Page 81 of Wilder

I’d worry about regretting this later.

Right now, I needed whatever he was willing to give me.

He came easily when I grabbed him again, fitting my hands right at his waist to haul him up off his feet and get him sitting on top of the desk. Despite me manhandling him, he wasn’t some waifish thing. Not even close to the ragdoll I was treating him like that barely weighed more than a sack of feed.

Underneath the baggy t-shirts and relaxed jeans he liked to dress in, there was a solid frame built from months of hard labor. I’d seen it time and time again, especially during the scorchers when the heat got so unbearable that even he had to give in to dragging the hem of his t-shirt over his face to swipe away the sweat, exposing a sliver of those tanned, toned muscles he liked to hide.

And fuck me, I’d noticed.

I always did.

Having him right here, legs spread just enough for me to step between, his hands coming up to grab at my wrists when I cupped his face again, like he was holding onto me for dear life, I didn’t have to just look anymore.

I could touch.

So I did.

Keeping one hand locked onto the side of his jaw, I let my other drift down, fingers trailing lightly over the smooth, flushed skin of his neck. His pulse fluttered wildly beneath my thumb, beating strong. If I had any doubts before of him keeping a level head about any of this, they were gone now.

Good.

I hated being the only one left a mess.

I splayed my fingers wide over the left side of his chest, using it to nudge him back until he laid flush down on the desk. He moved under me then, grabbing at the front of my shirt to haul me down on top of him before hooking a leg behind my hip to keep me pinned there.

A bold thing, Asher was.

It never ceased to surprise me.

With one last greedy swipe of my tongue over his bottom lip, I moved my mouth across his cheek to his neck, following the same trail I had with my fingers. He tilted his head to the side, giving me better access as a soft moan spilled out of his mouth the second I latched on to the spot right where his pulse was.

“Oh, fuck,” came his choked response.

I’d never been the kind of man to mark my territory—never saw the point in it. Always found it archaic and a little too desperate for my tastes. That was the kind of thing a man did when he was insecure about where he stood with someone, and what did I care about any of that when it came to the one night stands I usually had?

They were all fleeting; meaningless the second the sun came up and the regretful hangover settled in behind my eyeballs. Leaving behind any evidence outside of a few rumbled sheets and a slight ache of my hips from going a little too hard the night before felt childish.

Usually.

With everything, though, came exceptions: Asher being the biggest of them all. He’d had me the moment we touched, the second he’d rolled those sinful hips of his to grind himself up into mine again, our jeans doing fuck all to hide how hot and bothered we were both getting.

Nothing was safe with him.

All my rules, what I thought I knew about myself, went straight out the window whenever he was around. It was like the world didn’t exist outside of whatever bubble he liked to trap me in, blocking out the whole world until nothing else mattered.

Fighting this felt wrong, though. I couldn’t do it anymore. Not when I was finally getting to touch and taste him.

I left the spot wet when I pulled my mouth off of his skin, used my thumb of the hand still wrapped around his jaw to tilt his chin even farther back to survey my handiwork. The mark was already pink, slowly blooming into a fiery red that made my cock twitch in my jeans.

I wasn’t used to feeling possessive, territorial, like this.

What was he doing to me?

Changing me. Flipping me inside out and wringing out whatever common sense I had left.

Asher wiggled his hand between us, squeezing into the tight space where we’d somehow molded our bodies together. I felt the brush of his knuckles against my stomach, the slow, teasing drag of them as they worked their way lower.

Fire burned in my gut.