"I'm counting on it."
We stayed on the porch swing long after the stars came out, talking about nothing and everything—her plans for law school, my ideas for expanding the cabin, the garden she wanted to plant in the spring. Small dreams and big ones, woven together into a future neither of us had expected but both of us wanted.
At some point, she fell asleep against my shoulder, her breath warm on my neck. I held her close and watched the sky, thinking about how different my life was now than it had been a month ago.
I'd come to Iron Peak to disappear. To punish myself with solitude and silence. To make sure I never got close enough to anyone to hurt them again.
Instead, I'd found her. And for the first time in three years, I wasn't running from my past. I was looking forward to my future.
Ourfuture.
I pressed a kiss to her hair and let my eyes drift closed. This was exactly where I was supposed to be.
EPILOGUE
EMORY: 4 YEARS LATER
Ifocused on my breath. In through the nose, slow and deep, out through the mouth in a steady stream.
The mat I’d set up on the back porch was warm under the balls of my feet, the late-afternoon sun painting everything gold. Kai's cabin—our cabin now—still felt like a gift, even after more than three years of marriage. I'd come to Iron Peak to house-sit for three weeks and never left.
Mountain pose felt different now—my center of gravity had shifted, my belly round and heavy at four months. But the stretch still sang through my hamstrings and the long line of my spine.
I closed my eyes and let the world narrow to the rhythm of inhale, exhale, the soft creak of the cabin settling behind me, the distant trickle of the creek.
Footsteps. Quiet at first, then deliberate. I knew that rhythm.
I didn’t open my eyes. Didn’t move.
Strong arms slid around my waist from behind, careful not to press too hard against the swell of my stomach. Kai’s chest pressed to my back, warm and solid, his chin resting lightly onmy shoulder. The familiar scent of pine, clean sweat, and him wrapped around me tight.
“Don’t move,” he murmured, voice low and rough against my ear.
It was the same command he’d given me so many times before, and it always carried a tender edge.
His left hand stayed splayed across my lower belly—protective, reverent—while his right drifted lower. Fingers skimmed the waistband of my leggings and slipped beneath the elastic, beneath the soft cotton of my panties. He found me already slick, already wanting, and circled my clit with the slow, deliberate pressure he knew would unravel me.
I sucked in a breath. My arms trembled, but I held the pose.
“Good girl,” he whispered. “Keep holding it.”
The challenge lit me up the way it always had. My thighs shook. My breath came shorter, shallower. He didn’t rush—never did—just stroked in lazy, perfect circles, occasionally dipping lower to gather more of my wetness before returning to that sensitive bundle of nerves. Heat coiled tight and fast in my core.
“Kai—” His name came out half moan, half plea.
“Don’t move,” he said, firmer now. “Hold the pose, Em.”
I tried. God, I tried. The pressure built like a storm inside me, every nerve ending alive and sparking under his touch. My muscles burned from the effort of staying still. I could hear the distant birdsong, the rustle of leaves in the breeze, but it all faded against the wet sounds of his fingers moving against me, the hitch in his own breathing as he took me toward orgasm.
His thumb pressed just right, sending jolts of electricity straight through my core, making my toes curl against the mat. The excitement thrummed in my veins—not just from his touch, but from the openness of it all.
The porch overlooked the yard, the trees thin enough that anyone in the cabin next door could glance over and see us if they were awake. Eunice's old cabin had new owners now—a couple from Denver who'd bought the place two years ago when Eunice finally moved to Italy to be closer to her sister. They were weekend escape artists who slept in late, especially midweek like this.
I was fairly sure we were safe, but that slim chance of being caught? It sent a forbidden thrill racing through me, sharpening every sensation, making my skin flush hotter, my pulse pound louder in my ears. What if they stirred early? What if a curtain twitched? The risk made me clench tighter, desperate for more.
But when the first hard wave crashed through me, my knees softened. I leaned back against my husband of almost three years with a broken cry as pleasure pulsed through every limb. White-hot and relentless, it rippled from my clit outward in shuddering waves that left me quaking.
Kai kept touching me through it, drawing it out with those expert circles, his low growl of approval vibrating against my back until I was trembling and gasping. My hips rocked instinctively against his hand, chasing the fading edges of bliss.
