Wilder Page 31

  Fuck, I understand everything he’s saying, but wrapping my head around it with Brett is a whole other story.

  “Having said that,” Dad says, “I see now that Brett’s choices changed things for our family, and while he is still my son and I will treat him the same, I can’t expect you and Paul to do the same. I’m sorry I tried to force our family to be something it could never be again.”

  I sit with him while he drinks the rest of his beer. It’s the easiest silence we’ve shared in eight years.

  “Happy birthday, Dad,” I say, standing.

  “Thank you for coming home for it, son.”

  As I turn to leave, he says, “Justin, I’ve never seen you as happy as you are this visit. If you don’t marry that girl, you’re a fool.”

  41

  Scarlett

  “We’re here?” I ask Wilder as he pulls up at the end of a long dirt driveway out in the middle of nowhere. We’re surrounded by grass, trees, darkness, and stars.

  He smiles at me, reminding my butterflies they’re alive. “We’re here.”

  He leaves the engine running and the headlights on as he exits the truck. I’ve got my door open by the time he gets around my side, but he helps me out. He then grabs a blanket from the back of the truck and spreads it out on the grass. The headlights illuminate the area beautifully.

  “What is this place?” I ask as he uses Bluetooth to connect his phone to the car and puts music on, some of the country stuff he loves.

  “It’s land that a friend owns. He never plans to build on it. He just uses it for camping and lets us come out here whenever we want.” He pauses before adding, “And no, I’ve never brought a girl out here.”

  I move into him, my hands going to his chest. “I know you haven’t.”

  His arm slides around my waist as he begins slow dancing with me. “How do you know that?” he asks, his voice husky in all the right ways.

  “Because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I’m way more than a nine to you and anyone greater than a nine deserves something special. Something you’ve never given to anyone else.”

  He cups my face. “You’re finally getting it, Cherry Bomb.”

  “I finally am.” I bring my arms up around his neck. “How much more talking do we have to do before you make good on your promise?”

  “This is the only situation in which I like your impatience.”

  “And this is the only situation in which I wish you weren’t the most patient man in the world.”

  When he lets me go, I frown and he says, “I’m just switching the truck off.”

  I glue my eyes to his ass while he walks to the truck and then to his lips when he comes back. The only light now comes from the stars above, so I struggle to make out his lips, but as he draws closer, I find them. And hell if he doesn’t give them to me exactly how I want them.

  “Two days without you and I’m a desperate fucking man,” he growls, catching my lips, my attention, and my ability to think straight.

  This is a new kind of kiss from Wilder.

  Way more demanding than any we’ve shared.

  And way fucking hotter.

  Holy fuck me under the stars always and forever.

  When we finally come up for air, I say, “A part of me thinks we should go two days without sex often, but the other part of me thinks this part should shut the fuck up.”

  He reaches for the zip of my dress. “This part of you should definitely shut the fuck up. We’re never going without it for two days again.” When he can’t get the zip to go down, he says, “Burn this fuckin’ dress when you get home. It’s too fuckin’ hard to get off you.”

  I help him unzip it. “It’s Harlow’s. I’m never wearing it again. I’m never wearing any dress ever again.”

  He strips me of it and flicks my bra to undo it. “Let’s not get carried the fuck away. You wear a dress better than any fuckin’ woman out there.”

  I tear his shirt off. “I do not.”

  “You fuckin’ do.”

  I work the button and zip of his jeans to undo them and push his pants down so he can kick them and his boots off. “I fucking don’t and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

  He takes hold of my face, slowing me right the fuck down. “Darlin’, by the time I’m finished with you, I’ll have convinced you of everything I see when I look at you. And trust me when I tell you, your curves are made for a dress.” When I open my mouth to speak, he silences me with his finger to my lips. “No more talking. I’m ready for you to go the extra mile now and show me what else these lips can do.”

  With that, he takes me down to the blanket with him and kisses me so thoroughly I almost forget my own damn name.

  When he’s finished with my mouth, he works his lips down my body, dedicating time to every inch of me. By the time his tongue finds my clit, I’ve declared today’s date a new national holiday. It’s called Wilder Day, and if the government can’t get on board with declaring it as such, no worries to me because I’ll get on board all by myself. There will be cake and lollies and that special ice cream I discovered tonight. And there will be lots and lots of time spent in Wilder World. I mean, Wilder Day is all about the dick really. A girl could even be tempted to skip the cake and lollies and ice cream for said dick.

  “Oh fuck!” I scream as Wilder alternates between killing me with his tongue and his fingers.

  My legs go around his neck, and I contemplate whether I could lock him down there for life. Surely that wouldn’t go against the law. Surely.

  Right as I’m trying to figure out how to get away with this, he does something new with his tongue, like I can’t even describe it because, bam, he just did it, and now I’m shattering all over the place here, unable to think a thought except that he should really just do that again. And again. And fuck it, again and again.

  My arms fling out to the sides as his hands go to my thighs, and he pushes my legs apart and does other new things to me.

