I tuck her hair behind her ear.Trace my thumb along her jaw.The same gesture from the tailgate.The same gesture from the kiss in the rain.My gesture.Hers.
"I haven't wanted someone in a long time," I say."I haven't wanted anything in a long time.I came to these mountains to disappear, and I was doing a fine job of it until you showed up with your dog and your calm voice and your ability to read everything about me that I've spent four years trying to hide."
She presses her lips to my chest.Right over my heart.I feel the warmth of her mouth through my entire body.
"You're not hidden," she says."You never were.You're right here."
I pull her closer.Press my face into her hair and breathe her in.Vanilla and sex and my sheets and something that's already starting to smell like home.
Scout scratches at the bedroom door.I reach out and crack it open without letting go of Lydia, and the Malinois trots in, circles once, and lies down at the foot of the bed like she's been sleeping here for years.
Duke pokes his head in a moment later.Looks at the bed.Looks at Scout.Looks at me with an expression of deep, personal betrayal.
"Come on," I tell him.
He jumps up and settles in the remaining gap between our feet and the footboard, and my bed has never been this full and my chest has never been this quiet.
Lydia's breathing slows against my skin.Her body softens.Her hand rests on my sternum, fingers spread, holding the heartbeat she's just changed the rhythm of.
I lie awake and listen to the rain and the dogs and the woman breathing in my arms.
Forty-seven people I pulled from the water.Every name.Every face.
This is the first time the count hasn't been the last thing I think about before I close my eyes.
CHAPTERSIX
LYDIA
Iwake up to the sound of a man talking to dogs.
Not the clipped commands I've heard Stephen use in training.Something softer.A low, steady murmur drifting from the kitchen, mixed with the click of kibble in metal bowls and the shuffling of paws on hardwood.
"Duke, you're getting the senior blend whether you like it or not.Don't give me that look.Scout, yours is on the right.Yeah, I know you don't live here.Consider it room service."
I press my face into the pillow and smile.
The pillow smells like him.Salt and pine and something warm underneath that I've already started cataloging as specifically Stephen.The sheets are tangled around my waist, and my body aches in places that have nothing to do with yesterday's rescue and everything to do with what happened after.
Pale morning light fills the bedroom.The storm passed overnight, and through the window I can see the mountains washed clean, snowcaps gleaming against a sky so blue it looks digital.I stretch, feel the pleasant burn in my thighs, my hips, the tender spot on my neck where his stubble scraped during the second time.
Because there was a second time.
Around two a.m., he woke me with his mouth on my shoulder and his hand sliding down my stomach, and we came together in the dark with a slow intensity that was completely different from the first.No urgency.No desperation.Just his body moving over mine in the quiet, his forehead pressed to mine, his eyes open and locked on my face the entire time like he was trying to memorize me by touch.
I sit up and find my underwear on the floor.Pull them on, then his flannel from the back of the door where he hung it to dry.The shirt swallows me and smells like woodsmoke and laundry detergent and the man himself, and wearing it feels like a claim.
When I walk into the kitchen, Stephen is standing at the stove in low-slung sweatpants and nothing else.Bare feet, bare chest, his sun-bleached hair going in six directions.He's scrambling eggs one-handed while pouring coffee with the other, and three dogs sit in a perfect row watching him with the focused attention of creatures who know exactly who controls the food supply.
Scout is sitting between Duke and Ranger like she's been part of this pack her whole life.
Stephen turns at the sound of my footstep.His eyes travel down the flannel, over my bare legs, back up to my face.The look on his expression is not casual.Not distracted.It's a man seeing something he wants in his kitchen wearing his shirt, and every line of his body says mine.
"Morning."His voice is rougher than usual.Sleep and sex and something tender underneath.
"Morning."I cross to the counter and take the coffee he holds out.Our fingers brush during the transfer, and even after last night, even after everything, the contact sends a ripple through me."You fed Scout."
"She looked hungry."
