Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“Upstairs,” she breathes, tugging my hand. I nod and follow, not because I don’t know the way but because being led by her has become my favorite kind of map.
Her suite is different tonight—candles low, the bed new with indigo linen. On the dresser there’s a small canvas leaning on the mirror: a zip-tie scrap buried in blue, a white line cleaving through like a trail you can trust. She sees my eyes land, nods once. “I wanted that patch of earth to learn a better story,” she whispers.
“It did,” I say, stepping close again. “We did.”
I kiss her like that’s a fact we both can live in.
Heat rises, slow, uncoiling. She slides my jacket off, folds it with an absent grace that makes me stupidly hungry. My fingers learn the back of her dress where the zipper hides; I move slow, giving her time to reconsider, to laugh, to stop me. She doesn’t. The fabric whispers down, and she’s standing in soft lace and bravery. I keep my eyes on hers as long as I can, then let my gaze travel with reverence that’s half prayer.
“Beautiful,” I say, because my vocabulary is battlefield blunt and this is the only word that lands anywhere close.
She steps into me, presses a kiss under my jaw, fingers slipping beneath my shirt. “Show me,” she says.
I do what she asks, unbuttoning slow enough to make my own hands shake. Her palms touch my chest like they’re learning terrain she intends to paint later. I feel more seen than stripped. When my shirt hits the floor, she tips her head, studies a scar like a curator and a lover at once, and presses her mouth to it. I forget how to breathe correctly for a second. She smiles against me, small and wicked.
We make it to the bed in a series of stumbles and laughter and quick, sharp inhalations when fingers find warm skin. I lie back, and she follows, braced above me, hair slipping around us like a curtain that keeps the world out. “I want to set the pace,” she says, breathless but sure. “But you can take the wheel whenever you want.”
My grin is helpless. “Shared command,” I murmur. “My favorite kind.”
Her mouth traces the geography of me—the line of throat and shoulder and the places no one sees except the few who’ve earned maps. I return the cartography, fingers sketching a path down her spine; my palms span her hip, learn its new shapes—strength and a bruise flowered into yellow and green. She shivers when I mouth the edge of lace. I slow, and check her eyes. She nods, a yes that’s both small and blazing. The lace joins the growing trail on the floor.
We take our time because we can. We’ve earned a clock that doesn’t tick like a bomb. She rides me down into the mattress with a gasp that’s all light after the tunnel. I meet her there, hands guiding, hearts synced. The world narrows to breath and skin and the long, rolling rhythm you make when you know you’re not stealing minutes, you’re spending them like a currency that keeps printing.
“Look at me,” she whispers as the crest builds, and I do—God, I do—until the room blurs at the edges, until her mouth opens into my name, until the only thing I know is that love feels like coming home in a body that knows the route by heart.
After, we don’t rush the return. She collapses on my chest, cheek over my heartbeat. I smooth her hair back and kiss the spot where protest and praise share a language. The ceiling is the same as it always was, but the air under it is different—cleaner, like the house exhaled with us.
“I want to say something ridiculous,” she says after a while, voice muffled in my skin.
“Please do,” I say. “Ridiculous is my favorite genre lately.”
She lifts her head. Her eyes are still starry and a little wet at the corners. “Move in with me,” she says, like a dare and a prayer at once. “Not tomorrow. Not in a way that drags your duffel by the strap and calls it commitment. After the sentencing. After my father’s board finishes building the scaffolding around what’s left. When the kids finish the second half of the mural and the city looks a shade kinder. Move in then. Bring your stupid kettlebell and the pan you claim is iron but is definitely not. Bring the ugly mug you refuse to throw out. Bring the way you look at me like I’m what happens after a war ends.”
There are a lot of things I can do under fire. Talking is not always one of them. I manage to prop up on an elbow, frame her face with my other hand, and find my voice. “Copy,” I say, hoarse and happy and every other thing. “And while we’re swapping ridiculous…” I lean down, fish the small box I stashed in my discarded jacket, and hold it out. Her eyes widen, equal parts shock and oh-God-no-you-didn’t and yes-yes-you-did.