I pull out carefully, then collapse beside her on the bed. She immediately curls into my side, her head on my chest, one leg thrown over mine.
"Holy shit," she finally whispers.
"Yeah."
She props herself up on one elbow, looking down at me with those warm brown eyes, her hand tracing patterns on my chest. "That was perfect. You're perfect."
I'm not, but I don't argue. Just reach up and tuck a curl behind her ear.
"You're staying, right?" she asks. "Don't do the guy thing where you panic and leave."
"Not going anywhere."
"Good." She settles back against me. "Because we're definitely doing that again. Soon."
We lie there in the quiet, and I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.
"Mac?" she says after a while.
"Hmm?"
"Thank you. For trusting me. For telling me about the knitting, about what it means." She kisses my chest. "That took courage."
"Stay tonight," she says softly. "Don't go back to your cabin alone."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure." She kisses me. "I like having you here."
"I like being here."
"Good." She's grinning now. "Now, about round two..."
This time, I let myself smile.
"Yeah. We can do that."
And we do. I take her from behind this time, her face pressed into the pillow while I grip her hips and drive into her. Then again in the shower, her back against the tile while the hot water pounds down on us. And once more before dawn, slow and deep, her legs wrapped around me as I move inside her.
By the time the sun comes up, we're both exhausted and satisfied, tangled together in her bed. And I finally believe that maybe I deserve this. Deserve her.
Even if that thought still scares me.
five
Isla
Thebellabovethedoor chimes, and I look up hopefully, but it's just Wren MacDonald looking for copper wire.
"The thin gauge, if you have it," she says. "I'm working on a new piece and ran out."
I help her find it, trying not to be obvious about checking my phone. Mac left my apartment at six this morning for work—some construction job with one of the logging crews—and I haven't heard from him since.
Which is fine. Normal. We've only been doing this for a week.
A week of him showing up at closing time. Of dinners that get cold while we tear each other's clothes off. Of mornings waking up tangled together in my bed, his beard rough against my shoulder. Of him teaching me the basics of knitting while we sit on my couch, his big hands guiding mine through the stitches.
A week of falling completely, stupidly in love with a man who knits baby blankets and still looks surprised every time I kiss him.
