Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
I kiss her. Not gentle. Not careful. Not anymore. Heat smashes through me like a backdraft; she meets it with equal force, a hungry, joyous sound in her throat that ruins me. Snow hisses against the stones around the pit, melting where our bodies throw off heat. Her hands find my jaw, my hair, my shoulders. My palm curves at her spine and tugs her flush until there’s not a breath between us that isn’t shared.
“Axel,” she whispers into my mouth, breathless, reverent, demanding all at once. “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” I say, and it isn’t a promise for the moment; it’s a blueprint.
We come up for air, foreheads pressed, both of us shaking. The river murmurs beyond the trees. The mountain watches, old and patient. The ring glints in the firelight, and my name sits on her tongue like she plans to keep it there.
“Say it again,” I ask, because I want it burned into me.
“Yes,” she whispers, eyes bright. “Forever yes.”
I slide my hands under her thighs and lift her again, because I need to, because the part of me that ran toward her scream in the fire also runs toward her joy now and there isn’t any difference. She clings, laughing, kissing me until the world blurs. I turn, press her gently against the door of my truck and kiss her slower until the urgency turns molten and deep, kiss her like I intend to have another fifty years to practice.
When we finally stop, her breathing steadies. She studies me in that way she has—taking inventory, cataloging, filing away. “You planned this.”
“Since I was sixteen.”
Her thumb strokes the corner of my mouth. “It’s perfect.”
“You’re perfect.”
She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks go soft. “Don’t get mushy, Ramirez.”
“Never,” I say, meaning it, then break the rule to bend and kiss a tear from her cheek—the only sweetness I’ll allow.
We stand with the fire for a while, bodies together, hands linked, ring warm against my palm. She leans into my chest and I memorize the weight, the height, the exact way she fits. When the wind kicks, I shrug out of my jacket and wrap it around her; she steals it without pretending to argue, chin slotted into the collar like she was always meant to wear my warmth.
“Couple of the Year,” she murmurs, amused.
“Year is an insult,” I say. “We’re couple of the next fifty.”
She smiles into my shirt. “Ambitious.”
“I’m a firefighter. We write our own odds.”
She tips back and looks at the ring again, as if it might be a vanishing trick itself. Then she looks at me, and the playfulness dims to something rawer. “I never thought I’d get here,” she admits. “Not just to this property. To this… peace.”
“You built it,” I say. “Brick by brick.”
“You were the foundation.”
I shake my head. “No. I was the idiot who stood at the fence line for a decade and promised I’d hold a light if you ever came home.”
She rises onto her toes and kisses me for that, slow and grateful. “Thank you for not giving up.”
“I did,” I confess, throat tight. “Sometimes. Then I’d wake up and the only thing that made sense was to try again.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“Professionally.”
She laughs, then sobers, then slides her left hand to my chest, fingers splaying where my heartbeat kicks, ring catching firelight. “You’re mine,” she says back to me, testing the words like a new key.
“Say it again.”
“You’re mine,” she repeats, firmer, and the mountain could collapse and I’d hold this line.
The snow fattens, soft and relentless. We let it gather in our hair, on our shoulders. I build the fire higher. We talk about nothing and everything—where the bedroom should go when we rebuild, whether Juniper pines or blue spruce will frame the porch better, how many shelves a woman who reads like she breathes needs. (A lot. The answer is always a lot.) She tells me she wants a deep window seat with a view of the river and an outlet for a heated blanket; I tell her I’ll wire the place myself and then we argue about safety codes until she kisses me to shut me up.
Eventually the cold nips through our clothes and the fire dies. I scoop her up without asking and tuck her into my truck. She squeals into my neck and squeezes like she loves the way I ignore the laws of physics when I carry her over the threshold into my cabin. Inside, I set her on the rug in front of my—our—fireplace.
She studies me in the warm light, ring hand resting against her collarbone, eyes molten. “How long have you had that ring?”
“A while.”
“How long is ‘a while’?”
“Since the night with the letters at the firepit,” I admit. “When you took my hand and said you were done running.”
She exhales like I just solved some impossible equation. “You were certain.”