She winced.
“I’m not mad at you,” he went on. “I am mad at the picture in my head of you in that crowd while I was riding, like you were behind three layers of hotel security. I made decisions out there based on the idea that I knew exactly where you were. You changed the plan and did not loop me in.”
“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I picked the least risky way to break the rules, which is a terrible sentence when you say it out loud.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, despite everything. “Yeah, it is.”
He let out a breath, his shoulders loosening a fraction.
“I get why you did it,” he said. “If I had been through what you have, I might have done the same. That doesn’t mean I like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” she said. “I hated lying to you, even for a couple of hours. I hated that I felt like I had to choose between being safe and being present.”
He brushed his thumbs across her cheeks again, a small, grounding touch.
“Okay,” he said. “So next time, we do not put you in that position. If my safety plan involves you, we build it together. No assumptions. No heroics in a floppy hat.”
She huffed a weak laugh. “Deal.”
“Good,” he said softly. “Because I am very attached to the idea of you being around for a long time.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”
Something eased between them then. Not completely, this was not something one conversation could fix. But a knot she had been carrying in her chest loosened enough for air to move more freely.
He kissed her again, slower, a question instead of an explosion.
She answered yes with the way she pressed closer, with the way her fingers curled into his shirt and then under it, seeking skin.
The rest of the world faded to a low hum.
They made their way to the bed half by accident, half by design. Touches punctuated every step, the slide of his hand along her spine, the curve of her fingers over the back of his neck. When he peeled her T-shirt away, he did it with a care that made her feel cherished, not exposed.
“You’re beautiful,” he said simply, looking at her like she was the first good thing he had seen in days.
“You’re biased,” she said, cheeks warm.
“Not even a little,” he answered.
His own shirt went next, tossed somewhere toward the chair. The lines of his chest and stomach were familiar enough from earlier glimpses that they did not startle her, but the reality of his bare skin under her hands still made something in her curl tight.
He touched her like he had ridden; focused, attentive, reading feedback and adjusting. When she sucked in a breath or tensed, he slowed; when she arched into him, he followed.
“Tell me if you need anything different,” he murmured into the curve of her neck. “Faster, slower, more, less. I’m not on a solo ride here.”
She laughed softly; the sound breaking on a sigh when his mouth found the sensitive spot just below her ear.
“I’ll tell you,” she promised.
She did. When a particular pressure was too much, when she wanted his hand to move, when she needed a second to chase away an old ghost that tried to creep in when his weight settled more fully over hers.
“I’m here,” he reminded her each time. “You’re here. No one else in the room.”
By the time he slid into her, she was ready; not just physically, but in all the ways that mattered. She met him halfway, hips rising, hands framing his face. The stretch hurt a little; then it did not, then it felt so right she could have cried.
He moved with a rhythm that felt almost like the race: steady, sure, pushing and easing at all the right moments. Except here, there were no opponents, no lap times, no flags. Just the two of them, figuring out a new way to fit together.
When release swept over her, it felt nothing like the shattering she had feared and everything like coming back into alignment. She heard herself cry out; heard him answer with a rough sound that was part her name, part relief.
