Right now, I was just going to embrace and enjoy that, for the first time in my life, someone cared enough about me that they wanted to hold me while I slept.
Chapter Sixteen
Zoey
Week two with the preacher brothers
I walked slowly by the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the Preacher brothers’ house. I didn’t know whose office this was, but I heard enough to figure out all four brothers had grown up in this house, their father a piece of shit who beat them. I knew Dom and Cullen, along with their women, no longer lived here. After they found their women, they moved out and got their own places together.
So it had just been Frankie and Wilder since then, and I knew they were close, being brothers, but even more so because of their twin connection. And I knew that’s why Frankie had done what he did.
I was roaming the house after dinner and found myself in here scanning the books that lined the shelves. I thought about the possibilities of getting lost in all the different worlds and lives that could be led between the pages.
Over the days that seemed to meld together, I continually asked myself why I hadn’t just left yet. I tried to reason that it was because the big-ass, scary Preacher boys were always around, and I guessed that was part of it, but the truth was, they didn’t scare me enough to try to not leave. There had been moments I could’ve snuck away, times where Dom was with Amelia, Cullen was with Kimber, and Frankie had disappeared into a room where he turned up the stereo and the sweet smell of pot seeped out from underneath the doorjamb.
There had been plenty of times I could’ve just left, said fuck all of this, fuck my purse and phone. I could’ve just withdrawn the little money I’d been squirreling away, gotten another pay-per-use phone, and just left, went somewhere no one could find me.
But I had a feeling a Preacher brother would have found me.
I could’ve ran, escaped. I was sure as hell good at it. But here I was, two weeks later, and still no closer to distancing myself for this situation or Wilder.
What in the fuck was wrong with me?
I left the office and turned the light off, my bare feet silently moving over the wood floor. Everything was so silent with the house empty, and as I passed the room I still shared with Wilder, I heard the shower running. Of course, I pictured him naked under the spray, all that hard, tattooed muscle wet. God, I bet he looked good totally naked. My body heated, and from zero to sixty, I got uncomfortably wet between my thighs.
I pictured me straddling him, the kissing, the grinding. That had been the last time we touched. Nearly a week had gone by, with the only intimate thing passing between us these heated, hooded looks.
Nearly a week of me lying in bed just feet from him, wanting nothing more than to slip between the sheets and press my body to his.
Did he picture that too? Did he ache for me in the same hardcore way I did for him? I assumed he did by how he looked at me, how he had this predatory expression on his face every time I was near. It was like he wanted to tear me up in the best of ways.
But I still stayed away, mainly because he stayed away. I wouldn’t be the one who made the first move. I figured if he wanted this to go further, he’d start it. I was also scared as hell of rejection. Even though I knew he desired me, he stopped us from going all the way once. I didn’t want a repeat performance.
I moved past the bedroom until I was standing in front of the large windows in the living room. I explored the house since being here, looking into rooms that had the doors open, catching pictures here and there of Wilder and his brothers at different stages in their lives. But I always felt eyes on me, someone watching me, maybe not worried I’d leave, because they could see how weak I was, but more so watching me out of curiosity.
Or maybe they thought I was an idiot, because I had just rolled over and submitted to them, didn’t try to fight back, didn’t even try to fight.
I pushed those thoughts away, because I was tired of feeling guilty for thinking them, tired of the shame for wanting Wilder over just the simple fact we lived two very different lives. I was tired of feeling like an idiot for not trying harder, for not being smarter in this situation, and for giving in to my basic instincts. And I was tired of feeling like I had no right to feel these things for him. I had every right. I deserved to experience them, to want him.
I exhaled and ran a hand over my hair, the ends slightly damp from my earlier shower.
I turned away from the window and started heading back toward the room. I’d just go to bed, sleep this off, and maybe in the morning I’d have a clear head and picture of what was going to happen and what I should do.
You fucking liar.
I made my back into the bedroom, Wilder still in the bathroom getting ready for bed, the small lamp on the little table by the couch on and giving the room a muted glow. My bed was already pulled out, because I hadn’t bothered righting anything after I woke up in the morning. What was the point?
I glanced at where Wilder slept, and like every time I looked at that bed, images of me on top of him as I worked myself back and forth along his massive length until I came played through my head. Then the memory of him holding me after I found that completion, after he denied himself, gave me this warm, calming, and fuzzy feeling.
I swallowed, my mind and body constantly at war these last two weeks. And if I were being honest, these fourteen days seemed to last forever yet moved by at lightning pace. It felt as if I lived a lifetime here, yet everything had gone by in the blink of an eye. It was enough to confuse a girl even more than adding these combustible feelings and arousal, made me feel like I was losing my damn mind.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my back to the bathroom door, knowing he’d be out any moment. I should have just gotten under the comforter and pretended to be asleep. It would have probably been easier than pretending I didn’t want to continue what we started. I told myself he had to heal, that even if he seemed stronger every day, he nearly lost his life, and fucking like wildcats probably wasn’t the best form of healing.
And when I resolved myself to do just that, the bathroom door opened, and I felt the humid air fall out of the bathroom and bathe my back in wet heat. I felt Wilder’s gaze on me despite the fact that I wasn’t facing him. My entire body was strung right, and it wasn’t lost on me that we were truly alone for the first time since all this happened.
Chapter Seventeen
Zoey
He’d left, gone to speak with Frankie, and I’d been a coward, darting into the bathroom when he stepped out, needing that one moment for myself, to clear my thoughts.
And here I was, ten minutes later, still in the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror, because I wanted to do something very specific with Wilder, but was afraid of the fallout, of what he’d say and how he’d react.
Man up. Stop running. Always running.
I took a stuttering breath in and left the bathroom, opening the door and seeing Wilder standing just a few feet from me.
I took that moment to look at him, to really look at him. Wilder’s hair was dark and short, damp from his shower, slightly disheveled. His facial bone structure was masculine, like it had been chiseled out of stone. His nose was straight and strong, and his jaw was masculine and square. The days’-worth of scruff that covered his cheeks and chin had heat licking over me and settling right between my thighs.