I nodded before I could think. “Yeah. Just…” I turned enough to meet his eyes. “Don’t disappear on me when I wake up, okay?”
He smiled — tired, crooked, too tender for what we were supposed to be. “Wouldn’t dare.”
For a long while, neither of us spoke. The room felt small and endless all at once. The tension unraveled, soft and clumsy.
He pulled the blanket over us with exaggerated care, tucking it under my chin. “There. Safe and sound.”
“Like a burrito,” I murmured, already smiling.
“A very alluring burrito,” he said, and I couldhearthe grin in his voice.
We dissolved into laughter — quiet ones, breathless and contagious. The kind that makes your ribs ache but feels like a promise all on its own.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling while the firelight flickered across it. “You’re supposed to be brooding,” I teased softly. “Not making me giggle like a kid.”
He propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me with a glint I hadn’t seen before — warm, unguarded. “Yeah, well,” he said, brushing a piece of hair off my cheek, “maybe you bring out the wrong kind of trouble in me.”
I grinned, eyes fluttering shut as he settled beside me again, his arm draped lazily across my waist. The air still buzzed between us, but it wasn’t sharp anymore. It was… steady. Sweet.
And when he whispered, half-asleep, “Goodnight, trouble,” I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up — soft against his chest.
“Goodnight, writer boy.”
And when he pulled me closer, I let myself believe it.
CHAPTER 19
Colette
When I woke,the fire had fallen to embers — a red-orange glow breathing faintly in the dimness. The cabin was still. Snow pressed against the windows, muting the world to a soft, endless hush.
Silas was beside me.
His hand had fallen over my waist sometime in the night, his palm heavy and sure, the contact made my whole body remember every place he’d been. His breathing was slow, almost peaceful, and I stayed still just to listen — the steady rhythm of it, the warmth radiating off him.
He must’ve pulled the blanket higher after I fell asleep. I could feel the tucked edge near my chin, his care written in the smallest gesture. Something about that made my throat tighten.
I turned carefully, trying not to wake him, and caught the faintest glimpse of his face — the shadows of stubble, the furrow still etched between his brows even in sleep. He looked older in the firelight. Or maybe just human.
When he finally stirred, it was with a quiet exhale, his fingers flexing against my side before retreating. “You’re awake early,” he murmured, voice rough from sleep.
“So are you,” I whispered back.
He didn’t answer, just pushed himself up, bones cracking faintly as he stretched. Watching him move — bare-chested, steady, like he’d done this a thousand mornings before — did something strange to my chest. It was too normal. Too easy to imagine a life that looked like this.
He crouched by the hearth, feeding the coals, coaxing the flame to life again. When the fire caught, his shoulders glowed gold, and the world seemed to tilt around that simple, ordinary beauty.
He lingered by the hearth longer than necessary, crouched low, feeding the flame until it caught and stretched and filled the cabin with a gentle gold. The sound of it — the soft crackle, the sigh of new heat — made something inside me unclench.
When he finally stood, the light brushed across him in streaks. Bare skin, rumpled hair, a man who didn’t belong in this place but somehow fit it perfectly.
He turned, caught me watching, and huffed out a quiet breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You’re going to freeze again,” he said, voice low and still sleep-thick.
“I’m fine.”
He gave a slow shake of his head — likefinewasn’t good enough — and crossed the small room, each step deliberate, unhurried. Then he lifted the corner of the blanket and slipped back beneath it without asking.
The mattress dipped. Heat gathered immediately, rolling off him in soft waves. I hadn’t realized how cold I’d gotten until his warmth found me again.
