Waiting for Wyatt (Red Dirt #1) (16 page)

“
The Stand
. But sometimes I think it’s
Shawshank Redemption
,” he whispered. “Because most people don’t know it’s his.”

“I was afraid you were going to say
Pet Cemetery
. And that would be weird if you read that one to the dogs.”

“I’m not that twisted.” He lips turned up a little on the edges. “I didn’t read
Cujo
to them either.”

“Yeah, that would be pretty twisted.”

Wyatt rested in silence as his eyes blinked heavy with sleep, the shadows flickering across his pale face.

“You’re beautiful,” he mumbled. “I wanted to hear it out loud and not just in my head.”

His words hit me right in the middle of my chest and spread like wildfire under my skin. Hearing something like that from Wyatt burned deep.

“Did you decide that tonight in your flu delirium?”

“No.” A faint laugh came from his throat. His eyes peered into mine before drifting lower. “I think you have sexy lips too, like the fake kind girls have on TV.”

“They’re not fake.”

“I know. There’s nothing about you that’s fake. Not even on the inside.” His eyes finally closed for good, leaving just a wry smile on his lips. “That’s why you’re so beautiful.”

I was mesmerized by the thoughts he’d released into the safety of the darkness. Touching his face, I traced over the dimples. His breathing got deeper, sending the warm air over my face. I wanted to lean forward and press my mouth to his lips, but I would wait for him. Kissing Wyatt while he slept wasn’t a good idea.

He shifted his body, putting an arm around my back. Wyatt clutched me against his chest. My muscles froze for a moment, feeling the sudden full-body contact with him.

The fever burned through his shirt and radiated against my skin. It burned with the electricity that existed between us even as he slept.

I let myself rest against Wyatt, and it felt good. With each breath, his face became more relaxed. He seemed younger, sweeter, and full of innocence. A version of Wyatt that was free of the constant pain that always remained on the edges.

I woke up, seeing the early-morning light coming through the curtains. My eyes darted around for a moment as my thoughts registered. I was in Wyatt’s bedroom and his arms were circled around my body. His green eyes blinked back at me. He was awake. He was watching me. My stomach tightened, knowing Wyatt would be angry about me staying the night.

“Hi,” I whispered.

He didn’t respond, which caused a hundred bad thoughts to circle through my head. His face was blank and unreadable when his gruff voice finally answered. “Hey.”

“Do you feel better?”

“A little.”

My breasts pressed tight into his chest each time I took a breath. I wasn’t sure what I should say or do in this situation. After all, it was Wyatt and one wrong word could make him agitated.

Hesitating, I touched my fingers to his forehead. “I think your fever is gone.”

“That’s good. I hope I haven’t made you sick. I breathed germs all over you last night.”

“I’ll be okay.” Except I knew I wasn’t ever going to be fine again. He was like an infection that spread through my body, replicating in my mind and heart. Every breakthrough with Wyatt just made the infection invade new parts of my soul.

“I think I changed my mind about you being a nurse, though.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think you are supposed to sleep with your patients.” His lips were soft as he said the teasing words. He was flirting. I tried to calm the rush of feelings that flooded my heart. The more I felt his solid body touching me, the more I sucked in air, which pressed me tighter against his chest.

I was nervous. But a good kind of nervous. The kind that spoke of anticipation and excitement. I embraced the nervous jitters. They filled the space between our bodies, tightening the hold. It was a rush, a blissful surge under my skin that settled right behind my belly button and trickled down between my legs, lighting me on fire.

“Are you okay, Emma?” His gravelly voice hung on my name.

“Yes.” I felt embarrassed as I whispered the truth. “I like waking up with you.”

The words slipped out, and I regretted what I’d shared as I witnessed this new layer of Wyatt disappear right in front of me. His face tightened and sadness pulled at his lips, twisting his jaw against his teeth. Wyatt let go of my body and rolled over to his back.

“Well, it’s not like you’re the first girl that I’ve seen in the morning.” His words came out rough. “Most of them just had less clothes on.”

I sat up in the bed. Leaning over, I stared down into his troubled face. “People have pasts. I have a small one, but every guy I meet will have some kind of past.”

“Not like mine.”

“But all of that existed before.”

His eyes sharpened as fear settled in over his cheeks, making his skin even paler. “What do you mean
before
?”

“The before Wyatt. The person who existed before you decided to barricade yourself up out here.”

The muscles in his arms tightened. His fingers balled into fists. “You don’t know anything about who I was before here.”

“Then tell me. Let me decide.”

The battle raged inside his mind as I waited for Wyatt to come to some conclusion. His past had deep hooks right in the middle of his soul. A glaze slipped over his eyes. His fingers relaxed a bit and a wry smile brushed his tight face. “I was unapologetically sad.”

“That almost sounds poetic,” I whispered. Our eyes met, twisting into one of our stares. It pulled me closer to him as I looked down at his face. He was so captivating at times with his cryptic words.

“I read it in a book once. And I knew exactly what it meant. But I’m not sure you really do.”

“You underestimate me, Wyatt Caulfield.”

“And you’re too good for me, Emma Sawyer.” His gruff voice whispered my name as his fingers touched my cheek. They ran over my bottom lip. I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth spread through my body.

An aching pain simmered just under my skin. I kissed the end of his finger. I opened my eyes, seeing the guilty desire written all over his face as he touched my lips.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he whispered, leaving his fingers in place. I kissed his index finger again as he tugged at my bottom lip. “Emma . . . I wish this was possible.”

“I don’t understand why you think this is impossible.”

“There’s lots of reasons why.” His hand slipped away, leaving me wanting more. The muscles in my stomach tensed as he continued to gaze up at me. I wanted him to touch me again, dragging his lips over my skin until every place on my body knew how it felt to be kissed by Wyatt.

