I sleep for a very long time. Luckily my flight got in on a Friday, so I’ve got the weekend to collect myself, get my shit together again, recalibrate my brain from ‘arctic research’ mode to ‘regular workday’ mode.

And also figure out what’s going on with Wilder. Forty-eight hours should be about enough to talk through years and years of misunderstandings, trauma, hurt feelings, and longing, right? Right.

I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling. It’s an ugly, popcorn ceiling, and it’s somehow gotten dusty. How does a ceiling even get dusty?

On the other side of the wall, the shower cuts off. In the sudden silence I realize it was on in the first place, and that’s clearly where Wilder was.

I sit up in bed, cross-legged, push the comforter off myself. I run a hand through my hair, shaking loose some tangles, yawning and trying to feel like an alive person even if my brain is all clouds and marshmallows right now, the effect of the Klonopin yesterday and then twelve-plus hours of sleep.

The clock on my bedside is glowing red, and I reach for my glasses. The time comes into focus: 11:12.

“Damn,” I say out loud, because it’s the latest I think I’ve slept in years. Well, aside from flying into the research station, when I also took Klonopin first.

I kick the comforter down. In the next room over I can hear the floor breaking slightly as Wilder walks back and forth, drying off and moisturizing and giving himself finger-guns in the mirror or whatever boys do after they shower.

He was in the shower, I think.

Finally, the ramifications of that make their way into my brain.

Wet and warm and naked.

Water just dripping down his chest, over that V that’s between his side-abs and his hips. God, I have two degrees in biology and I don’t even know what that thing is called.

Also biceps. Also, those forearms, with the veins sticking out just a little, strong hands soaping himself up and then rinsing himself off…

I clear my throat and wonder if I should stop thinking dirty thoughts about Wilder, who was sweet enough to call me almost every day, who stayed here last night and rubbed my back until I went to sleep and told me again and again that I wasn’t in a plane and it wasn’t going to crash.

I nearly laugh at myself. It’s Wilder. The man was practically designed for dirty thoughts, and if I can be certain of one thing in this uncertain world, it’s that he doesn’t mind it when I think them about him.

On cue, the bathroom door opens and a split second later he’s standing in the doorway to my bedroom, a towel slung low around his waist, skin still damp.

There’s the V I don’t know the word for. The abs, the chest, the biceps, the faint treasure trail of fur leading into the towel from his bellybutton.

The slight bulge beneath the towel.

“I used your shower,” he says, rubbing one hand through his hair. “You were asleep.”

Finally, I look at his face.

He’s smirking. He knows what I was looking at, and he takes a step forward. The towel moves lower by a centimeter.

“I figured as much,” I say.

“Sleep well?”

“Mhm.”

I’m looking at the V again, and this time Wilder grins. He walks around the bed until he’s standing in front of me, wet hair tousled. It’s taking most of my willpower not to pull the towel off, so I’m not spending the rest of it making sure I look at his face.

What a waste of willpower.

“You’re not still high, are you, Squeaks?” Wilder asks.

He leans down, one hand on either side of my hips, and now his face is right in front of mine, steam rolling off him. There are a couple of water droplets on his shoulders and I fight the urge to suck them off his skin, because I’m enjoying this new side of Wilder.

The teasing side. The you-want-me-and-I-know-it-and-I’ll-make-you-want-me-worse side. Before, he just told me what he was going to do to me and did it, and while I never had any complaints, this also has its merits.

“Sober as a monk,” I say.

He leans in, nips at my bottom lip with his teeth, pulls back and I gasp at the sharp pleasure that races through my mostly-awake brain as lightning bolts through my body.

I squeak, and he laughs, a dark, husky sound.

“There it is,” he says as I lean forward, one hand in his damp hair, pulling his head down to mine.

I’ve thought about this a lot for the past three months and it’s better than I remember, the feeling of Wilder’s mouth on mine. The way that now, this time, it feels like it’s something more than purely physical.

The way my brain whispers it’s right this time as he licks my lower lip, my mouth opening, the tips of our tongues sliding against each other.

When we pull back, we’re both breathing hard. Wilder’s eyes have gone unfocused, his forehead against mine. I realize I’ve unfurled my legs and I’ve got one loosely wrapped around him, the damn towel somehow still in place even though the bulge below it is now considerably larger.

I swallow. I can tell my nipples are poking through the thin fabric of my STEM Women Rock! t-shirt, the pajama shorts I’m wearing pushed all the way up my thighs.

“So,” he murmurs. “Should we talk about this first?”

“Fuck no,” I whisper into his mouth, then bite his lower lip.

