He moves.
Slow at first. Deep, grinding strokes that hit something inside me that makes my vision blur. Then faster, hips snapping, the bed frame protesting underneath us, and I'm meeting every thrust, pulling him deeper with my heels.
"Harder."
He braces both hands on the headboard. Drives into me. The angle changes, hitting my clit with every stroke, and the pressure builds so fast I can't breathe.
"Paige." Ragged. "Look at me."
My eyes find his. Dark, blown, stripped of every wall he's ever built. He's right there. No hiding. No pulling back. Right there.
"I see you," I tell him.
He breaks.
I come a second time with him buried deep, his face pressed to my neck, his whole body shaking, and I hold him throughit with both arms locked around his back, feeling every pulse, every breath, every sound he makes against my skin.
We stay tangled. Neither of us moves. The loft's gone golden with sunset through the small window, and his weight on me is heavy, real, grounding me to this bed in this cabin on this mountain.
"Aiden."
"Hm." Muffled against my collarbone.
"Did you just?—"
"Yeah."
"Was that?—"
"Yeah."
I run my fingers through his damp hair. My chest is full. Dangerously full.
"Three in the morning," I say. "You carved me a spoon at three in the morning."
He lifts his head. Looks at me. And there it is. The smile. The full one. The one nobody on this ranch has ever seen because he's been saving it, apparently, for a twenty-nine-year-old cowgirl with a thermos and no sense of self-preservation.
"Carved you two," he says. "Broke the first one."
I kiss him. He rolls onto his back, pulling me on top, arms around my waist, and I press my face into his chest and breathe.
"Thursday," I say into his skin.
"Thursday."
"We'll be fine."
"We'll be fine."
I don't know if that's true. But lying on his chest in a loft that smells like cedar shavings, listening to a heartbeat that's finally slowed down to something steady, I believe it.
That's enough for now.
Chapter Eight
HARRISON
The hospital smells the way all hospitals smell. Cleaning solution and something underneath it that no amount of chemicals covers up.
