“Yours too.”
He pushed inside.The feeling of her around him made his vision blur.He held still, giving her time, watching her face.
“Move,” she said.
He did.Slow at first.She wrapped her legs around his waist and changed the angle, and he groaned at how deep he could go.She matched his rhythm, her hips rising to meet each thrust, and when he reached between them and found her clit, she told him exactly what she needed—pressure, speed, the precise motion that would push her over.He gave it to her.
She came with a sharp cry, her body clenching around him.The sensation pulled him under.He thrust twice more, and then he was gone, burying his face in her neck as the release crashed through him.
They lay tangled together, breathing hard.
After a while, he dealt with the condom and pulled her against his side.She came willingly, her head on his chest, her finger tracing a slow circle on his sternum.
“Thank you for not making it weird,” she said.“When I told you.About not having been with anyone since before I went underground.Most people would have treated me like I was fragile.”
“You’re the least fragile person I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t feel that way.”
“Nobody does.That’s the secret.”
She was quiet for a moment.Then she propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him.In the dim light filtering through the blinds, her face was open in a way he’d only seen in glimpses before—unedited, without the careful composure she wore like armor.
“I don’t know what happens next,” she said.“With Montgomery.With the investigation.With any of it.”
“Neither do I.”
“But I know I don’t want to do it alone anymore.”She laid her palm flat against his chest.“Whatever comes—I want to face it with you.”
Caleb covered her hand with his.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
She settled back against him.Her breathing slowed.Her hand relaxed on his chest.Outside, the inlet was dark and quiet, and somewhere out there, Montgomery was plotting his next move, and Graham was preparing for whatever came next at the hospital.
But in this room, Harper’s weight was warm against his side, and her breathing had found the rhythm of sleep.
Caleb closed his eyes.He wasn’t thinking about tomorrow.He was thinking about this.
Chapter 26
Harper woke to the sound of Caleb’s breathing and the weight of his arm across her waist.
She didn’t move.The mattress was warm where their bodies had pressed together all night, and the sheet was tangled around her legs, and the pillow smelled like him—soap and something woodsy that she’d stopped noticing individually and started associating with safety.Which was its own kind of problem, if she was being honest.Safety wasn’t supposed to smell like a person.Safety was supposed to be a locked door, a clear exit, and a bag packed by the bed.
She didn’t have a bag packed by the bed.She’d stopped packing one three days ago.
Through the window, the inlet was flat and silver in the early light.A heron stood in the shallows—the same one, she was almost sure, that had been patrolling this stretch of water since she’d arrived.It had become familiar.The heron, the inlet, the particular way the morning light hit the water, and turned it into something worth looking at.All of it had become familiar, and she hadn’t noticed the accumulation until now, lying in Caleb Rourke’s bed with his arm around her and no intention of leaving it.
His breathing changed.Not awake yet, but getting there—the rhythm shifting from deep and steady to something shallower.She stayed still and let him surface on his own terms.He’d spent enough years in the kind of work where being woken suddenly meant danger.She wasn’t going to be the thing that triggered that reflex.
His arm tightened around her waist.A pull, not a grip.Instinct seeking what was close.
“Morning,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
“What time is it?”