He growls. He kisses me so hard I think he nearly draws blood, my teeth against my own lip as I fall backward onto the bed with him on top of me.

The towel’s gone, utterly forgotten, one of my legs still wrapped around him. He’s got one hand on the inside of my other knee, pushing me open, his hard length sliding against the shorts I’m still wearing, the friction stuttering through my body.

“Good,” he says, that same grin in his voice. “Action first, Squeaks. I like it.”

He bites my ear, my neck, teeth and tongue making me gasp on the sensitive skin.

“Don’t, I’ve got work Mond—”

Then there’s fingers across my mouth, slurring my words.

“I’m housebroken,” he teases.

“Are you?” I whisper, and lick the pads of his fingers.

I don’t wait for an answer, just suck one into my mouth, lips wrapped around it as a low noise rumbles from the bottom of Wilder’s chest, his hips grinding into me even harder.

I bite down, gently, the head of his cock slipping against my clit, and even through my shorts I swear to God he knows what he’s doing.

Strong fingers pinch one nipple, through my shirt, just hard enough to make my back arch off the bed.

“Not always,” he says. “Say the word, Squeaks, and everyone from here to Tijuana will know you’ve been with me.”

He pinches again, lips on my neck. I dig my fingernails into his back despite myself as his head moves lower, rough hands shoving my shirt up. Now my fingers are raking through his hair, my legs just under his shoulder blades.

“Will you still get flustered if I tell you what I’m going to do to you?” he asks.

I feel myself turn bright red, and Wilder takes one nipple between his teeth, pulling his head back slightly as I gasp.

“No,” I say.

“So if I tell you that I’m going to lick your pussy until your legs shake and then fuck you as slow and hard as I can possibly stand it…”

He grins, his face feral, his blue eyes sparking.

I blush harder, despite everything, and he just laughs.

“I’m not flustered,” I say as his mouth moves back to my other nipple, tongue swirling around it.

I grab his shoulders, back arching. He grabs my shorts in his hands, slides them off along with my underwear.

“Then what are you?” he asks.

His lips are on my sternum, my belly, his tongue quickly dipping into my bellybutton as I squirm.

“Excited?” I whisper, even that one word hard to get out.

Talking dirty has never exactly been my strong suit. I’m always a little afraid of saying something weird, something wrong, and then the activities come to a screeching halt.

Wilder slides his knuckles softly along my lips, his mouth on the curve of one hip. My thighs are already pushed apart, both my hands in his hair, and I moan as he touches me.

“Excited is one word for it,” he says.

He slides his knuckles again, brushing my lips along his hand. I’m aching, pulsing, half a second away from clenching my fists and shoving his face into me, because he’s making me crazy right now.

“But what you are right now is wet as hell, Squeaks.”

“I know,” I whimper.

“Then why didn’t you just say that?”

He’s teasing me. As he talks his lips are brushing my clit and my lips, goddamn teasing me like he never has before.

It sends another rush through me, a surge, a pulse of arousal as I throw my head back against the mattress.

Finally, he licks me. He licks me slow at first, tongue flicking back and forth as I hold my breath. All my muscles go rigid and then limp and I turn my head to one side, moaning.

He goes faster. His tongue gets rougher, twisting around me, slow and then fast and then slow, dragging over my clit in a steady rhythm that has me clutching the blankets in one hand, nearly screaming.

“Come on,” I beg.

Wilder just groans, his low voice vibrating through me. I moan again, helpless, as he drags his tongue over me again.

I’m right on the edge, right where he’s keeping me. Fucking teasing me because in this moment he could do absolutely anything he wanted and I’d say yes, just for the sweet release of Wilder’s tongue.

He flicks me. He slides down, between my lips, the tip teasing at my entrance as it takes every last ounce of willpower not to grab him again, push him inside, but I don’t.

And I’m rewarded because he laps at me again, fast and slow and rough and gentle and in moments I’m shouting, moaning, shuddering out his name while he’s got one hand on my breast and the other pushing one knee wide, his face still between my legs.

I can’t move.

I can’t think.

He’s gotten better at that.

His tongue is still teasing at my lips, as if he likes tasting me, lapping and circling as his hands keep moving and I pant for breath, swallowing hard, trying to come back down.

Finally, I open my eyes and look down. He looks up at me, grinning, the look in his eyes wickeder than I’ve ever seen it before.

In a second, he’s on his knees, legs between mine, and he pulls me roughly to sitting and kisses me. I taste like myself and he wants me to know it, grabs the back of my head and pulls me in.

