Page 51 of Wild

"No. Not right now."

"Okay. Just let me know when you're ready—I'll be right outside."

Noah walks out, and Mia realizes she never found out why he'd come in the first place. She can't deal with that right now. The tightness in her head had seemed to dissolve while she was pressed against Erin's mouth, and now it's back all at once, as sharp as before.

She lies down and pulls everything she can find over herself, holding the image of Erin from a few minutes ago—barely able to focus, looking more lost than ever. Mia would like to tell her that she can be her map—that she wants to—that Mia can be something she anchors herself to whenever she needs it, that she won't pull away or leave her alone, ever. But she can't make promises to a woman who refuses to admit what she feels.

Chapter 19

Mia walks into the hotel room and drops her backpack on the carpet, heading straight for the couch pushed against the wall. Noah comes in behind her, wheeling the singer's suitcase, and leaves it by the door before closing it and walking over to sit beside his friend.

They arrived in Philadelphia just a few minutes ago, and Mia hadn't come out of her bunk on the bus until Noah went in to get her. After the flight attendant brought her a tray with food and the painkiller Erin had given her, she'd crawled back under the sheets, lain on her side, and been unable to sleep, going over and over what had happened.

"Do you want to talk now?" Noah asks carefully, tying the lace on his right sneaker.

"Erin kissed me." The singer's voice is barely a whisper, and her assistant sits up straight, spinning toward her.

He has a smile on his lips, but it disappears instantly when he sees Mia's faraway expression.

"Didn't it go well? Isn't that what you wanted?" he asks, completely lost.

The singer kicks off her sneakers with her heels and pulls her feet up onto the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees.

"Yeah, it was perfect until you knocked on the door."

A small smile curves the singer's lips, and she rests her chin on her knees as she looks at him. He smiles too and scratches the back of his head with an innocent air.

"I figured I was interrupting something, even if I didn't know exactly what."

"It was more than a kiss—I'm not giving you details—but I've never felt anything like it, Noah. My body is still shaking." The singer looks down at her hands. "Being with her is…"

She doesn't know how to describe it, so she just smiles with a hint of sadness.

"I'm a little lost here, Mia. Shouldn't you be happy right now?"

"I would be, if she wanted what happened too. But the way she reacted afterward—I don't think she's too thrilled about it."

The singer smooths her hair back and leans against the cushions. Noah doesn't know what to say; matters of the heart aren't exactly his strong suit, and he doesn't know Erin well enough to have any theory about what might be going through her mind.

"I guess you'll find out when you two talk." He puts a hand on her knee and smiles, and Mia lets herself fall against him with a dramatic sigh.

"Why can't she be like everyone else?" she asks, lying back with her head in Noah's lap. "I mean, I don't want her to be like everyone else," she corrects herself. "I like her exactly the way she is. But she's so hard to reach, so complicated to understand…"

"Love is complicated, right?" her friend asks, amused.

She sighs again and sits up, aware that she can't keep still because she's nervous. She knows Erin will come by any minute to check on her, and Mia is dying to see her again—and also scared, because she has a feeling they won't be picking up where they left off on the bus.

"Seems like it. I'm going to shower and change. Want to have dinner together? We can eat here or go out."

Noah stands up.

"Nice way of kicking me out," he says with a grin. "Count me in for dinner. I'll look around the neighborhood and see if there'sanything good—I'll set it up with security. I think getting out will do you some good."

Erin has already unpacked her suitcase and arranged her clothes in the closet. She's showered, too, and now she's sitting on the edge of her bed, hands on her thighs, staring at the wall across from her—the one she shares with the singer's room. She has to go check on her, and she doesn't even know how to look at her or what to say. She can still feel the aftershocks between her legs; she was so turned on it almost hurt, and she can't get the thought of finishing what they started out of her head—but doing that would mean doubling down on the mistake she's already made. She'd fallen into Mia Wilder's orbit. Everything she'd promised herself not to do had dissolved the moment the girl with lavender hair said her name in that low, needy tone that melted every rational thought Erin might have had. She can't even remember exactly how it started; all she knows is that she was there, with her hands buried in Mia's hair, aware that every time she moved them and touched her, something called desire was building inside her like a snowball she had no way of stopping.

She hadn't been able to hold back. She'd spent a while exercising a level of restraint that had left her wound tight, and by the time she realized what was happening, her tongue was already in Mia's mouth.

If Erin had to rate what she felt in that kiss on a scale of one to ten, she probably couldn't—because ten wouldn't be enough. It was some kind of deep connection, as if the singer's mouth and hers had been made to fit together in exactly that perfect way she'd felt. What came after, she couldn't explain either: her body seemed to be running on its own, obeying nothing but pure need—the desperate urge to feel Mia pressed against her, to swallow her moans, to feel her warm breath against her neck. She hadn't expected Mia's voice begging her not to stop to sendsuch a jolt through her body, but the moment she heard it, Erin felt drugged, as if hearing Mia Wilder and having her on top of her was the only thing she needed to feel okay.