The moment she whispered her assent, he released a soft grunt as if in relief, as if she really meant it, as if he was finally home and that’s what she wanted to be for him. But not yet.
God.
Why couldn’t anything be simple for five seconds?
“Quinn?” He said her name as a question, sensing the change in her.
She ignored him and went in for another kiss. Soon it would be day. Who knew what news the sun might bring? Best savor the connection here in the darkness.
“No.” He held her back even as his cock pressed into her thigh, long, hard, and insistent.
“It’s nothing. I’m being stupid.”
“You’re a lot of things, Trouble, but stupid isn’t one. What’s going on?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m scared.”
“Of me?” He pulled back an inch. “Because I’d never hurt you—”
“Not you.” She wiggled closer, closing the gap. “Never you. I’m scared of being the one to hurt you.”
“How?”
“I am going to find out my test results soon,” she said softly. “Maybe even today. And what if it turns out I carry the gene and that sometime in the distant, but not-too-far-off future, I’m going to get sick? I can’t ask you to sign on for that. We only just met and as much as this here—me and you—is amazing, important, life changing even, I want you to start living. Have the best chance at happiness, every good thing.”
He passed his fingers over her lips, in a smooth, strong, and unmistakably stop-talking gesture. “You’re tired so I’m going to chalk it up to that.”
“Chalk what up?’
“Acting crazy.”
She yanked away his hand. “Crazy? I’m being practical. I’m trying to help you—”
“Do you trust me?” he asked evenly.
“What?”
“Do. You. Trust. Me?”
“Of course.”
“Then trust me to decide what I can handle.” He stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Trust me to know what I can or can’t bear.” He shoved his arms under her arms, grabbing her back and rolling her on top of him, grazing his fingers across the dimples bracketing the base of her spine. This time his kiss held a savoring quality, breathing her in. His scruff rasped her cheek as he slid inside her, gently, carefully, inch by inch.
“You like me here?”
“Yes,” she whimpered helplessly. “Yes, so much. But—”
“Anything could happen, Trouble. Any second of any day. You could get that test result tomorrow and find out everything is fine, then be struck by a bolt of lightning or trampled by a moose in Montana.”
She took him deeper, faster. “A moose in Montana?”
“I’m taking you to Montana someday, Trouble. Need you naked, wet, and wanting under all the Big Sky.”
Her hips rose and rolled. “God, this feels good.”
“And it feels good to feel good, doesn’t it? All I care about right now is me and you. How you’re moving on me, how I’m moving in you. The rest is details.”
“Details?”
He reached back, grabbing the headboard, driving his hips up. “Look what we do together.” A pale light began to seep in. The first hint of morning after a long sleepless night. “Eyes down. I want you watching me, seeing what we’re doing to each other.”
She looked, and couldn’t stop staring. She’d never watched anything more fascinating than their bodies joining. She wanted to laugh and cry and didn’t know why.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I don’t know what waits ahead. But I want to find out the next chapter while standing beside you.”
Everything dissolved into slow, drawn-out friction. They took their time as if the day couldn’t scare them, as if the past and future didn’t matter, drawing out their pleasure until they trembled, quaking as if they were joining on a fault line. Pressure rose within her and she knew that once it gave way, she would never be who she’d been. Nothing made sense and why did it have to?
What if there were no mistakes, only events that serve as stepping-stones to a never-imagined place?
What if there were no mistakes and her entire life had been leading to this moment?
Every mistake had brought her here, to Wilder, to this dawn in his bed, two hearts beating to the same strong rhythm.
THEY WERE HAVING breakfast, looking over the “1001 Books to Read before You Die” list. “You’re going to have to let me make some additions to this,” Quinn said, sighing as Wilder worked his hand over her sole. He insisted on giving her a foot rub while she drank her coffee and far be it from her to tell him no. It was eleven and she wasn’t sure when she’d ever slept in so late. Soon there would be calls to insurance companies, her property management company, and her mother. A visit to Dad. A call from the hospital. But not now. Not yet.
Soon she’d need to handle so much that in this quiet late-morning moment, when Wilder asked to handle her, it was enough. It was as close to perfect as life could get.
Outside the world was white, pure, like the most perfect Christmas card with snowcapped peaks, and pines heavily laden.
“Look, there.” She pointed. Three deer moved noiselessly past the window.
“Move in with me,” he said, watching her instead.
“What?” she squeaked, and the deer jumped, reacting to her yelp, even from within the cottage.
“You don’t have a place to live and I like you in my bed.”
“Um, that’s great and all, but what about me burning dinner? I’m serious; my failed superhero alter ego is Kitchen Disaster Girl. You will lose weight and I’ll miss all those big strong muscles.”
“I’ll still want to kiss the cook and sneak a dirty peek under her cape.”
“Or what about the fact that I leave wet towels on the bathroom floor? Or the fact I’ll totally nag when you leave the toilet seat up?”
“Towels can be picked up and I never leave the toilet seat up.”
“Even as a bachelor?”
“Grandma Kane drilled that rule into us boys from the get-go. I couldn’t leave a seat up if I tried.”
“You’re serious?”
“There’s nothing to joke about here. I want you, want this.” He tickled her foot. “My alter ego is Ornery Bastard, but he’s met his match.”
“So no more hermit?”
“When I turned my back on the world, I missed some pretty damn fine sights.”
“Okay, Wilder Kane, then I need to ask you a question and I want the answer to be yes.”
He pulled her little toe. “Sure, as long as it’s not a proposal.”
She jerked. “That’s not what I was going to ask, but hang on. Are you saying you don’t want to make an honest woman out of me? Grandma Kane might have words to say on that subject.”
“It means that I’m going to be asking you, but I want to do the asking. I’m old-fashioned like that.”
Uncontrollable heat coursed through her abdomen. He was seriously considering spending his life with her? “Are you going to expect me barefoot in the kitchen?”
“No, unless you’re frying us up some pork chops and the rest of you is bare too.”
She giggled. “We’ll see if that can be arranged.”
“Because I’d have to hit it before we got to the meal.”
She pointed at her frames. “Can’t hit a girl with glasses.”
“Really? What if she looks really fucking sexy in glasses?”
“I guess there’s an exception to every rule.” She cleared her throat. “Now let’s be serious.”
“Okay.” His face lost its teasing humor.
She nibbled the corner of her lower lip.
“You look serious.”
“I am. Wilder Kane, do you solemnly swear that you’ll read with me in bed, every night, through sickness and in health?”
He gave a solemn nod. “I do.”
They grinned at each other as her phone rang. She glanced down and the screen read, “Brightwater Hospital.”
Chapter Twenty
WILDER KEPT HIS hands shoved in his pockets in the recreation room in the Mountain View Village’s Alzheimer’s Unit. This wing could only be entered with a code. Quinn was informed that her test results were in and she was set to meet with a doctor in an hour. She’d asked to come here first to see her dad.