"It's beautiful," she says, running her fingers along the rough-hewn mantle. "So different from what I expected."
"What did you expect?" I ask, setting the poker aside and straightening to my full height.
"Something more…I don't know. Modern. Glass and chrome, like your penthouse." She shrugs, still taking in details—the hand-woven rug, the oversized leather chairs, the deliberate absence of technology visible in the main room. "This feels lived-in. Personal."
"I built it five years ago," I tell her, watching her reaction carefully. "Designed it myself. The builders thought I was insane, putting a luxury cabin at this elevation, but I wanted the isolation. The silence."
What I don't say: I wanted a fortress no one could penetrate. A place where Alexander Devereux could exist without performance or calculation or the constant vigilance required by a world eager to exploit any vulnerability. Now I've brought her into that sanctuary, breaching my own defenses in ways that should terrify me but instead feel like exhaling after holding my breath for years.
Clara approaches the floor-to-ceiling windows, pressing her palm against glass cold enough to fog around her touch. Outside, snow falls in thick, lazy flakes, blanketing the world in pristine white. The nearest neighbor is four miles down the mountain. We are utterly, completely alone together for the first time since our relationship began.
"No security detail hiding in the trees?" she asks, a hint of teasing in her voice despite the genuine question beneath.
I move behind her, close enough to feel her warmth but not touching. "Just us," I promise. "No guards. No staff. No one monitoring or reporting or intruding. You asked for space within closeness. I'm trying to give you that."
She turns, searching my face for deception or reservation. Finding none, she steps into my space, her small hands coming to rest on my chest. Through the cashmere of my sweater, I feel her touch like a brand, like something permanent being imprinted on my skin.
"Thank you," she says simply. Those two words, heavy with meaning beyond their syllables. Thank you for listening. For trying. For respecting my needs even when they contradict your instincts.
I cover her hands with mine, engulfing them completely. The size difference between us—my height, my breadth, my physical capacity to overwhelm—has always been both appealing and concerning. I could break her. I could consume her. I could extinguish the very spark in her that drew me in the first place.
Instead, I bring her hands to my lips, kissing her knuckles with deliberate gentleness.
"I'm learning," I tell her, the admission costing me less pride than it would have weeks ago. "I want to get this right. You. Us. I want it more than I've wanted anything."
The fire pops and hisses, throwing golden light across her features. Outside, the snow continues its silent descent, insulating us from the world beyond these walls. Clara's eyes never leave mine as she disentangles one hand to touch my face, her thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
"I know," she says. "I trust you. I’m sorry for running for so long."
Something releases in me at her recognition—a tension I've been carrying since our confrontation days ago, since her threat to walk away, since my own realization that I've been suffocating what I most want to protect. I pull her against me, burying my face in her hair, inhaling the scent that's become home to me—vanilla, cinnamon, the faint citrus of her shampoo.
Her arms circle my waist, holding me with equal need. We stand like this for minutes or hours, time becoming meaningless in the cocoon we've created, just the crackling fire and synchronized breathing and the silent understanding passing between us.
When she tilts her head back to look at me, the invitation in her eyes is unmistakable. I lower my mouth to hers with none of the savagery of our last encounter, none of the desperate claiming. This kiss is deliberate, exploratory, a relearning. Her lips part beneath mine, tongue meeting mine with equal hunger but less urgency.
I guide her toward the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace, a ridiculous cliché that somehow feels perfect rather than contrived in this moment. As we sink onto its softness, the fire casts dancing shadows across her skin, turning ordinary flesh into something otherworldly, something sacred.
"I've wanted you here," I murmur against her throat, "in this place that's only mine, since the moment I first saw you."
She shivers at the confession, fingers tangling in my hair as I follow the delicate line of her collarbone with my lips. Her sweater becomes an obstacle, and I remove it with reverent efficiency, revealing the simple cotton bra beneath—practical, unadorned, purely Clara in its lack of pretense.
"You're so beautiful," I tell her, the words inadequate for the tightness in my chest, the wonder that still floods me when I see her like this—vulnerable, open, mine in ways that have nothing to do with possession and everything to do with mutual surrender.
I lower her to the rug, my body covering hers, sharing warmth against the mountain chill that even the roaring fire can't fully dispel. Her hands slip beneath my sweater, mapping the contours of my back, my shoulders, silently urging itsremoval. I comply, our skin finally meeting with that electric recognition that never diminishes, never becomes routine.
Time stretches and compresses as we undress each other with unhurried intent, each newly revealed inch of skin explored with hands and mouths and whispered appreciations. When she lies naked beneath me, firelight gilding her curves with amber and gold, I'm overcome with a gratitude so profound it borders on pain.
I trace the constellations of freckles across her chest, connecting them with my tongue, memorizing patterns unique to her. Her breath quickens, hands clutching my shoulders as I move lower, lips brushing the sensitive skin beneath her breasts, the slight curve of her stomach, the sharp angle of her hipbone.
"Alex," she sighs, my name a benediction on her lips as I settle between her thighs, pressing kisses to the soft inner skin, deliberately avoiding where she most wants me until her hips rise in wordless plea.
When I finally taste her, the sound she makes—half gasp, half moan—ignites something primal in my core. I lose myself in her pleasure, in the salt-sweet taste of her desire, in the trembling muscles of her thighs on either side of my head. Her hands find my hair, alternately stroking and pulling as I use my tongue to worship her, to communicate with actions what words still feel inadequate to express.
I know her body now, know the rhythms and pressures that wind her tighter, that build her toward release. I employ them all, relentless in my devotion, greedy for her response. When she comes, it's with my name on her lips and her body arched like a bow, every muscle taut with pleasure I've given her, pleasure that belongs to me as much as to her.
Before she's fully recovered, she's pushing at my shoulders, reversing our positions with surprising strength. Her hair falls around us like a curtain as she kisses me deeply, tasting herselfon my tongue, making a sound of approval that vibrates through my bones.
"My turn," she murmurs against my mouth, trailing kisses down my chest, nails scraping lightly over my ribs in a way she's learned makes me shudder.
