"I don't need my name in a book." His voice is low against my ear. "I've got you in my bed."
I laugh—I can't help it. "Smooth."
"I try."
He spins my chair around to face him. Then he's lifting me—right arm doing most of the work, his left shoulder still not quite what it was—and dropping into the chair with me in his lap. The wood groans under our combined weight.
His hands settle on my waist, warm through the thin fabric of his shirt, and I feel the solid press of his thighs under mine.
"Tell me."
I shift in his lap and get comfortable—or as comfortable as I can with his hands on me and his eyes on my face.
"It's a thriller," I say. "About a woman in hiding. Locked away in a safe house with a grumpy, broken orc."
His thumb traces a circle on my hip and he doesn't interrupt. He never does.
"Everyone warned her about him. Said he was dangerous. Said he'd hurt her." I touch his jaw, the scar there. "They were wrong."
"Were they."
"He cooked her breakfast. Cleaned her wounds. Stood between her and every threat." My fingers trace up to his tusk. "He was supposed to be a monster. Turned out he was just an orc who forgot he was allowed to be loved."
His hands tighten on my waist.
"I didn't think I'd ever write again. After Atlanta, after everything—I thought that part of me was dead. Cut out and gone."
He waits, his thumb still tracing those maddening circles.
"But then there was you. And the cottage. And the nightmares, and the cooking, and all of it." I look at the laptop, at the glowing screen and THE END. "The words came back."
"Good words?"
"The best words." I turn back to him. "It's us. Names changed, details different, but it's us. Two broken people who figured out how to be whole together."
His expression shifts, jaw working. No words come, but I don't need them.
He drops his forehead to my shoulder, breath warm against my neck, arms tight around me.
"Proud of you."
I press my lips to his hair and breathe him in.
"I know."
I turn in his lap until I'm facing him properly, knees bracketing his hips. My hands find his face—the tusks I've learned to kiss around—and my fingers drift to his shoulder, to the scar.
"I found my words."
His hands slide up my back, under the cotton.
"Yeah."
"I found my home." My voice catches on the last word, and I have to swallow before the rest comes. "I found you."
His eyes go dark. Hungry.
"You found me."
