Page 64 of Wild About You
Until I can. Straightening back up after a few minutes, I swipe under my own eyes and meet his gaze. “I fucking did that! I looked like an absolute nutjob and said things that hopefully never leave this forest, but I faced down a bear and walked away just fine! Can you believe it?”
This is followed by a rather witchy cackle. Finn continues to eye me for a moment before his expression eases, a slow smile forming. “Hell yeah, you did. You did that, Natalie.”
“I did that!”
“Your biggest fear since we started this thing, and you just handled it like a pro.”
“Bears fear me now!”
“Not sure what the whole tent cape was about, but it worked in your favor.”
“Long story, but you’re right, it did!”
“I’m so proud of you.”
My response to those soft, sincere words is to throw my arms around his neck and claim his lips with mine. Finn catches me against him, tightening his arms around my back to hold me up as he quickly matches my fervor with his own, kissing me like it’s the first time all over again. In a way, it feels like it is. Like it’s my first kiss ever, or at least the first one with someone who’s truly known me—the best of me but also my least flattering, darkest, messiest sides, and he still wants every bit of it. Every bit of me.
Our kiss is frantic, devouring at first, then melts into the slow, deep kind that could go on for minutes or hours. Each pull of his lips on mine, trace of my tongue to his, feels like an answer to one of the questions still hanging over us.
Are we doing this? Yes.
Even though I can be difficult? Yes.
And you can lose patience? Yes.
You’re sure that—? Yes. Shut up. Just kiss me.
But I know there are still words to be said, and in time, I pull back, letting my forehead rest against his as our panting breaths mingle. Finn lowers me to the ground but keeps his head bent close to mine. I’m about to begin when he gets there first.
“Did you read my note?”
I frown, tip my head to the side. “Note?”
Finn’s face flushes even redder than it was from the kissing and he starts to step back, but I can’t let him. I grab his T-shirt in my fist and hold him in place. “I didn’t get any mere note. I got a letter, a tome, my new favorite work of literature that has ever existed, a masterpiece on orange envelopes—”
“Okay, you’re evil,” he says.
I giggle like the smitten little bear conqueror I am. “I’m a better actress than I thought, apparently. But Finn…” I continue with nothing but sincerity. “I’m sorry. For everything—for trying to push you away, and not trusting everything you’ve said to me, how cared for you’ve made me feel. I know it comes from my own shit I need to deal with, and I’ve put things on you that aren’t fair—”
“It’s okay,” he says, shaking his head quickly. “I know I’m not the best at being supportive or encouraging. Or, well, the easiest to be around in general. I’m working on it.”
“No,” I cut back in. “You’re super supportive. I know you’ve worked on it and you’ve changed so much, even in the short time I’ve known you. But I have plenty of work to do too, and like you wrote, I want to work on things with you in my corner. Start dealing with things that scare me.” I gesture back in the direction of the showdown. “I guess I’ve already started, just now.”
“Hell yeah, you have,” Finn says, brushing a soft kiss across my forehead.
I lean in and wrap my arms around him, resting my chin on his chest. “Are there more forehead kisses in it for me? Like, as motivation. Confront some anxiety or unprocessed trauma, get a forehead kiss afterward?”
“I think that can be arranged.” He plants another one on me. “That one was a freebie.”
Laughing, I stand on my toes and bring my lips to his again. When, still lip-locked, he leans forward, picks me up with a hand on the back of each of my thighs, I startle at first then go along with it as he guides my legs to wrap around his waist. But then he starts walking, and I pull back.
“Where are we going?” I ask breathily, dropping quick kisses on his cheeks, nose, chin.
“I’ve been reading this book…,” he says, a sultry, teasing note to his voice that sends a chill down my spine. My spine, which is then gently pressed against the trunk of a tree, Finn’s perfect body caging me in. “Hot on Her Trail. You might know it?”
I nod, biting down on my smile, and his eyes zero in on my lower lip.
He continues, “It’s convinced me of the merits of making out against a tree.”