It’s sexy. It’s kind of dirty, kind of wild and untamed. Utterly impolite, and I kiss him back hard, plundering his mouth for evidence of me.

After a long kiss Wilder pulls back. He strokes my cheek once, with his thumb, staring straight into my eyes. He’s still got that feral, untamed look, a look that I can feel in the bottom of my soul and the base of my spine.

My glasses came off at some point and the rest of the room is blurry, nothing but the soft line of his mouth, his eyes that could cut glass. My voice sticks in my throat and I’m left speechless, totally certain that I don’t have words for this moment.

“I still love you,” he whispers, his voice harsh.

“I know,” I say.

The words slip out before I can think about them, and for a moment they hang in the air between us, utterly true and never meant to be spoken aloud.

“I mean—”

“You mean exactly what you said,” Wilder grins.

He pulls my face to his, one hand on the base of my spine, tugging me in.

“Good,” he growls. “I want you to know it.”

He kisses me again, harder, teeth and tongue, his hand on my face.

Then in one fluid motion he pulls back, grabs my knee, flips me somehow and the next thing I know I’m on my elbows and knees on the bed and he’s on top of me.

He pushes my hair off the back of my neck, kisses me there so it sends shivers down my spine, somewhere between tender and rough or maybe both.

I reach behind my head, slide my fingers through his thick dark hair, as if I can coax him into more, faster, now.

“What else do you know, Squeaks?” he muses.

His knees push mine apart, my hip collapsing onto the bed and I bite my lip, arch myself into him like I’m a wild animal.

“I know lots of things,” I whisper.

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about those nights in the cabin?”

His hand is on my hip, pulling at me, and I writhe against him, toes curling at the frisson of flesh on flesh.

“Do you know that every time you mentioned another man at the research station, it lit a spark of jealousy deep inside me just because they got to see you and I didn’t?”

He kisses my neck again, angles himself between my legs and his cock bumps against my inner thigh. I clench the sheets in my hands, arch my body, try to wrap my leg around his because even now I’m desperate for this contact, for every inch of me to be touching every inch of him.

“You know I never could help myself around you, Squeaks,” he whispers into my ear.

Just like that he’s at my entrance, his girth easing in, and I gasp because every single time I forget what it’s like but the instant my body remembers I lose control.

I arch back, one knee halfway under me again, pushing back and demanding more because this is what I need, this is all there is. Someone’s making a guttural growl and it might be me or it might be him.

Wilder pulls me back, down, and we’re half on our sides, my hand a fist in the sheets, his bigger hand over mine as he pushes himself deeper, hits the spot that makes me see stars.

I gasp.

“I know,” he growls in my ear.

He keeps his promise.

He does know.

He knows, somehow, that hard and slow was exactly what my whole body craved. It was what I needed, all along, the chain reaction of spark to spark to spark to fire.

Wilder shoves a pillow under my hip, pushes me into it. I arch into him, the new angle making my eyes roll back as I grab at him over my shoulder, trying to latch on in some other way, feeling so possessive that I want his skin to sink into mine.

He squeezes my hand harder, his fingers lacing into mine as he fucks me deeper, harder, pleasure blossoming through my body like it’s springtime.

I think I’m blind. I think Wilder’s got his teeth in my shoulder, growling. I think I’m moaning into the mattress as we rock together, our bodies moving in slow sync like we’re one creature. The world could fall down around us and I wouldn’t even care.

I come slow and hard, so slow that I barely realize what’s happening until I realize I’m shouting Wilder’s name over and over again, shuddering and sweaty, feeling like the first day of sunshine after the winter.

He doesn't speed up, slow down, or relent, just fucks me hard with his whole body until suddenly there’s a catch in the rhythm, a sigh. Wilder moans my name and still shivering I push back against him, taking him in as deep as I can with the desperate desire to give him every part of myself that I can.

Wilder pulls me in, my name on his lips as they brush my shoulder. I’m his and he’s mine and I think it’s always been that, since long before I knew, and we keep rocking together even as the aftershocks of pleasure drift through us, diminishing with every bolt.

Then we lie on the bed, spent. His hand is still around mine and I flex my fingers, squeeze his between mine, secure our hands together a little more tightly. I let go of his hair in my other fist, suddenly hoping I didn’t rip out a chunk.

He presses his body against me, pulls me closer. Buries his face against the back of my neck, in my sweaty hair. I wonder if I’m supposed to say anything. I wonder what I’m supposed to say, but all I can think of is that was fun or how long until we can do that again?

“Mmm,” I finally say, wriggling back against him.

Wilder laughs softly against me, moves up, tucks my body against his.

“Yeah,” he agrees.