The Wild

Tears well in my eyes. Mom kept this. Despite her detached personality, she was determined to take these memories with her. Memories of Drew and I. The dress is so pretty. It would have been perfect on Peach.

A sob catches in my throat, but I swallow it down. I stuff the dress back in the tub and seal the lid. One day I’ll pull this box out and properly look through it. The next box I open has books and notebooks

sleeping with his seventeen-year-old daughter, it fucks with my head. I live every day with this battle of morals. The fact that I’m easily cutting out the part of me that cares what people would think says that I’m losing myself. I’m not the man who drove that RV out here. I’m some beast the wilderness created. I take what I want and that’s you.”

Tears slip out of the corner of my eyes. “You didn’t have to take me. I gave myself to you. I’m yours. Here or out there. I always was.”

He smiles and leans forward to kiss my nipple. His breath is hot against me. “Tomorrow I’m going to hunt down that motherfucker. Then, I’m going to come back and make love to you until you’re pregnant again. I won’t let anything happen to you. So help me, I’ll kill every fucker on this planet before I let another person even look at you. You’re my secret. My everything. Nobody deserves to be in your presence. Mine.”

His possessive words aren’t playful. He’s dead serious. Just the thought of seeing anyone frightens me. I feel safe when it’s just me and Dad locked away by ourselves.

“Promise?”

He grabs my pinky with his. “On my life. Because if anything comes between us and hurts you, my life doesn’t matter anymore.”

stare at his handsome face that’s relaxed and happy.

“Do you love me like you loved Mom?” I ask, my voice but a whisper.

His thumb runs across my lips. “I loved your mom a lot in the beginning. But over time, I fell out of love with her. We just didn’t connect anymore. I wanted to love her. I forced myself to love her. But I wasn’t in love with her.” He leans forward and kisses me. “But you? I fucking love you more than words can describe. It isn’t a feeling—it’s like a storm that crashes into me and obliterates me. I can’t stop it. I wasn’t prepared for it. I just know that it’s the best thing and scariest thing to ever happen to me.”

I frown at him. “Why the scariest?”

His palm slides down to palm my breast as he frowns. “Because I’ve never felt like I couldn’t live without someone. What we have makes no sense outside of this cabin. It defies the rules and logic we were forced to learn. Laws are being broken—all of them I’m guilty of. Despite the chances we’re taking to be together, I’m diving headfirst. I don’t stop to think about repercussions or reality. All I know is I want you. If that means keeping you here forever all to myself, I’ll do it. I don’t want to return to society if it means what we have is seen as disgusting or wrong. And that scares the hell out of me. When I truly think about the fact that I’m a forty-year-old man who is