  What even is life?

  I mean, seriously, at this point, I’m ruined, and all I want, every minute of every day, is this man’s mouth on me.

  “Give me your eyes, Scar,” he rasps.

  I do as he orders and almost come at the look in his.

  It’s pure carnal desire.

  “Now give me your fingers,” he says, and I do that too. “Touch yourself.”

  I bite my lip as I touch my clit.

  Wilder pushes his tongue inside me as he watches my fingers. He reaches down and strokes himself and fuck if that doesn’t make me rub myself harder.

  “I want your tongue on my clit,” I say.

  He looks up at me while we swap places, and then he drags his gaze back down to watch me finger myself.

  “Fuck,” he growls, stroking himself faster.

  Suddenly, it’s all too much for me.

  The stars.

  The pleasure.

  The overwhelming feelings.

  Sitting up, I take hold of his face and drag him to me, kissing and clawing at him like I can’t get enough of him.

  To be clear, I can’t.

  I want Wilder in ways I’ve never wanted a man.

  And tonight, now, after everything we’ve experienced together since that first night we danced, I’m wide open.

  My arms.

  My heart.

  My life.

  I want him.

  As simple as that.

  “Fuck,” he says, coming up for air. “I need to be inside you.”

  I kiss him again.

  Madly.

  Deeply.

  With every breath I have.

  “Fuck yes,” I say when I let his lips go.

  He takes me down to the blanket again.

  I wrap my arms and legs around him.

  And I pull his face back to mine as he thrusts inside me.

  God. Is. A. Woman.

  I know this because only a woman would design a dick so perfectly that it could give me so much pleasur
e.

  This is the last thought I have before losing myself completely and utterly to Wilder.

  When I come, it’s the best orgasm he’s given me, and I’m pretty sure a lot of that has to do with the fact I feel like I’m way deeper in this with him now.

  “Fuck me,” he says after coming. “You’re fuckin’ killing me, Scar.” He rolls onto the blanket and pulls me against him. “Every fuckin’ time is better than the time before.”

  I smile up at him. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  He lifts his head so he can kiss me.

  When he’s done, I slide my leg over his and say, “I’m so glad I came here with you.”

  “You like fucking me under the stars?”

  “I meant I’m glad I came to Mt Isa with you. I’ve loved meeting your parents, and seeing where you grew up, and meeting Miranda John, and—”

  “Smartass.”

  I smile against him. “I would definitely fuck you under the stars again too.”

  “I fuckin’ like having you here, darlin’.”

  I cup his face and bring my mouth to his again and kiss him slowly. I think I could kiss this man non-stop for the rest of my life.

  When I end the kiss, he says, “You should do that again.”

  “I should, but there’s something I want to tell you.”

  His eyes search mine. “Okay.”

  I take a deep breath. “My family isn’t like yours, Wilder.”

  His arm tightens around me. “Tell me about them.”

  My heart doesn’t even race a little bit as I say, “We didn’t have family weekends like this one. We didn’t have fun. We didn’t have laughter. And we never looked forward to spending time with each other like your family does.”

  I take another deep breath while Wilder waits for me in the way he’s so good at doing. “My mother turned to drugs when she was fifteen to deal with the fact she was forced into prostitution by her father. Her mother was also forced into prostitution by him when she was fifteen. It was the magic number in her family, with both her sisters also having to do it. When I was four, my mother arranged for the local MC president to take care of her father once and for all. She swapped one pimp for another in a way because from that day on, bikers came and went from my life in a revolving door of sex, drugs, and violence.”

  Wilder’s arm around me doesn’t loosen. He keeps a tight hold of me as he says, “You grew up with bikers?”

  “Yeah, they were always around. Mum continued working as a prostitute, but the bikers never paid. The president made it clear she’d be working off her debt to him for life, and that involved looking after his boys whenever they wanted. They weren’t like you guys. They were fucking assholes.”

  “Any of them touch you?” There’s an intensifying tension vibrating from him, something I didn’t want to cause, but knew probably would. Wilder has a protective streak a mile long, which I’ve grown to like, but he can’t protect me from my past.

  I reach up and kiss him. “This isn’t a pretty story, Wilder.”

  The tension continues to roll off him. “Did any of them touch you?”

  “I wasn’t raped, no.”

  He works his jaw. “Scarlett, answer my question.”

  “Mum might have saved us from having to whore ourselves out, but she found other ways for us to help fund her drug habit. She made Phoebe and me watch while she fucked her clients. They paid more for that. Sometimes they touched. Sometimes shit got a little out of control when she told them not to touch.”

  “How?” he demands.

  “Some of them would hit her, and sometimes that led to a full-on beating. There was this one guy—” I swallow hard as I remember “—who I swear would book a session with us in there just so he could beat her up while we watched. It got him off, the beating and the blood and the violence while knowing we were watching. He would touch us just to get Mum worked up. He didn’t touch us once they were fighting. Then, he’d jerk off all over Mum as she lay there beaten and bloody, while making us watch.”

