He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
Morgan crossed the room.
She kissed him before he could overthink it. Different from the cliff—not tentative, not accidental. Deliberate. Urgent. Seeking something she couldn’t name but needed desperately to find.
His hands came up to her waist, tentative at first, fingers barely grazing the fabric of her shirt. Then she pressed closer and his arms tightened, pulling her against him with a certainty that sent heat spreading through her belly.
She needed this. Needed to feel something other than the terror of losing herself. Needed to be in her body instead of trapped in her failing mind.
Lincoln let her lead. Followed her cues with the same focus he brought to code—reading her responses, adjusting, adapting. When she deepened the kiss, he matched her. When her fingers found the hem of his shirt, his breath caught but he didn’t pull away. When she stepped backward toward the bed, he followed.
His shirt came off first. She pulled it over his head and let her hands explore the planes of his chest—more muscular than she’d expected, warm skin over firm muscle, a scattering of hair that roughened beneath her palms. He shivered when her fingers traced down his ribs, and she filed that away. A map she was learning. A language that had nothing to do with code.
His hands found the buttons of her blouse. He paused there, fingers hovering.
“Is this okay?” His voice had gone rough. “Tell me if?—”
“Don’t stop.” She pulled him closer. “Please don’t stop.”
He undid the buttons slowly, and she helped him, shrugging the fabric off her shoulders and letting it fall. The airwas cool against her bare skin, but his mouth was warm, tracing a path from her neck to her collarbone to the hollow of her throat where her pulse hammered against her skin.
They fell onto the bed together, a tangle of limbs and half-removed clothing and the particular awkwardness of two people still learning each other’s bodies. His knee pressed between her thighs, and she gasped, pulling him closer, wanting the weight of him. Wanting to feel grounded in something physical and present andnow.
He was careful in ways that should have felt clinical but somehow didn’t. His fingers traced the waistband of her jeans, waiting for permission. When she lifted her hips, he slid them down slowly, his mouth following the path of newly exposed skin. She felt herself trembling—not from cold, not from fear—from the sheer overwhelming sensation of being touched like she was precious.
“You’re beautiful.” He said it the way he said everything—direct, factual, like he was reporting data. But his voice cracked on the word, and she understood that for him, this was poetry.
When he finally settled between her thighs, she pulled his face up to hers and kissed him again. Slower this time. Deeper. Tasting coffee and something sweeter underneath, feeling the tension in his jaw, the restraint he was fighting to maintain.
She could feel him hard against her, the length of him pressing where she needed him most. She rocked her hips, a wordless request, and heard his breath catch.
“I want you,” she whispered against his mouth. “I want to feel you.”
He groaned—a low, raw sound that vibrated through her. His hand slid between them, fingers finding her center, stroking through the slick heat he encountered there. Shegasped, her hips jerking involuntarily, chasing the pressure of his touch.
“You’re so wet.” He had wonder in his voice, like she’d given him something precious.
“For you.” She barely recognized her own voice—breathy, desperate. “Please, Lincoln. I need?—”
She couldn’t find the words to finish her thought, but she didn’t have to. He gave her what she needed.
He slid on a condom from his wallet, then pressed into her slowly, inch by inch, watching her face the whole time. The stretch of him made her moan, her body opening to accommodate him, welcoming him deeper. He paused when he was fully seated, his arms trembling with the effort of holding still.
“Okay?” The word came out strangled.
“Yes. God, yes.” She answered by rolling her hips, pulling him impossibly deeper. “Move. Please.”
He did.
Long, slow strokes at first—pulling almost all the way out, then sliding back in until she felt him everywhere. She wrapped her legs around his hips and urged him faster, harder, and he gave her that too. His control was slipping; she could feel it in the way his thrusts grew more urgent, less measured.
The headboard knocked against the wall. Neither of them cared.
She was drowning in sensation. The friction of him moving inside her. The weight of his body pinning her to the mattress. The scrape of his stubble against her neck when he buried his face there, breathing her name like a prayer. His hand found her breast, thumb circling her nipple until she cried out, the pleasure sharp and bright.
“God, Morgan.” His voice was wrecked. “You feel— I can’t?—”
“Don’t hold back.” She dragged her nails down his spine. “I want all of you.”
