Page 17 of Loving Wild

“We can try. While we’re doing that, can we work on you not wanting to move out every time I fuck up?”

“We can try,” she throws my words back at me with a shrug.

“Good, because we both know that’s not what either of us wants. Now, you gonna come over here and kiss me?” I ask.

“I haven’t cleaned my teeth. I have a combination of morning and coffee breath, so no.”

“Woman, I’ve had my tongue and my fingers buried in your arsehole. You really think I’m worried about a bit of morning breath?”

She makes a snorting sound as coffee explodes out of her nose and mouth. Taking her mug from her hand, I grab a tea towel and start wiping her face, but she snatches it from me and covers her mouth with it.

“You okay?” I ask as she glares at me with watery eyes. “What?” I question as she launches the tea towel at me.

Shaking her head, she says nothing for a second before a smile spreads across her lips. Frowning at her in confusion, I ask again, “What?”

“If I was to write a book about my life, people would call bullshit and complain that things like this would never really happen.”

I shrug. “Only the people who live boring lives,” I tell her as I move my hands to her hips and press her against the benchtop.

“Only the people livingnormallives, Gabe. What’s happening to usisn’tnormal,” she looks up and says quietly. “My head and my heart can barely keep up.”

“Unfortunately, domestic violence is a fact. It happens every single day to someone, the same as falling in love. Hopefully, there’s a lot more of that going on than there are people being assaulted by their partners, but, yeah, it’s happening. Every minute, of every day, somewhere in the world, people are feeling as confused as we are.”

“Is that what this is? Is that what’s happening?” she says on a long, slow exhale.

I kiss the top of her head, then her forehead, before looking back down at her. “Not sure how you’re feeling, not sure howI’mfeeling, to be honest, apart from hungover as fuck right now, I know I’m feeling that.” My eyes move to her mouth as I watch her fight a smile. “If I didn’t know what a warm and caring person you are, I’d think you were enjoying my pain and suffering right now.” I narrow my eyes and accuse. She shrugs as her smile grows bigger.

“Just get on with it, Wild.”

“You can be really harsh at times, you know that?”

“You’ve seen nothing yet,” she says with a headshake and a wink that makes my dick twitch against her belly where it’s pressed between us. She looks down before looking up with her brows raised.

“I thought you were in pain and suffering?”

“Woman, I could be at death's door and still get a boner around you.”

“That, right along with how you tongued my arsehole, are possibly the most romantic things I’ve ever heard, and don’t call me woman.”

“You love it.”

“Which bit?” she questions.

“All of it. Me talking about tonguing your arse, me calling you woman, my dick getting hard when it’s pressed against you but especially justme.” I shrug and wait for her reaction. Her eyes dance across my face before landing on mine, but she doesn’t say a word.

“I’m not there yet, Ren, but I’ve never been there, so I could be totally wrong about this.” Sliding my fingers to either side of her neck, I brush my thumbs gently over her bruised jaw and cheeks. “But I’m falling hard and fast. I’m scared, shitting myself if you wanna know the truth, but excited at the same time. I want this, I want us to work, but like I said, I’ve never been there, never been in love, and like I did last night, I’m gonna fuck it up sometimes. I just want you . . .needyou, to have a little patience with me when that happens.”

She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, a single tear rolls down her cheek.

“Don’t . . .” I shake my head and start to say.

“This isn’t how I planned on spending my day,” she interrupts me with a head shake. “I was going to curl up on the sofa, sulk, and ignore you. I planned on being pissed off with you all day. Maybe tomorrow too . . . then you come out with shit like that . . .”

“Shit like that?” It’s my turn to interrupt. “Wow, Ren, just wow.” I throw one of her favourite terms back at her.

“It’d be really easy to go back to being pissed off and putting youbackon my shit list you know,” she says as she narrows her eyes and looks up at me.

“But you won’t, coz I’m hot, I say nice things, I call you woman, and I’m really horny right now, and we both know you can’t keep your hands off me, so, let’s just move things along to the point where we fuck, shall we? I’ll give you my dick, feed you some food, then we can both curl up on the sofa, but there’ll be no sulking or being pissed off involved.” I grind against her as I speak. She opens her mouth but doesn’t get any words out before my phone chimes with a message. I don’t want to reach for it, but we have a lot going on right now, and it could be important.