Untamed Hearts

I’d follow her anywhere.

I clear the ridge and see we’re in a private cove, sheltered from the rest of the bay. The shadow of an old lighthouse looms up ahead of me, and to my right, Brit is standing motionless on the silvery wet sand. The ocean waves roll in, soothing, and it’s like we’re in a world of our own, a million miles from anyone else.

I approach slowly behind her. “What is this place?”

“It’s my place.” Brit replies, sounding self-conscious. “Nobody knows about it, but I like it here. Everything’s so peaceful.”

She sits on a large rock, hugging her knees to her chest. I wait a moment, unsure, and then go to sit beside her. I watch the lights of town shine out across the bay, and I understand. This is her escape, her own secret refuge. Like me and the ranch, this is where she goes to feel alone. Alive.

“Just you and the ocean.” I say it quietly, and I see the relief slip across her face. She nods, reaching down to take a handful of sand. She lets it fall slowly through her fingertips, her breathing getting slower, more relaxed.

“So, Bob,” Brit says, with a note of amusement in her voice. “What is it you want?”

I jolt with surprise. Is she talking about now, tonight? Way to be obvious. “What do you mean?” I ask carefully.

Brit gives a little shrug. “Now, tonight, in life? What do you want?”

Oh. I exhale with relief, but then I realize, this question isn’t any easier.

What do I want?

I stare out at the ocean, trying to find the words. “I can’t remember the last time someone asked me that,” I confess slowly. “Everything I do, it’s like it’s all been planned out for me, and I’m just walking in someone else’s footsteps.”

Brit turns to me. “You mean your brother?”

I shake my head. “No. Maybe,” I add. “But mainly it’s my parents, and their parents, and their parents…” I sigh, thinking of the great Covington legacy. My parents remind me, all the time. I’m privileged. I’m blessed. I have a duty and a responsibility to do Great Things with my life. Forget normalcy, or happiness, my brother and I are destined to build business empires and rule nations—or at the very least, the state.

From the day I was born, failure has never been an option.

Brit is still silent beside me, and I realize how ungrateful I must sound, especially compared to her life. “I’m lucky, I know.” I add quickly. “I have so much opportunity, I just… I guess what I want is for someone to ask what I want, once in a while.”

“Then I guess you got what you wanted tonight,” Brit tells me, looking over for the first time. Her eyes blaze in the moonlight, and suddenly, everything I’ve just been talking about washes away, lost in the midnight tide. Everything disappears, except for her. This. Right now.

I stare back, lost in the promise of her stare, and the shadows the silvery light casts across her face. She’s so close now. So perfect.

I feel my heart rise in my chest, aching with a need I’ve never felt before, and I know, I’m lost to her. To hell with the shadow of tomorrow looming over the both of us, and all the reasons why I’ve kept my distance.

She’s all I want. She’s everything.

“Not yet,” I breathe softly, and then I reach out to brush my hand against her cheek.

I can’t help it. I want her too much to resist. Just a touch, that’s all I need, one touch of that perfect skin against my fingertips, the touch I’ve been dreaming about for weeks now, driving myself insane.

There.

I swear time stops at the feel of her skin, soft as silk under my fingertips. Brit inhales a shaking breath, but she doesn’t move away, just gazes at me, wordless, with those soulful dark eyes asking a million questions I can only dream of answering.

My heart thunders. Emboldened, I trace my thumb across the outline of her jaw, cupping her cheek in my palm. It fits perfectly, like my hand was made just for her. She trembles under my touch, and it sends a shock of lust racing through my veins, desire like I’ve never known.

How can she do this to me, with just one touch?

I stroke her face, softly, memorizing every angle and plane. Every inch of skin, so sweet, every flicker in her eyes. We’re suspended here together, like the world has fallen away. Nothing but me, and her, and the tantalizing sensation of soft skin under my hands.

I slide my thumb over her lower lip, the soft pillow of pink. Brit gasps, her eyes widening, and God, it takes every ounce of self-control in my body not to ravage her right there: to claim her mouth with my own, pull her hard against me, and take the kisses I know would change my world forever.

But I have to hold back. I have to be sure this is what she needs, that everything I feel is reflected in her.

“What do you want?” My voice is hoarse with desire. I hold her gaze, desperately searching. “What is it you want tonight?”

She looks at me, and it makes my heart stop, the certainty in her gaze. Bold and steady, daring and true.

“You.”

Her answer crashes over me, a rush of exhilaration. I can’t believe I’ve heard it right, but Brit says it again, her voice steady in the quiet of the night.

“I want you.”

I wait another moment, desperate, but suddenly too scared to act. It feels like a dream, the two of us together. But even in my wildest fantasies, day-dreaming about this moment, I couldn’t have imagined the clarity in her eyes, and the sweetness on her beautiful face.