Nobody told me. Nobody told me sex could be this much. The books I read left it out. The friends I had didn't say. I would have done this years ago if anybody had been honest with me about how good it is.
I get it now. I get why people lose their minds for it. I want him again, and we haven't even moved off the bed.
He comes back in his boxer briefs. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks at me for a long minute. Then he pulls the covers down on his side, gets in beside me, and pulls me into him so my head is on his chest. His arms wrap around me, and the blanket settles over us both.
He doesn't say anything. I don't either. His heart is loud under my ear. The pine shavings on his skin smell of him and the heat of what we just did. He presses his mouth to the top of my head and stays there for a beat.
"Callie."
"Yeah."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't hurt you?"
"You didn't hurt me. I'm sore but not hurt. I'm good, Kane."
He lets out a long breath against my hair. He's been holding it.
"Don't go back to your room tonight."
"I wasn't going to."
"Good."
He tips my chin up and kisses me, slow and deep. The hunger isn't gone from him, just banked. I'm breathing harder when he pulls back. He kisses me once more, gentle this time, and lets me settle back down on his chest. We don't say anything else. I lie with his arm around me, his heart under my ear, and I don't sleep for a long time.
I think about Danny. I think about the letter still in the drawer. I think about Colonel Thorne and the piece Kane hasn't told me yet.
I don't ask. Not tonight.
Tonight I stay.
Chapter 9: Kane
The light through the high window goes from black to grey while she sleeps. I've been tracking the shift for the better part of two hours, the only thing I can do without waking her.
She's against my left side with her cheek on my shoulder and one knee thrown over my thigh. I've been counting her breaths. They come in fours, a held beat at the end of every set. I don't think she knows she does it.
Last night I gave her something I haven't given anyone in eight years. Not the sex. The face I keep under everything else. She looked at me in the lamp on the nightstand and I let her. She put her hand on my jaw. Every wall I'd built in those years came down at once. I'm sitting in the rubble of them now, and I don't know what I am without them.
At six the mechanical click in the kitchen clock travels through two walls, and she stirs.
"Morning. How long have you been awake?"
"A while."
She lifts her head, looks at me, settles back into my side. Her hand finds my ribs and stays. She's going to drift. I won't let her.
"Callie... I need to talk to you... about Danny." I keep my voice in the flat tone I've been holding it in since she walked through my door nine days ago. "All of it. The real one."
The arm across my chest tightens for half a second, then relaxes.
"Okay."
"Don't say anything until I'm done. Ok?"
