Page 198 of Reeves

She's so warm and tight around me that keeping my head is its own kind of discipline. I've spent my entire career learning discipline, but nothing in any training cycle prepared me for Charli Parsons asking me not to stop.

Her legs tighten around my waist, pulling me deeper, and I drop my forehead to her shoulder, letting go of the pace I was keeping.

"Yes." The word leaves her on an exhale. "Yes, like that, exactly like that?—"

I put my mouth against her throat, her pulse hammering there. This specific combination of want and gratitude crushes me every time in the best way.

"Look at me," I say against her jaw.

Her eyes open, and she looks at me the way she only does here, with every careful, measured thing about her stripped away. No armor. No managing. Just her.

"I've got you," I tell her.

She exhales like she's been holding her breath for years.

"I know." Her hips roll against mine, urgent now, chasing the finish. "I know you do. Reeves—" My name breaks apart in her mouth. "Come inside me. I want to feel you?—"

I groan into her neck.

Her nails rake down my back, ten sharp points of pressure that pull a sound out of me I don't bother to control. I want themarks. I want every reminder that this happened, that she's real, that I'm here.

She comes apart around me, clenching tightly, her whole body shaking with it. I follow her over the edge seconds later. The release tears through me, and I press as deep as I can go and stay there while she trembles beneath me.

For a long moment, neither of us moves.

Her chest rises and falls against mine. My hand finds her hip and stays there.

We lie tangled together, her legs still draped over mine, my body still joined with hers.

I shift to pull her closer, my arm moving easily without thinking about it. The shoulder doesn't catch. It hasn't caught in weeks.

No more fast-roping or open water, or the kind of strain that kept reopening the same damage before it could close.

It’s not perfect. I can still feel the ghost of it mornings after a busy weekend. But the constant low-grade war my body was fighting against itself has gone quiet. Turns out the shoulder wasn't the problem. The life was.

I bury my nose in her hair and drink her in.

The Gulf air moves through the curtains. The marsh sounds drift in. Her heartbeat slows against me, and I feel the warmth of what I left inside her settle between us, a seal on something we've both already decided.

She shifts first, rolling to her side to face me.

"I think that was the one," she says.

I look at her, completely mesmerized by her beauty and quiet confidence. I love this woman with every fiber of my being.

She's already smiling that particular smile she saves for things she doesn't want to jinx.

"Yeah?" My voice comes out after that particularly intense lovemaking.

"I don't know. I just—" She presses her palm flat against her stomach. "I feel different than the other times. I know that probably sounds crazy."

"It doesn't sound crazy." I touch the tip of her nose with my pointer, and then come in for a kiss. Those lips….

"The doctor said three months was the magic number. Off the pill long enough that everything resets." She tips her head back against the pillow. "It's been exactly three months today."

I do the math without meaning to. She went off the pill the week before she and Benjy moved the last of the boxes in. I remember because I drove the truck and Benjy spent the entire afternoon telling me exactly where each piece of furniture should go with the authority of a five-year-old who has opinions about feng shui.

I let her and Benjy decide what stayed from the curated furniture and what came with them from Magnolia. It’s a mixture of both of our things, but it’s her furniture and touch that make this house a home.