Too Wild for Me: Chapter Four - Burn Me Right

 He was supposed to be a mistake she burned through and left behind. Instead, Cade pulls Kelsey into the shadows of his workshop and strips away more than just her dress, giving her the kind of rough, reverent, no-nonsense attention she’s never let herself want. Between filthy promises, steady hands, and a man who refuses to let her hide behind the “wild girl” act, Kelsey feels something she doesn’t have a script for: safe. By the time the dust settles, she’s walking out in his T-shirt, no panties, and a quiet, terrifying hope that one day at a time with him might actually be enough.

Chapter 4

Kelsey

Burn Me Right

Somewhere in the blur of heat and hands and mouths, the world shifts again. The bench is no longer behind me. Something softer is. The couch on the side of the workshop, old and broken-in, the one I’ve seen him collapse onto between loads.

He settles over me, braced on his forearms, careful with his weight. His breath is ragged now too. Good. I like him like this. Less in control. More honest.

“You still sure?” he asks, even now.

“Yes.” My answer is immediate. “Stop asking me that and do something about it.”

His answering smile is wicked and fond all at once. “Bossy,” he murmurs. “Thought that was my job.”

He steps in, hands sliding to the hem of my dress. His fingers brush my thighs as he gathers the fabric, and my breath stutters. He doesn’t rush, not even a little. He lifts it slowly, inch by inch, knuckles grazing my hips, my ribs, the underside of my breasts, until he pulls it over my head and drops it somewhere behind me.

His gaze drags down my body, lingering on my bare chest. The sound he makes is low and appreciative, the kind that curls heat between my legs.

“No bra,” he says, voice dipping. “Do you have any idea what that does to me?”

I barely get a breath in before he hooks his thumbs in the sides of my panties and pulls them down, slow and deliberate, letting the backs of his fingers trace my skin all the way to my ankles. I lift my hips, letting him drag the lace down my thighs, unsteady enough that he steadies me with one hand braced at my hip.

Then he stands, and for a beat, we just stare at each other. Breathing the same air. Want vibrating between us like a live wire.

“Your turn,” I whisper.

Something hungry flickers across his face.

He grabs the bottom of his shirt and pulls it off in one clean motion.

And I forget how to breathe.

He looks like trouble. Muscles carved from real work, tattoos scattered down his arms, a spattering of dark hair across his chest that makes my knees go weak. He’s solid. Broad. Older yes, but in the best possible way. The kind of body that doesn’t come from gyms or vanity, just life and grit and discipline.

“Oh my god,” I blurt before I can stop myself.

His mouth curves. “That a complaint?”

“Hardly.” I say as I shake my head slowly from side to side.

He steps closer, unbuttoning his jeans while I watch like I’ve never seen a man undress before. He shoves them down, then his briefs, and my pulse jumps hard enough that I feel it everywhere.

Seeing him like this is a lot to take in. He’s rough around the edges, with heat in his eyes and a body built to pin me exactly where he wants me. The shock of it hits so hard my thighs clench and my eyes close again.

He notices. Of course he does.

“Eyes on me,” he says, voice rough enough to drag heat straight down my spine. “I want to watch you fall apart.”

And then he gives me exactly what I asked for.

The rest of the world fades out the second he pushes inside me.

The first slow slide knocks a sound out of my chest I don’t even recognize. He fills me in a way that feels impossible at first. Thick, deep, stretching me until my breathing shatters. My fingers clutch at his shoulders, nails dragging across warm skin as my hips try to adjust around him.

“Easy,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t move. He holds there, buried to the hilt, letting my body pull tight around his. His forehead drops to mine, breath rough against my mouth. “Feel that?”

I can’t even nod. I just breathe his name, broken and thin.

He moves then. Slow. Controlled. That first long stroke back followed by another that sinks him right inside me again, hitting something deep enough to make my thighs tremble.

My legs instinctively fall open farther, and he catches the back of my knee with one hand, lifting it higher along his hip so he can push deeper. The angle changes and the sensation spikes, heat curling up my spine like a spark catching dry wood.

“Oh—god—Cade—”

“That’s it,” he growls, thrust hitting right where I need it. “Take it.”

His body cages mine against the couch, chest pressed to mine, heat rolling off him in waves. Every movement rocks us together. His hips driving in, my body arching up to meet him, the steady slap of skin-on-skin echoing through the building like it’s marking time.

He keeps up a rhythm that feels devastating in its precision. Not rushed or careless. Every thrust slow enough to make me feel all of him, deep enough to break me apart piece by piece.

“Look at me,” he says, voice rough.

I try. God, I try. But my head drops back when he hits that spot again, pleasure tearing through me too fast.

He grips my jaw gently but firmly, guiding my eyes back to his. “Don’t hide from me now. You feel incredible.”

Heat pools low in my stomach, tightening with every stroke. He knows it too, he can feel it. His thumb drags over my clit in tight, deliberate circles that match the snap of his hips, pulling soft, desperate sounds from my throat.

I give as much as I get, my hands in his hair, nails digging into his shoulders. My lips brushing his ear as I whisper every filthy thought that pushes to the surface. Each one earns a deeper thrust, a sharper exhale, a low curse that vibrates against my neck.

