I kiss her again because I can't not kiss her. Because she's right. We're both damaged and broken, but we're also alive. Right here, right now, we're alive and we want each other, and for once that feels like enough.
When we finally break apart, her lips are swollen and her eyes are dark with desire.
"We should slow down." The words hurt to say. "You've been through trauma. I don't want you to regret?—"
"I won't regret anything with you." Her certainty steals my breath. "But you're right. We have time."
Taking it slow with Vivian seems impossible, but I nod. She deserves patience. Deserves a man who puts her needs first.
"Slow," I agree. "But this is real. I'm done pretending it isn't."
Her smile lights up her whole face. "Finally."
I help her down from the counter, keeping her close, not ready to lose the contact. We stand in my kitchen wrapped around each other as darkness falls outside the windows.
"Stay in my room tonight." I say it before I can stop myself. "Not for sex. Just... stay. I don't want to sleep alone knowing you're twenty feet away."
"Okay." Simple. No hesitation.
We end up on the couch, her back against my chest, a blanket thrown over us, the fire crackling in the wood stove. I hold her while she drifts toward sleep, her breathing evening out, her body relaxing into mine.
For the first time in five years, the silence doesn't feel like punishment. It feels like peace.
I press a kiss to her hair and let myself imagine a future I have no right to want. One where this woman stays. Where I don't fail her. Where the walls I've built become a home instead of a prison.
It's a fantasy. I know it's a fantasy. But with Vivian warm and safe in my arms, I let myself believe it anyway.
Just for tonight.
CHAPTER SIX
VIVIAN
Iwake up wrapped around Deck like he's a body pillow I've been using my whole life.
My head is on his chest, my leg thrown over his thigh, my arm draped across his stomach. At some point during the night, we migrated from the couch to his bed. I have a vague memory of him carrying me, of mumbling a protest, of him telling me to shut up and go back to sleep.
The morning light filters through the curtains, casting the room in soft gray. I can hear his heartbeat under my ear, steady and slow. He's still asleep, his face relaxed in a way I've never seen when he's awake. The permanent furrow between his brows has smoothed out. He looks younger. Less burdened.
Logic tells me that I should extract myself before this gets awkward. Delay the minor imminent crisis about the fact that I made out with my bodyguard last night and then slept in his arms.
But, I don't move. I close my eyes and breathe him in, and let myself have this moment.
His arm tightens around me. "You're thinking too loud."
"I didn't know you were awake."
"I've been awake for an hour. Didn't want to disturb you."
I lift my head to look at him. His eyes are open, green and alert despite the early hour. "You've been lying here for an hour just... watching me sleep?"
"Watching the door. Old habit." But his hand comes up to brush hair from my face, gentle in a way that contradicts his words. "You sleep like the dead, by the way. Didn't even twitch when I got up to check the perimeter."
"You checked the perimeter? What time is it?"
"Oh-four-hundred. I'm back now."
"You got up at four in the morning, walked the entire perimeter, and came back to bed without waking me?"
