She let the pencil still. “Come here,” she said.
He obeyed without question, setting the papers aside and crossing to her. She stood, tipped her head back, and kissed him.
Whatever patience they’d shown at the studio, they dropped it now.
He slid his hands to her hips, pulling her in; the contact sent a rush of heat through her. She opened to him, tasting coffee and something purely Hank.
“We should pace ourselves,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Why?” she asked. “I like this pace.”
He laughed softly, resigned and pleased. “Fair point.”
They moved together without spoken coordination, hands finding buttons and hems. The bed caught them when they toppled back; there was a lot of laughing and getting tangled in the comforter before it shifted into something slower.
Hank took his time; he always did. As if he were memorizing, mapping her with his hands, his mouth. He checked in with small touches and the way he watched her face, looking for every flicker of pleasure, every shadow of doubt.
She let herself be seen. That was the true leap, not the warehouse, not the business plan, but this. The way she let him touch the parts of her grief that still felt raw and jagged, even as he worshipped everything else.
When she came apart around him, it wasn’t fireworks and fanfare. It was a slow, deep wave that rolled through her, leaving her boneless and full. He followed with a quiet curse, burying his face in her neck, his body shuddering.
For a long time afterward, they lay in a tangle of limbs and sheets, breathing hard. The late afternoon light slanted across the floor, edging toward evening.
“If this is what post-race weekends look like now,” he said eventually, voice rough, “I’m never retiring.”
She laughed, stroking a hand down his back. “Pretty sure you can’t keep racing forever,” she said. “Your knees will mutiny.”
“Traitors,” he muttered. “Fine. I’ll run the shop and be your studio’s in-house mechanic. Hire a couple junior riders to do the dangerous stuff while I yell at them from the pit wall.”
“That sounds terrifying,” she said. “For them. Slightly hot for me.”
He lifted his head, eyebrow arched. “Slightly?”
“Moderately,” she amended. “Possibly extremely.”
He kissed her again, quick and affectionate this time, then rolled onto his back, dragging a hand over his face.
“Timeline-wise,” he said, “we’re looking at permits next week, contracts after that. If all goes well, we’re in construction within a month.”
“I’ll need to go back to Milwaukee,” she said. “Pack up my apartment. Figure out what to put in storage and what to bring here. Maybe help my parents shift some of Bryn’s things from altars to actual life. That’s not going to be easy.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “You don’t have to.”
“I know,” he said. “I want to. If I’m buying a building with you and using my power tools in your future studio, I’d like to see where you’ve been living. Meet your parents. Pay my respects to Bryn.”
Emotion punched through her chest, sharp and fierce. “You already did,” she said, voice thick. “When you pulled me out of that hotel room the first night and made me walk on the beach. She’d have liked you for that alone.”
“Then I want to go stand where she’s buried and tell her I’m going to keep trying,” he breathed. “If that’s okay with you.”
She pressed her face into his shoulder for a moment, hiding the sudden sting in her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s okay.”
He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. “We’ll figure the schedule out after Diaz gives us the all clear on your mystery sedan.”
“Awareness, not paranoia,” she reminded him.
He huffed. “You’re going to throw that back at me forever, aren’t you?”
