"Maybe," I agreed, though I didn't move.
Neither did she.
The silence pulled taut. Her lips parted like she was about to say something, then closed. Opened again. "Gideon?—"
Before thought caught up with action, before the careful control I lived by could stop me, I leaned in.
Our lips met—soft at first, testing, a question asked without words. Then hunger surged, answering. Hers parted under mine, and she tasted like salt and sweetness and something that felt like coming home to a place I'd never been. Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer, and a sound escaped her throat that broke something loose in my chest.
I swept her up without breaking the kiss, arms sliding under her knees and back. She was lighter than I expected, all that fierce determination and sharp mind packaged in curves that pressed perfect against me as her legs wrapped instinctive around my waist.
She gasped against my mouth. "What are you?—"
"Inside," I growled, already moving, carrying her through the screen door that bounced once behind us. "Now."
Her breath came hot and fast against my neck as I took the stairs two at a time, muscle memory guiding me down the hallway to my room. Her fingers tangled in my hair, nails scraping my scalp in a way that made me want to pin her against the nearest wall and forget about beds entirely.
But she deserved better than that.
Better than a hallway.
Better than me, probably.
I'd worry about that later.
11
HAZEL
His door swung inward on a soft groan, and the room breathed salt and old wood around us. Gideon kicked it shut with his boot, the latch catching with a clean click that sounded like inevitability.
He set me on my feet, but his hands didn’t leave me—one at my waist, the other splayed warm at the small of my back, as if the house might tilt and he’d have to keep me from sliding off the world. I could feel his pulse through his palm. Or maybe it was mine.
“Hi,” I said, which was ridiculous after the way I’d wrapped my legs around him on the porch steps like a woman with no shame and less sense.
His mouth curved. “Hi.”
The silence tightened—sweet, heavy, the kind that made a body honest. He was close enough I could count the copper threads in his beard, close enough to see that his eyes weren’t one color but many, gray shot through with iron and light. He watched me like he was waiting for a signal I didn’t know how to give.
I wanted him. There wasn’t any point pretending otherwise. My body had already voted—loudly, embarrassingly—and my mind had staged a protest and lost.
But wanting and doing were different species. Wanting was private. Doing meant being seen.
Heat rushed up my throat. I stepped back a half pace, then another, bumping the bed with the backs of my knees. The mattress dipped, catching me. I landed on the edge.
Gideon didn’t pursue. He stood where I’d left him, hands loose at his sides, breathing steady, attention pinned. A man who knew how to wait.
“I—” My voice skittered. I tucked a curl behind my ear that didn’t need tucking. “I haven’t … it’s been a while. And I’m not—”Good at this, I almost said.
His jaw eased like I’d given him a puzzle he preferred to anything else. “Hazel,” he said, and my name in his voice slowed my heartbeat and sped it both. “Look at me.”
I did.
“I’m not here for performance,” he said. “Not a show. Not a checklist. I’m here for you.”
I swallowed. “I don’t?—”
“You don’t have to be anything you’re not,” he went on, quiet and clean as a blade. “You want me.” It wasn’t a question. “I want you. If you want to stop, we stop. If you want to go slow, we go slow. If you want me to tell you what to do so your head can rest, I can do that, too.”
