Page 109 of Her Wicker Guardian

This time when he kisses me, there’s less hesitation in it. He doesn’t wait for me to lead. He tilts my head with the hand in my hair and kisses me like he’s already learned what I like and intends to prove it.

I lean into him. Really lean. His body is warm and solid beneath my hands, but there’s still that slight living give to him, nothing like the rigid wicker I expected the first time I touched him. My fingers slide into the softer growth at the back of his neck, and the resonance inside him deepens. I’ve heard it before, but this is different. The low vibration travels through his chest and into my palm, and the knowledge that I caused it sends heat straight through me.

I feel it everywhere we touch, which should be strange. Instead, it makes me want to be closer.

I move into him until there’s almost no space left between us. His erection presses against me again, but now I’m ready for it. The awareness goes straight through me, low and hot, and I have to tighten my fingers at his neck to keep from making another sound.

Locke notices anyway.

His mouth leaves mine for only a second. “You liked that.”

Heat climbs my face. “Yes.”

“When I was against you.”

“Yes.”

His hand stays at my waist, but I feel the question in the stillness of him.

“You can do it again,” I whisper.

He presses closer. Slowly. A sound comes out of him I haven’t heard before, low and rough, more breath than resonance.

The friction is barely there, more promise than movement, but my whole body answers it. My breath catches, and the heat tangles with something softer, something that makes my chest ache.

Because it’s Locke.

Not because he’s strange or impossible or because I haven’t touched anyone in too long.

Because it’s him.

The man who notices when I’m afraid. The man who waits for me to choose. The man who learned what a kiss was five minutes ago and is already treating every yes I give him like something precious.

I fist my hand in his shirt and walk him backward until the counter stops him. He lets me. He could plant his feet and I’d be pushing against a tree. Instead he goes exactly where I steer him, his hands never loosening, his eyes never leaving mine.

Then I kiss him the way I’ve wanted to since the night on the couch.

Locke makes that low, rough sound again and opens his mouth under mine. The hand at my waist pulls me flush against him, the one in my hair tightens, and for a few seconds there’s nothing in my kitchen but the two of us and the hum of him going straight through my ribs.

He tastes green and fresh and entirely unlike anyone I’ve ever kissed, and I want more of it. More of him.

By the time I finally pull back, my breathing is uneven and my hand is still tangled at the back of his neck. His mouth looks darker, the way the willow darkened under the shower, and every small leaf along his throat has turned toward me the way they turn toward the sun.

Locke watches me carefully. “Still okay?”

A laugh slips out. I’m pressed so close to him there’s barely air between us, and he’s still worried about whether I’m okay.

“Very okay, Locke.”

“Then why did you stop?”

I rest my forehead against his chest. The rhythm inside him is stronger now, steady beneath my skin.

“Because I want to go slowly.”

“Slowly.”

“Yes.”