I spend the first hour fixing the back gate I promised Bailey I’d repair, which is a metaphor I don’t have the energy to unpack. The hinge is stubborn. So am I. When it finally gives, the satisfying pop is almost obscene.
Bailey leans in the doorway with a glass of lemonade that would shame the sun. “Look at you,” she teases. “Handyman heartthrob.”
“I’ll have you know I’m multitalented.” I lift the drill like a trophy. “Gate whisperer, scone consumer, amateur ring-light assassin.”
She bites her smile and passes me the glass. Our fingers brush. That familiar voltage runs my spine like a fast route. The porch is empty. The town has jobs and casseroles to deliver. For the first time in days, the lighthouse feels like it’s just ours.
“Close the door,” I say.
Her brows flick up. “Bossy.”
“Focused.”
She steps back, toe nudging the door shut. The latch clicks—the one I replaced, the one that doesn’t rattle now when the wind has opinions. I set the drill down and take two steps, erasing the distance.
We’ve been living in borrowed moments—stolen kisses between hearings and press calls, a hand on her back while she reads, a forehead press that says more than any speech—because chaos has been loud and we’ve been louder. Now the quiet stands up and stretches and asks if we remember how to use it.
“Hi,” she says against my mouth.
“Hi,” I answer into hers.
It feels different after saying it on camera, after the pier, after the warehouse. Not heavier—truer. She curls a fist in the front of my shirt and pulls me with the confidence of a woman who made a town bend and a corporation blink.
We don’t race. We drift, bumper boats/carousel horses/something with bells and a slow smile. Her back finds the wall. My hands find the curve of her waist. The room finds a warmer temperature than the thermostat suggests. She tastes like lemon and stubborn. I kiss the laugh from the corner of her mouth and the worry from the line between her brows. She slides her palms under my shirt and relearns a map she’s already memorized.
“Door’s locked,” she murmurs, breath tickling my throat. “Right?”
“Double,” I promise, and press a kiss to the hinge of her jaw because it makes her shiver. “Triple if you ask nicely.”
“You think I ask nicely?” She hooks her fingers in my belt loops and walks me backward, slow as a hymn, toward the stairs. “I make lists.”
“Bossy,” I repeat, and let her win.
We climb, kissing like we have time now—like the world isn’t waiting downstairs with consequences and calendars. The lantern room windows make small, square paintings of the bay, lightning stitching silver through the water. The floorboards creak like they’re rooting for us. In the bedroom, the cat does us the favor of leaving, tail high, like he refuses to participate in our poor choices.
Her sweater comes off; my breath does, too.
I don’t rush. I want her aware of every second of it—my hands sliding up her sides, my thumbs tracing the familiar lines I’ve missed more than I let myself admit. I kiss her shoulder, the hollow of her collarbone, the inside of her wrist where her pulse is writing my name. She laughs when I drop a kiss just below her ear; I laugh when she noses along my jaw and finds the place that makes my knees consider surrender.
We’re careful with my shoulder and reckless with everything else.
“Crew,” she whispers when I slow down on purpose, mouth hovering at her sternum, hand warm and steady at her hip. There’s a plea in it. There’s power, too. She’s not shy with me anymore—not hiding in any of the places she used to keep quiet.
She drags me up by my shirt and kisses me like gratitude and challenge at once, like she’s daring me to keep control. I answer by backing her toward the bed, letting her feel the promise of what I’m not giving yet. Her fingers clutch at me, impatient now, and the sound she makes when I break the kiss to trail my mouth lower is worth every second of restraint.
We fall together, air knocked out in the best way. It’s heat and hush and the sheet tangled in my calf. It’s the kind of closeness that makes words useless and makes breath do the talking. When she arches, I cover her mouth with mine to catch the sound; when I groan, she bites my lip like I’m a secret and she’s bad at keeping them.
We hover right up against the line we promised to imply and stay there—delicious, relentless. My hand slides under and up; hers answers, nails grazing down my back. The room smells like salt and us. The world narrows to a pulse we sync without trying, a rhythm that feels inevitable.
Clothes end up in random piles across the room. My cock eases into her slick center like it’s found its way home. My heart lurches in overwhelming feelings with every thrust. And when we both fall over the edge, I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
After, we don’t spring apart. We melt. My forehead rests against hers. Her fingers draw lazy circles at my nape. I count the beats in my chest and realize they’re not sprinting—they’re steady. That terrifies me in a way that feels like joy.
“You’re dangerous,” I tell her, voice rough.
“Occupational hazard,” she says, smug and wrecked.
“We’re keeping the door locked,” I decide.