I heard a vibrating sound. Reaching over to the nightstand, I grabbed my phone from his dresser, seeing the text from my sister.

“You have to take me to campus. Come home.”

“I have to go. My sister needs me to take her somewhere. She doesn’t drive.” I climbed off his bed.

“Do you tell her the truth about me?”

“What’s there to tell?” I said, putting on my shoes.

“So you lie to her?”

“She knows you exist. And you live here.” I looked back at Wyatt, getting in one last stab. “You do realize not telling me things about yourself is the same thing as lying.”

Wyatt sat up in his bed as his eyes glazed over with a dizzy spell. “I’m trying to protect you, Emma.”

“From what?”

“
Me
.” The desperation ached in his voice.

“Maybe I want to make my own decision about you. Have you thought about that?”

“You don’t know any better. You are sweet, Emma. I see that about you. It’s like second nature for you to take care of everyone. You’ve got a whole weekly agenda designed around the people you help. You are a good person. Your heart is pure. I hurt people like you. I break them. Falling for me would not make sense.”

“It’s a little too late for that,” I muttered.

His face seemed to crush right before my eyes. “I told you not to.”

“You can’t control who cares about you, Wyatt. You can’t control my feelings for you.”

“I-I didn’t want you to feel this way.”

“How could I not? You’re so . . . so . . .
you
,” I whispered.

He seemed more scared than angry as my words hit their mark. “I’m sorry, Emma. I tried to stop it.”

I walked over to the side of his bed. My breath came in nervous bursts as I touched the stubble on his cheek. I ran my finger over his soft bottom lip, like he’d done to mine earlier.

“My heart aches for you, Wyatt. Every time I come here. You’re so sad and sweet and caring even though you’re convinced that you’re some awful person.” My fingers trailed down, coming to rest on his chest where his heart beat under my hand. “I think you’re beautiful in here too.”

Wyatt swallowed hard, making the skin around his throat move. “I’m sorry.”

“You haven’t done anything to be sorry for,” I said, turning his own words back on him.

The sadness resumed in lines around his lips. It pulled me to Wyatt just like it had done all the other times. I was still worried about him being alone and sick, but I needed to do my
good deed
and get my sister. “I have to go. Are you going to be okay by yourself?”

“Yes,” he muttered.

“Take some more Tylenol.”

“Okay.”

He settled back against the pillows. As I turned to leave the room, my flip-flop twisted beneath my foot. It happened fast. My knee buckled as I gasped in pain. I fell down on the brown shag carpet. I sucked in air, rolling around on my back. The pain spiked through my knee and down into my calf.

“Emma?” Wyatt was next to me on the floor. “Are you okay?”

“I-I’m.” I tried to scoot to a sitting position. A cry of pain escaped my lips as I stretched it out. Wyatt put his hands under my arms, pulling me the rest of the way up.

“Maybe I could—” His words dropped off as Wyatt realized how close his lips were to my face. He was touching me in a hundred different places as the pulsing vibe between us got stronger than the pain. His eyes flickered to my lips and back up. His breath brushed in slow waves over my cheeks.

Wyatt leaned forward, pressing those soft lips against mine. The pain disappeared. I forgot my leg even existed. The world stopped spinning and nothing mattered except the fact that this broken man had finally given into the desire that plagued his conscience.

He kissed me slowly, letting our mouths gradually burn together before he even dared to move. Wyatt made this a waiting game of sweet erotic torture as he sucked on my bottom lip. He teased and pulled it gently, letting his tongue trace the outside before slipping inside my mouth.

Slow, sweet, delicate movements until we merged, until I melted on the shag carpet. I melted as every thought disappeared into oblivion.

His fingers twisted up in my blonde curls. Every stroke of his tongue sent a spark shooting through my body. The strange electric pull between us got stronger, making our movements grow more intense. I needed to touch him. I needed to feel him. Digging my fingers into his shoulders, I pulled myself closer to Wyatt.

A noise came from low in his throat. He kissed me deeper, rougher. The slow torture moved to a desire that seemed just out of reach. Wyatt slipped a hand under my butt, pulling me into his lap. My knee draped over his thigh. I moaned a little from the pain as it gripped my leg.

He lifted his mouth from mine. “I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not hurting me.”

His arms circled around my whole body, crushing me against his chest. He held me tight as he tried to slow down his breathing. His green eyes gazed into mine, showing a mix of fear and desire. “Emma, I . . .”

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” I whispered.

“I tried, Emma,” he muttered, resting his forehead against mine. “But I couldn’t see you in so much pain and not kiss you. I had to. I’m sorry. I tried to stay away from you. But you just kept coming back here. And I didn’t want to stop you. Every time I saw you. I wanted to just . . . grab you. Kiss you until . . . it didn’t matter. But it’s wrong. No matter what I do.”

“I’m okay with this. With all of it. It’s not wrong to want me.”

“I don’t want you.” His words came with a vulnerable catch in his throat as he whispered, “It’s like I . . . I crave you. And it scares me. Because I think you make all of this better.”

A sweet flood of tingles swept under my chest and heart and down into my fingers, which clung to his shoulders. I held on to his flesh as those words rocked my very soul.

“That’s okay too.”

My pulse beat fast in my veins. His fear stayed just on the edge as Wyatt absorbed my words. Our eyes morphed into a stare before mine closed.

And then I felt him. His mouth, pressing against mine. His tongue, slipping through my lips. He kissed me, over and over again, as we held on to each other with our pace set by the electric force, pushing us together.

I crave you.

His words vibrated through my body. They tossed around inside my head as his fingers clenched my waist just below my breast. I knew this was a battle inside of him. He held onto my side like an anchor, afraid to touch the rest of me.