Page 59 of The Wildest One

She hesitated to respond but finally said, “No.”

“Which means you’ve thought about me … haven’t you?” My fingers stretched up her back.

“Of course I’ve thought about you.” Her voice still hadn’t gotten any louder, but those light-blue eyes were fuckingshouting at me. “I cared about you too, Beck. But I didn’t want to bombard you with messages. Given your job and where I lived, I knew the chances of anything more happening between us were slim. I still wanted something to happen though, and I really wanted nothing more than to bombard you with texts.” She put her hands on top of mine. “After the Africa thing, I just sorta … gave up.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

She scanned my eyes. “Why?”

“Think about what that would have shown me.”

She turned silent, and her hands lifted off mine.

“Did you ever think about what it would feel like if you saw me again?”

She nodded.

“What did that look like in your head?”

She attempted to take a step back, and when I gripped her tighter, she stayed put. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters.”

“Why?”

My hands lifted to her neck, and I held both sides. “Because you’re here. I’m here. And there’s a reason the fucking universe finally put us in the same place at the same time.” I paused, my thumbs stroking the bottom of her cheeks. “I’m not going to let you go.”

Her lips parted, her gaze turning even more intense. “What are you saying, Beck?”

“I want you to come home with me tonight.”

She let out the same noise as earlier, the one that sounded like a laugh, but wasn’t. “No.”

“Why? What’s stopping you?”

“Everythingis stopping me.”

“Give me one reason. I want to hear it.”

She glanced away and focused on something other than me until her eyes closed and her head fell slightly back.

“Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself what it would feel like to kiss you again?” I rubbed my nose over hers. “How fucking good it would feel to taste you.” I placed my mouth on her cheek. “Give me tonight, Jolie. Let me have your body. Let me do to it what I’ve been dreaming about. Let me show you how much I’ve missed you.”

When her eyes opened, they were finally giving me an emotion I understood.

So, I said, “Don’t question this. Don’t even think about it. Just give in to what your body needs—what you know I can give you.”

“I’ve always wanted you—that’s the problem.” She chewed the inside of her lip. “I’ll never be able to get you out of my head, and that’s also a problem.”

I didn’t see how either of those was an issue.

“Are you here for the night?” Based on how late it was and how she didn’t seem rushed to leave, I assumed she wasn’t taking a red-eye back to Boston, but anything was possible.

“Yes.”

“Are you leaving early tomorrow?”

Her chest rose high, and she didn’t let the air out when she replied, “No.”