“Like hell you don’t,” she whispers. Willa bites her lip and leans into me. “And don’t be sorry. I didn’t dislike it, for the record. I didn’t dislike it at all.”
My unease dissipates, and I tug her close, kissing her slowly.
When we pull apart, her smile is warm, so impossibly trusting and affectionate. I can’t get over watching those full lips part, that wide dazzling smile I’ve only ever seen her give me.
“Now get outta here, Slayer of Spiders.” Willa swats my ass. “And come back hungry.”
“Shit.”
I suck my finger into my mouth. Second time I’ve stabbed myself with a paring knife in the last five minutes. That’s what I get for trying to hull strawberries while watching Willa dance around in only one of my flannel shirts.
Fucking hell.
She bends over the dining room table, finishing setting it. Proper silverware, big wine glasses. She even went on a walk for some wildflowers and stuck them in a vase.
“Everything looks and smells great, Willa.”
Straightening, she turns and smiles at me. “Thank you. I wanted to make it nice, give you a big feast. All you’ve done is cook and take care of me.” She walks my way and wraps her arms around my waist. “Now it’s my turn.”
I’ve liked taking care of Willa. Now I’m starting to not mind when she wants to take care of me, too. Though I’ll always enjoy cooking for her, drawing her a hot bath, telling her to put her feet up and relax, it felt weirdly comfortable to finish my to-do list on the house earlier, then come inside to the view of her holding a bodice ripper in one hand while stirring au jus for the beef finishing in the oven.
Willa kisses me, and her wild hair tickles my arms. I pull her close and breathe her in. Sunscreen and flowers, a hint of herbs and red wine from cooking.
After one more kiss, I let her go. Willa sweeps up the bodice ripper off the counter which she took from the A-frame’s hodgepodge library. I watch her walk the other side of the counter, turn a page and absently sip her wine. Her hair’s the biggest it’s ever been because I literally cannot keep my hands off her. I keep dragging her back to bed, shoving my fingers into those gorgeous curly waves, tugging, knotting, breathing them in.
Aaand I’m hard now.
I glance down at my dick insistently tenting my sweatpants. “Chill out, dude.”
“You talking to your log jammer, Lumberjack?”
I startle and drop the paring knife before I stab myself again. A blush creeps up my cheeks. “Maybe.”
Willa sashays around the rest of the island and drops onto a stool. The beef just has to rest in the oven. Dinner’s ready. I’m making dessert. Willa seems content to sit in the quiet of the kitchen and read. It makes my heart tumble as I watch her reading and a blush tinging her cheeks.
“That is some vintage smut you found, Sunshine.”
Willa snorts and drops the book just enough to meet my eyes. “It’s so good. This duke is my kind of asshole.”
“Isn’t that stuff pretty misogynistic? Aren’t they all damsels in distress, in need of a good plundering?” I toss the strawberries into a bowl and add the sambuca, Grand Marnier, and sugar. Willa loves peppered strawberries, so I’m making them happen.
“Some of it is, yeah. But others aren’t. Like this one.” Willa turns the page and takes a sip of her wine. “It’s feminist, even though there’s ‘plundering,’ because she wants to be plundered. It’s feminist as hell, claiming your sexual preferences whether or not they include manhandling.”
I freeze with the cream in my hand, spoon in the other. “P-pardon?” My voice breaks. Great. I sound like a blushing teenager.
Willa lowers the book again. Her cheeks are bright pink. “You smacked my ass earlier.”
Jesus. “I did.”
“And I liked it.” Willa sips her wine and gives me a once-over. “You remember that text you sent?”
I pour cream over the strawberries and start stirring. “I’ve sent you a lot of texts, Willa.”
She rolls her eyes. “When I was on the road for playoffs. I threatened to shave your beard when I got back, and you told me that if I laid a hand to your facial hair—”
“You wouldn’t be able to sit for days.” I clear my throat as heat floods my cheeks. “Yeah, that was inappropriate of me.”
“But I liked that, too,” she says quietly. “I practically dropped my phone, I was so aroused. I felt like if I slid my hand inside my panties right then, I would have gone off like a firework.”
Blood roars in my ears. I don’t want to hurt Willa. In fact, I hate the idea of hurting her at all. I just like the idea of being intense. To hold her tight and fuck her hard, because it expresses how much she makes me feel, how deeply I want to be connected to her and her body. And, yes, I can admit some primal part of me gets turned on, swatting Willa’s fine ass and watching that turn her on.
But how can I do that when I can’t hear her well? I haven’t been rough at all because I’m not confident I can do it safely. What if I can’t hear Willa saying no? What if I miss some quiet cue that I’m making her uncomfortable or hurting her?
I stare down at the strawberries and stir them slowly. “Before…before things changed, I would have been right there with you, Sunshine. But, I don’t know if I can do that now.”
She sets down the book and reaches for my hand. I give it to her automatically and watch her small grip wrap around mine as best as it can. “Can you turn off the oven?”
My stomach twists. “Why?”
Willa grins shyly and releases my fingers. “I have something I want to try. Dinner can wait a little while.”
I flip the knob to shut off the oven and circle the island. Willa takes my hand again and pulls me past the dining room into the sunken living room. I showed her how to start a fire the other night, and she has. There’s a sea of blankets in front of the crackling hearth she built.
My stomach knots even tighter. “What is this?”
Willa squeezes my hand, then brings it to her lips for a kiss. “Hold on.”
Stepping to the side of the bookshelf, she pulls out a mirror that I recognize belongs to one of the bedrooms. It’s an oversized rectangle that is usually propped against the wall to function like a full-body mirror. Willa drags it carefully, a blanket underneath its side. Then, she tips it and props it against the end of the sofa.
She turns and smiles at me. “I hope you don’t find watching a turn-off. That was my solution. You’ll watch. You can read my lips.”
I cover my mouth with my hand and bite my palm. I feel stupidly close to crying. “God, Willa.”
She rushes toward me. “What’s wrong? Did I… Is it bad? Is it—”
I wrench her against me and kiss her roughly. Tongue, possessiveness. I bite the edge of her lip. “No. Not wrong. You’ve just…always taken me in stride. Accepted me for how I am.”
Willa frowns. “What else would I do, Ryder? I love you for who you are. Of course, I accept you for who you are. Just like you’ve accepted me.”
A shaky sigh leaves me as I tug her close to me again. “Maybe it’s because you met me when I was already like this, but you were the first person who just rolled with the punches. Who didn’t take my grumpy quietness at face value. You pushed past it and acted like we were just two people, being together.”