The woman I love.
He said it in the middle of a sentence, tucked between hospital bills and his brother, like it was a fact he's been carrying so long it came out without ceremony. Like breathing. Like cutting a hinge.
"What did you just say?" I whisper.
He crosses the room. Kneels in front of me. Both hands on my knees, those scarred, calloused, steady hands that shook when I bled.
"I love you." Simple. Plain. His eyes are wrecked and wide open. "Not for show. Not because you problem-solved me. Not because you brought coffee or held my hand in a parking lot. I love you because you rode into my clearing on a buckskin mare and decided I was worth the trouble, and you were right, Paige. You were right. I'm worth the trouble. You made me worth the trouble."
"You were always?—"
"Let me finish." His grip tightens. "An hour ago I sat in this room and tried to push you out the door because Delaney calledme a victim and it lit up every rotten thing I've believed about myself since I was twenty-eight. And you walked out. You didn't fight me. You didn't yell. You walked out and gave me space to hear my own stupid voice in an empty room, and you know what I heard?"
I shake my head. Can't speak.
"Nothing." His thumbs move on my knees. "I heard nothing. Because the only voice that matters to me was on the other side of that door, and I sent her away."
A tear gets loose. I catch it with the back of my hand.
"Then I drove to the hospital. Told the front desk I needed to see my mother. And I walked into that room alone, without you, and I felt the difference. I felt what it's like to stand in front of people who hurt you without the one person who makes you brave enough to stay standing."
"Aiden."
"I love you, Paige Adulsa Thomas." He presses his forehead to my knees. "I love you, and I'm sorry I tried to send you home. I'm sorry I let that woman put a word on me that made me forget who I am when I'm with you. I won't do it again."
I take his face in both hands. Lift it. His eyes are red and open and terrified, and behind the terror there's something new. Something steady. Something that looks like a man who just chose his own story for the first time in twelve years.
"I love you too," I tell him. "Loved you since you fixed my stirrup in the rain, you stubborn, impossible man."
The sound he makes is broken and beautiful. He surges up, mouth on mine, arms wrapping around my waist, pulling me off the bed and against his chest. I wrap my legs around him. He holds me there, standing in the middle of a bad hotel room in East Texas, kissing me with everything he couldn't say for twelve years.
"Bed," I say against his mouth.
"Paige."
"Aiden. Bed. Now. I mean it."
He carries me the four steps. Lays me down. Follows.
His hands find the hem of the sundress and push it up my thighs while his mouth tracks down my throat. No rushing. Deliberate. He kisses the hollow below my ear, the cord of my neck, the turquoise at my collarbone. His teeth graze my skin and I arch up into him.
"Off," I tug at his flannel. He pulls back long enough to strip it over his head, and I drag my nails down his bare chest. His stomach contracts under my touch.
The sundress comes up and over. His mouth goes to my breasts, tongue circling a nipple through the thin bra before pulling the cup down and taking the bare skin between his lips. Sucking. My hips roll off the mattress.
"More."
He unclasps the bra. Pulls it free. Both hands on my breasts, thumbs working my nipples, mouth moving between them, beard scraping the sensitive skin underneath. My fingers tangle in his hair. Hold him there.
His hand slides down my stomach. Into my underwear. Two fingers press against my clit.
"Soaked," he murmurs against my skin. "Every time."
"Your fault."
He strokes. Those same deliberate circles, reading me, adjusting when I buck. Then lower. Inside me. Thick fingers curling, palm grinding my clit, and my back comes off the bed.
"Aiden. I want you. Not your hand."