“You like this?” he rasps, voice shaking. “You like me taking control?”

I can’t answer. I can only cling harder, hips lifting, legs tightening around him as everything inside me spirals too fast to control.

“Kelsey,” he warns, voice breaking, “you’re right there. Stay with me. Come on, stay with me.”

His thumb presses just right. His hips grind once, twice—

—and I shatter.

My orgasm rips through me, raw and consuming, my whole body clenching around him as I cry out against his shoulder. He holds me through it, one arm locked around my back, the other steady under my thigh, moving just enough to drag the orgasm out until I’m shaking.

“Fuck—” he groans, losing the last thread of control as my body pulses around him. He thrusts once, hard, then buries himself deep, his body going taut above mine as he comes with his face pressed against my neck, breath stuttering against my skin.

Even then, he doesn’t let me go.

His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing my cheek bone like I’m fragile. His body stays molded to mine, chest heaving, heart pounding against my ribs like he’s trying to anchor me to him.

It doesn’t feel like destruction.

It feels like ignition. Like something starting.

We lie there for a long beat afterward, the only sounds are our uneven breathing and the faint tick of cooling metal somewhere. His weight is mostly braced away from me, but I can feel the heavy rise and fall of his chest. The damp of his forehead where it rests against mine.

I’m aware of my body in a new way. Loose. Warm. Satisfied. And underneath all that, something that feels suspiciously like peace.

And it’s terrifying.

“Hey,” I murmur, because silence feels too big. “You alive?”

His lips curve against my cheek. “Barely.”

“Good.” I nudge his shoulder. “Would hate to have to explain to the town why I broke their favorite carpenter.”

He lifts his head, eyes meeting mine. There’s a softness there I don’t know what to do with. “Pretty sure I’m no one’s favorite.”

“You’re mine,” slips out before I can stop it.

His brows lift.

“I mean,” I backpedal, heat crawling up my neck, “favorite carpenter. Obviously. I don’t have a list of carpenters in my phone or anything, but if I did, you’d be at the top.”

He chuckles, low and warm, and something in my chest eases. “You’re trouble,” he says.

“So I’ve been told.”

He brushes a thumb over my cheekbone, gaze going serious again. “I meant what I said, Kels. You don’t have to put on a show with me.”

The words make my throat tight. “What if the show is the only way I know how to be?”

“Then we start there,” he says. “And see what else shows up.”

Simple. Steady. Like everything with him.

I stare up at the shadowed ceiling, suddenly aware that this could be the part where he asks what we are. Where he pushes for labels or promises or a future I am not ready to name.

He doesn’t.

“You hungry?” he asks instead.

I blink. “That’s your follow-up?”

“You burn this hot, you need to refuel,” he says, deadpan.

A surprised laugh bursts out of me. “You’re such an old man.”

“And yet,” he says, mouth quirking, “here you are.”

He eventually rolls off the couch, muscles flexing as he bends to grab his jeans. I push up on my elbows, still trying to get my lungs back, still feeling the aftershocks in places I don’t want to think about or I’ll melt all over again.

He scoops my dress off the floor and hands it to me. “Here.”

I slip it over my head, tugging it down, trying to pretend I don’t feel as naked as I still am underneath it. I smooth my hands over the fabric as I stand up, trying to look less thoroughly fucked on the outside than I feel on the inside.

I look around. “Okay, but… where did my panties go?”

Cade glances over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth lifting like he’s been waiting for me to ask.

He taps his jeans pocket. “Right here.”

I blink. “You’re kidding.”

“No.” He steps closer, voice low. “And you’re not getting them back.”

My breath stutters. “Why not?”

He leans in, mouth brushing my ear. “Because I like knowing you’re bare under that dress. And because if I decide I want you again…”

His fingers slide down the back of my thigh, slow enough to light me up all over again.

“…there won’t be a damn thing in my way.” 

He then moves around the workshop, flipping on a small lamp, grabbing two water bottles from a mini fridge in the corner.

He hands one to me. Our fingers brush. The tiny contact still sparks.

“This doesn’t have to be anything more than you want it to be,” he says, leaning against the workbench, bottle dangling from his fingers. “But I’m not going to pretend this is casual for me.”

The honesty hits me harder than any dirty line from earlier.

I roll the bottle between my palms.

“I’m not great at letting people see the real stuff,” I say. “Last night wasn’t… my best.”

“Okay,” he says immediately. No sulk. No flinch. “Then we take it one day at a time. Coffee. Dinners. Stealing you out of bonfires before you take too many dares.”

“You saying you want to see me again?” I tease, because it is easier than saying the truth, which is that part of me wants that so badly it scares me.

He looks at me like I have said something ridiculous. “Yeah, Kelsey. I want to see you again.”

Hope curls low and slow, mixing with the leftover heat.

I lift my bottle in a mock toast. “One day at a time, then.”

He taps his against mine. “One day at a time.”

It isn’t a promise wrapped up with a bow. It isn’t some grand declaration.

But as I sit there on his couch, skin still humming, heart still unsteady, watched by a man who has seen me at my wildest and my weakest and hasn’t run, it feels like a beginning.

And for now, that is enough.

The End

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: November 2025

Cover Design by LS Phoenix