brain.
