“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.
He followed her, his whole body shuddering; forehead dropping to her shoulder.
For a little while afterward, they did not speak; they just lay tangled in the sheets, her leg thrown over his, his hand resting low on her stomach. His heartbeat thumped against her palm, steady and strong.
“You alive?” he asked eventually, voice sleep-rough.
“Very,” she said. “Dangerously so.”
He laughed, the sound vibrating through her.
“Good,” he said. “I like you that way.”
They shifted so she could lay half on top of him, her cheek on his chest. He stroked lazy patterns along her spine, fingers following the curve of each vertebra.
“So,” she said after a long, contented silence. “You mentioned something earlier about a shop.”
He smiled; she felt it under her ear.
“I did,” he said. “The mayor cornered me after the podium. Apparently, having a Cup winner stick around and hang a shingle is good for tourism. There’s an old warehouse off Bay Street that they want to turn into mixed-use. They figure a performance shop downstairs, and some artsy space upstairs gives them bragging rights.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Artsy space,” she repeated. “That sounds suspiciously like a studio.”
“Depends on who we convince to move in,” he said. “I hear there is an artist in residence at the Copper Moon hotel who has been making a lot of staff very curious.”
She smiled.
“An artist who is thinking about staying,” she said quietly. “About painting more than waves and tourists.”
His hand stilled against her back.
“Yeah,” he said. “Is she now?”
