All of them somehow the exact same woman.
I take her hand and we go upstairs. The ranch house is quiet around us, just the soft rain, the sleeping child and the quiet intimate dark of a home that has become exactly that.
She turns the lamp on low in the bedroom, the warm amber light that makes everything feel private and certain, and turns to look at me the way she looked at me at the round pen in the early weeks. Like I'm something worth taking her time with. Like there's nowhere else she needs to be.
She reaches for the hem of my shirt with steady hands.
I reach for hers.
We take our time.
After four hours in a storm there is still mud on my collarbone that she finds with her mouth and I feel her smile against my skin. I laugh, short and real, and she looks up at me with that expression that does unreasonable things to my ability to think clearly.
"Storm souvenir," she says.
"Very romantic," I say.
"I think so," she says, and I go back to what I was doing.
What I was doing is worth going back to.
I am attentive in the way she wants me to be. That matters. Unhurried, attentive, focused in a way that communicates clearly that I have been paying attention and I intend to demonstrate that at length. My hands are sure, her mouth is warm, she says my name in the dark in that specific way that has nothing to do with just a name.
I say hers back.
We move together with the particular ease of two people who have learned each other, not just physically but in all the ways that inform it. The way she knows to pull me closer when I go quiet. The way I know she needs a moment when something lands harder than she expected.
The way we find the same rhythm without counting it. The way we found it on the dance floor at Whiskey River, natural, unhurried, completely our own.
The rain comes down outside.
The ranch is quiet.
Maisie sleeps downstairs with Rowdy pressed against her legs.
None of that is far away exactly. It's just not where we are right now.
Where we are is here, fully, completely, without reservation. I roll her on her back while I lay on my side gently touching, stroking and looking.
She lets out a moan that makes me smile. My hand is between her legs while my fingers enter her. Her body is arching. My mouth moves to her breast to her nipples and caress them with my tongue.
She's already close, I notice, so I stop and settle between her legs. My hardness very apparent by now. We start moving in rhythm. Her legs are wrapped around me. I'm pulling her in as she tells me she wants it harder. I do it.
We are moving in the dark of the night with the storm still making its last sounds outside as it moves on. I start moving faster again and we both explode at the same time. I lay down beside her as we both try catching our breath.
Afterward she lies against my chest with my hand moving slowly in her hair. The stillness of a room that has held something real and is settling around it.
The rain is softer now. Almost gentle. The lamp is still on low, the warm light catching the ceiling, the window showing a sky that has finally decided to be done with its worst.
I listen to her heartbeat.
It's steady.
Of course it is.
Everything about this woman feels steady.
Laney?" I say into the dark.