  “Fucking hell, Scar,” Wilder says, his face twisting with anger and torment. “Fucking motherfuckers.”

  The old familiar feelings of shame and being dirty flood me and I do my best to push them away. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fully step away from those feelings, but I’m beginning to wonder if having Wilder and Paul in my life will help me.

  “I learned a lot of fucked-up ways of thinking about sex and men from my mother. At first, I used to give myself to anyone who told me they wanted me. Then, at the age of seventeen, I stopped having sex and didn’t have it again for three years. I’ve done some therapy and a lot of work myself on it, but you need to know that sometimes I lose my way and if I do, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “It’s a fucked-up world when a girl stops having sex at the age a lot of girls start,” he says.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  I turn silent, running my fingers over his chest. This has become one of my favourite things to do. I love sex with him, but quiet time with him is something I crave too.

  We don’t talk for a long while until I say, “Where’s your phone?”

  He reaches for it. “Here. Why?”

  “I want to take a selfie of us.”

  His lips pull up in a smile as he passes it over.

  I know it’s not going to be a great photo in the middle of the night, but I don’t care. I want to capture this moment and I want to put it on my fridge. I’ve never had memories worth putting on my fridge before.

  I snap the photo and then send it to myself before passing him back the phone.

  Cuddling up to him, I say, “It’s fucking cold out here. You need to take me home and you need to sleep in my bed with me tonight.”

  He grins before getting up and holding out his hand to me. Pulling me close, he wraps his arms around me and says, “I don’t want to ever sleep in any bed that you’re not in, darlin’,” before kissing me and making me forget how damn cold I am.

  He then gets me dressed, drives me home, takes me to bed, makes me scream his name, wraps his arms and legs tightly around me like he’s never going to let me go, and continues on that quest I know he’s on to show me he’s the man I need by my side.

  42

  Scarlett

  “Like this?” I ask Susan as she teaches me how to make bread early Sunday morning.

  “Yes, perfect. You’re a natural at this.”

  Not gonna lie, I’m into this. Having never had a mother who taught me shit or who praised me for anything, Wilder’s mum is hitting all my sweet buttons. At this point, I imagine a lot of Skyping with her in the future. She mentioned it to Wilder earlier, that he should Skype with her since she’s just learned how to do it, and the needy little girl who lives deep inside me is already planning the Sunday afternoon Skype parties we could have. I mean, I wasn’t invited, but I think it’s safe to say she’d be okay if I tagged along. Jesus, slap me now.

  Wilder and his dad come into the kitchen while Susan and I are kneading the dough. They’ve been outside doing boy shit. I heard them talking about John Deere, who I imagine must be a neighbour. I think maybe he wants to borrow Douglas’s mower or something. Who knows what these men get up to in the country. Seriously. They were going on about John for a long time.

  “How long until lunch?” Douglas asks.

  “About an hour,” Susan says.

  Wilder moves behind me, his hands going to my hips and his mouth to my ear while his parents discuss lunch. “You good?”

  “Yes. I can now make bread. Like, you should prepare to be eating bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a while.”

  I feel his smile against my cheek before he kisses me there. “You gonna take away my favourite job of the day, darlin’?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Getting your bagel.”

  Holy fuck, and why are his parents in the kitchen with us?

  I would do him on this kitchen counter right no
w if they weren’t.

  “Okay, country boy, you need to step away.”

  More of that smile against my cheek and then another brush of his lips there too before he comes in with the finale of all finales and muddles me completely with one of those smacks on my ass he likes to dole out.

  “You’re good for him,” Susan says after Wilder and his dad leave us.

  I smile at her, kinda unsure what to say. I mean, is “thanks” the appropriate thing here? Or should I ask why? Or do I just stay quiet and hope like fuck she fills the void of me not having a fucking clue how to navigate these daughter-in-law/mother-in-law conversations? And holy hell, that escalated fast. Wilder and I just started making sandwiches a couple of weeks ago. Susan and I are nowhere near in-laws yet.

  She smiles. “Scarlett, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, honey. I just have never seen Justin so happy with anyone before and I wanted you to know that.”

  I take the breath I didn’t know I’d halted. “Thank you for saying that. I really like being with him.”

  “I’m going to ask him and Paul to come home again in a couple of months for Father’s Day. I would love to see you again.”

  And there goes my needy inner child. She’s cartwheeling all over the place. God help us all.

  “I’d like that too.” Those are four words I have never uttered in my life and I have zero regrets about uttering them now. Yes, I admit, I don’t recognise myself either.

  We finish with the bread and clean up before I head into my bedroom to finish packing. We’re leaving just after lunch and I promised Wilder I wouldn’t make us late. I mean, just because we ran late getting to the airport to come to Mt Isa because I was having a mini meltdown on the inside over meeting his parents doesn’t mean I’m always gonna make us run late. The man needs to settle.