He moved.
We moved.
My heart? It leaped, free falling into Slade Wylder’s world.
Vulnerable.
Frightened.
Suicidal.
Stupid, crazy, impulsive heart.
In the early morning, a good hour before sunrise, I opened my eyes, relishing the lulling sound of the waves below and the naked body at my back—legs and arms intertwined with the blankets and each other. Somewhere he began and I ended, but I had no clue where.
As if he sensed my open eyes, his hold on me tightened, and he buried his nose into my hair, pressing his lips to my ear. “I love you back.”
Drawing in a shaky breath, I covered his hands with mine, squeezing them as a tear slipped down my cheek. One tear he would never see. I should have been elated, but I was too busy being scared out of my mind because I had this feeling … a terrible unexplainable feeling that he wasn’t simply going to break my heart, he was going to shatter it beyond repair. And I would live my life as a jaded lover who would never trust another man again.
All in.
Smart women saved a part of their hearts—like if even a small part were left intact, it could grow a full heart again. One cell at a time.
Nope. I let the whole fucking organ dive off the cliff, which meant he would leave me heartless and broken.
Chapter Nineteen
Wylder
I never asked questions.
I was trained not to ask.
I just did as I was told.
What I didn’t do was look after young women like a bodyguard. It fell out of my area of specialty. But … I never asked.
The less I knew, the better. A safeguard for everyone.
So there I was—protecting her, fucking her, loving her. I thought. Love wasn’t part of my life in the way Livy gave it. I just felt something so foreign it scared me. And nothing scared me up until that moment. It had to be love.
Somewhere along the way, I think I was trained to not love that way. No one could have trained me for her.
“Fuck … I’ve met my match,” I mumbled to myself, straddling my board, feet numb in the cold water as Livy came down the barrel of the wave like a pro.
Long blond hair whipping to the side.
A grin fracturing her face in two.
And screaming, “Wylder!”
We spent the next three hours surfing. She would have kept going, but Jericho wasn’t the best beach dog, and I had a paper to write if I wanted to graduate that year.
“You weren’t too bad.” She smirked, peeling off her wet suit as I secured the boards to the top of the sprinter van.
“Thanks,” I chuckled. “Jericho.” I whistled for him to get into the van.
“You gonna feed me?” She sat on the floor of the van with her feet dangling out the side door in a pair of bikini bottoms and an off-the-shoulder faded sweatshirt.
Legs for days.
Sun-kissed skin.
The whole damn package.
I pushed down my wet suit past my hips and sat next to her to peel off the legs. She hopped out and grabbed it, releasing my legs quickly and tossing it in the back on top of hers.
“I’ll feed you at my house. I have to get my paper done.”
“Because you’re behind … from being gone so much.” She inspected me through narrowed eyes, straddling my lap.
I waited for her to elaborate, asking me more about my absence, but she didn’t.
“You on that board …” I relinquished a slight grin and an easy head shake as I whistled.
Pride bloomed along her cheeks and curled her lips. “You like watching me surf?”
My hands slid up the back of her loose sweatshirt, quickly discovering she’d discarded her bikini top. “I like watching you everything.”
“Wylder …” she whispered, just before kissing me and rubbing herself against my erection.
A gust of wind kicked up some dirt in the parking lot as some people got out of an SUV maybe twenty yards away. She broke our kiss and glanced over her shoulder at them. We could have climbed into the bed and shut the side door.
Not Livy.
She pushed down the front of my thin shorts and lifted onto her knees just enough to slide the crotch of her bottoms aside and sink onto me with a small gasp at her lips. I cupped her ass. Anyone looking at us from that distance wouldn’t have seen any naked parts, but if they focused on our movement, they would’ve known exactly what we were doing.
We had no fucks to give to anyone but each other in that moment.
The problem?
I had this woman in my life, but I had no real room for her. No future to offer her. No promises. Nothing …
What were the chances of her not asking for anything beyond that moment?
*
We fell into an easy groove. If all “relationships” were like ours, I had no idea what so many guys complained about.
Livy spent a lot of time with her friends. She surfed a shit ton. Occasionally, she did some actual schoolwork that took her longer than thirty minutes. When I worked on my metal projects, she used my weights to work out. The way she attacked my punching bag stunned me on more than one occasion. Her aunt knew some solid shit.
Jericho loved her—nearly as much as he loved me. More … according to Livy. The sex … no words. She wanted it all the time and everywhere. Spontaneity was her specialty.
“What are you baking?” I asked, when Jericho and I came home after several days away. Several days of Livy not asking me one damn question about my whereabouts.
Again … the woman was perfect.
“Wylder …” Livy turned to face me, licking something from her fingers. “I missed my boys.” She wasted no time throwing herself into my arms and wrapping her legs around my waist.
After she kissed me, I grabbed her hand and sucked the fingers she licked just seconds earlier. “Mmm … what is it?” I walked us to the island and set her on it.
“Cookies for you. They just went into the oven. Twelve minutes. Eleven now.” Her hands worked the button and zipper to my pants.
Nobody had it better than I did.
We fucked on the island in eight minutes, dressed by nine, cookies out of the oven by the eleven-minute mark.
“I found a recipe that I think is similar to your mom’s. They’re hot, but I want to know what you think.” She peeked her head into the bedroom, holding a plate with a cookie on it, while I unpacked.
“You made my favorite cookies?”
“Of course. And I got cow ears and dehydrated duck feet for Jerry.” She lifted the cookie to my lips. Her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail but a bit mussed from my hands messing with it while we greeted each other on the kitchen island.
At first, everything tasted familiar. The oats, the spices, the hint of orange. Then my face contorted, and I stopped chewing. Worse than that, I grabbed the plate and spat out the half-chewed bite.
Livy gasped.
“What did you put in them?”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust as did mine when we stared at the plate.
“It’s a raisin,” she glanced up at me, eyes wide like “duh.”
“Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Not oatmeal raisin.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
“I know, but I forgot to get chocolate chips at the store, and Kara was coming this way. We had raisins at our place, so I figured it would be fine. I mean … oatmeal raisin is kinda the original oatmeal cookie.”