Page 118 of Wild Sanctuary

I wake up to the sound of his heartbeat.

My cheek is pressed to his chest, steady and deep under my ear. His arm lies heavy across my waist like he never plans to let go.

Wyatt Hartley is dead to the world, and I’m the reason why.

The sheets are pulled off two corners of the mattress. One pillow is on the floor, the other jammed behind the headboard where it’s shifted three inches from the wall. The quilt didn’t make it past the first round.

And I don’t care about any of it.

What I care about is the fact that his face, right now, looks nothing like the man I’ve known my whole life. The hard line of his jaw has gone slack, and the crease between his brows has smoothed out entirely. His lips are parted just enough that I can hear each breath, and his hair is a disaster. Pushed in three different directions from my hands and the pillow.

He looks younger like this. Like a man who hasn’t spent his whole adult life putting everyone else first.

My fingertips skim lightly along his collarbone, following the ridge of bone to the base of his neck. His skin is warm and tan even here, where the sun never reaches. My hand drifts up to his jaw, and my thumb finds the scar on his chin through the stubble, a smooth line where nothing grows. I trace it the way I did last night. The way I will do every morning for as long as he lets me.

If I get in that bed, I’m not getting back out.

He wasn’t asking permission. He was telling me what it would cost him if I said yes and didn’t mean it.

Not when this is over and you come to your senses about what you’re doing with a man like me.

A man like him. As if wanting Wyatt Hartley is a temporary lapse in judgment I’ll eventually recover from. He carries his whole family on his back and never once considers that someone might want to carry him. Not because he’s owed it, but because he’s worth it.

My mind keeps returning to it. The moment he pushed inside me, slow enough that I could have stopped him, deep enough that I had to remind myself to breathe. Six years of wanting, and the only thing that surprised me was that I didn’t shatter in that very first second.

His every stroke was a question, every pause answered with my hands in his hair. With every grind of his hips, my vision narrowed, and when I came, I felt his control fracture. The rhythm he’d kept for me broke apart, and I felt him follow me over with my name torn from his chest so rough, I almost came again at the sound.

Stay.

My lips curve upward as a thrill goes straight through my chest. The smile widens until I’m grinning into his chest, eyes squeezed shut, trying not to laugh out loud and wake him up. Because Wyatt Hartley asked me to stay.

And I get to.

I get to stay.

I press my mouth to the scar on his chin, slow and sure, and his arm tightens around me in his sleep.

He stirs, pulling me flush against him so that every inch of my body is pressed to every inch of his. A low rumble builds in his chest before it reaches his throat. Half groan, half sigh, and completely involuntary.

I press my mouth to his throat, right where the stubble gives way to smooth skin, and feel his pulse jump under my lips. His hand slides down from my lower back, dragging along the curve of my hip, fingers catching on the hem of his shirt before settling on my bare thigh.

“Mornin’.” His voice is gravel—rough and sleep-thick and so low it vibrates through me where our chests are pressed together.

“Morning.”

His eyes open. Green, still hazy, blinking against the light until they find my face, and I watch the moment he registers where he is and who he’s holding. I’ve spent years imagining what the morning after would look like on Wyatt Hartley, whether there would be walls rebuilt overnight and distance measured out in careful inches.

There aren’t any.

His mouth curves into the slow, quiet version of a smile that I’ve only ever seen directed at Boone after a long day. The one that means he’s content all the way down to the bone and doesn’t have the energy to pretend otherwise.

“You’re starin’.” He blinks once.

“You’re worth staring at.”

“Debatable.” But his hand tightens on my thigh, thumb sweeping a slow arc across my skin that makes my breath catch. “How long you been awake?”

“Long enough to know you snore.”