13
RAFE
After they'd finally separated, neither of them speaking, Isla had pulled a blanket from the bedroom without looking at him. He'd taken it. She'd gone through the bedroom door. He'd stood in the dark kitchen staring at the stove before spreading the blanket on the braided rug near the hearth.
He hadn't slept well. His wolf had opinions about the closed door between them, loud ones, but Rafe overruled it because whatever had happened on that counter didn't give him the right to her bed. Not yet.
She'd kissed him first. He kept coming back to that. Standing in her kitchen with the candle throwing light across her face, her eyes holding his with something fierce behind them, she'd grabbed the front of his jacket. Pulled him down to her mouth. And the moment she had, every line he'd been holding went taut. The scent of her, the taste, the heat of her body pressed against his. He'd known what it was. The bond, the recognition, every primal thread his wolf had been pulling since the first touch outside the inn. It had moved through him like a current finding ground.
She didn't know. That was the part that sat heavy now. She'd felt something, he was certain of it. The way she'd looked at him before she kissed him, confused at her own want, frustrated by it. She'd asked him why he was calm. She'd told him things she didn't tell people. She'd put her mouth on his like she couldn't stand not to for one more second. But she didn't know the word for what was driving it, didn't have the framework. She just knew something about him pulled at her. After their first exchanges, she was probably furious about that.
Morning light came through the kitchen windows, pale and clean, the storm wrung out of the sky overnight. The lake was visible through the glass, flat, silver, quiet. He folded the blanket and set it on the chair. He found his jacket where it had dropped on the floor and put it on.
He was standing at the stove checking the embers when the bedroom door opened.
Isla came out dressed in a clean shirt, her silverish hair loose over her shoulders, still damp from what he assumed was a basin wash. She stopped in the kitchen doorway. Looked at him. Looked at the folded blanket on the chair.
"Morning," she said.
"Morning."
A pause. She crossed to the counter, filled the kettle, put it on the stove. Her movements were measured. She stood with her back to him while the water heated.
"Tea?" she asked.
"Sure."
She made two cups without turning around. Set one on the table near him and took the other to the window seat. She sat with her knees pulled up, cradling the cup with both hands, looking out at the lake.
"Quite a way to spend a stormy night," she said.
He couldn't tell if it was deflection or an opening. He drank the tea. It was chamomile, mild, nothing like the black coffee he ran on, but he wasn't going to comment on it.
"I should get back to the dock," he said. "There’s still ots of work to do."
"Okay."
He set the cup on the table. The kitchen was small enough that three steps would put him next to her at the window seat, close enough to touch, close enough to say something that would change the shape of the morning. He didn't take the steps.
"The plank's still on the porch," he said instead. "The hull piece Freya sent me about."
"I remember."
"If you get a chance to look at it."
"I said I would."
Another silence. The kettle ticked on the cooling stove. She watched him from the window seat. Her eyes were guarded but not cold. Something underneath was working through her, something she hadn't sorted yet.
"The ship repairs," he said. "I could use another pair of hands for the rigging refit. You mentioned you knew rope work."
She let out a short laugh. "I didn't mention that. You assumed it because I had a coil on my shoulder."
"You had a coil on your shoulder, a proper butterfly coil, not a yard wrap. That's someone who's handled line before."
"My father was a dock man. I grew up around rigging."
"So I'm not wrong."
