The bed was soaked. The air was thick with sweat, sex, and everything we weren’t saying.
Wilder pulled away first, silent as he sat up. But instead of reaching for his clothes, he stood, then turned and held out a hand.
I took it.
The bathroom lights were low, golden. Steam was already curling up the walls as he twisted the shower knob and let the water heat. I leaned against the sink, watching his reflection. He looked lost in it, a man caught between guilt and need, between leaving and staying.
But when I stepped in, he followed.
The water was hot, hitting my shoulders like a weighted blanket. Wilder pressed me back against the tiled wall, and this time when he kissed me, it was slow. His hands were everywhere, gently smoothing soap over my body like I was breakable, cupping my face like he didn’t know how to let go. Reverent.
His voice was quiet now, breath feathering over my jaw.
“Let me make it good,” he said. “Let me make it slow,” he said, voice husky. “Let me show you what it means when I care.”
I nodded.
He moved inside me like he was memorizing the feel of it. Like this mattered in ways neither of us were ready to name. And maybe it was the vulnerability in his eyes, or the way his hands trembled slightly against my skin, but I stopped pretending this was just comfort. This was something else entirely.
There were no sharp moans, no frantic gasps, just deep breaths, slow whimpers, the wet slide of skin against skin and the hiss of water rushing around us.
He kissed my eyelids. My cheek. The corner of my mouth.
And when I came for the fourth time, soft and full and aching, it felt like letting go. He wrapped both arms around me and came with me buried deep, holding me so tightly I could feel the storm break in his chest.
We didn’t say much after the shower.
He dried me off with one of my softest towels, careful like I was made of silk instead of sweat, and nerve endings. Then he pulled one off the hook for himself and followed me back into the bedroom, quiet, watchful, like the storm inside him had finally softened into rain.
Then he led me to the fire and wrapped us in the wool throw from the back of the sofa. We curled up on the rug tangled and warm. The flames crackled low, casting amber shadows across his chest and cheekbones, softening the sharp lines that made Wilder Miller look like trouble even when he wasn’t trying.
With his arm around me, the silence between us wasn’t awkward. It was safe.
“What?” he murmured when he caught me looking at him.
“You’re less grumpy when you’re warm,” I said.
His arm around me tightened, a small smile curling at the edges of his mouth. “Keep that to yourself. I’ve got a whole moody cowboy thing to protect.”
I ran my fingertips over his chest, feeling the slow, steady rise and fall. “Also didn’t peg you as the blanket-and-firelight type.”
“I wasn’t,” he said. Then quieter, “Maybe I just didn’t know what it felt like to want this.”
I turned slightly to face him. The firelight caught in his lashes, softening everything that made him look so confident from the outside.
“Careful,” I said, voice teasing but gentle. “You’re bordering on poetic.”
He leaned forward and kissed my temple, slow and lingering. “That wasn’t poetry. That was honesty.”
“And what’s the rest of your truth?”
Shifting, he brushed a damp curl away from my cheek with the kind of tenderness that made my breath catch.
“The truth is, I don’t know what this is between us. But I know it feels like peace. Like the kind I never thought I’d get to have.” He breathed out, his gaze pinned to mine. “Like I never thought I wanted.”
Resting my head on his chest, heart thudding, his hand traced slow circles on my back.
“So,” I licked my lips, “you do think about this?” I asked, my gaze flicking to the door that he’d stormed through earlier. “What we’re doing here.”
