He shifted his angle and felt the change hit her. Her fingers dug into his shoulders hard enough to bruise. She rode him like the motion itself could scratch grief out of bone. He held on, pushed up into her, gave her that angle until her breath broke on a sound that went straight through him and scattered everything that wasn’t this.
She tightened around him, sudden and hot and insistent, and he felt the surge take her. She shuddered, body clamping down, forehead thudding into his with a soft curse that might have been his name. He didn’t close his eyes. He watched the way her mouth parted, the way her eyelids fluttered, the tear that slid down her cheek because even pleasure couldn’t outrun everything.
It undid him. He thrust again, and then he was gone, muscles snapping taut, heat ripping through him in a way that felt like surrender and relief and something he wanted to say, but it wasn’t the right time. Not yet.
He held her while it took him apart. He held her after, both of them shaking a little, breath sawing the quiet to pieces.
They stayed tangled like that. Her weight settled warm and heavy on him, skin damp, the room smelling like sweat and coffee and the humid green of the morning. His heart pounded against her palm where it still rested, as if it had been waiting there for her hand the whole time.
He smoothed his palm up and down her spine in slow passes. Her shuddering eased by degrees. He felt the small, involuntary after-twitches inside her and swallowed hard, wanting to say something stupid and reckless. Instead, he kissed her temple.
Outside, a bird called once, sharp and distant. The house clicked as it adjusted to the day. She made a low sound that he felt more than heard and tucked her face into his neck, breath damp and warm.
“I’ve got you,” he said, quietly. He could at least promise that much without scaring either of them. He eased them down onto the mattress fully, still joined, unwilling to let the world slide back in just yet. He reached for the edge of the quilt with his foot and dragged it up awkwardly until it covered her back.
Her shoulders rose and fell. Another minute, maybe two, and the rigid line between them softened. He let himself memorize the weight of her, the heat, the way her hair stuck to his cheek. If there were a way to keep this exact version of time, he would have figured it out. He didn’t know how. He only knew he would stay.
Outside, the sun broke the tree line. Light spilled through the gap in the curtains, cutting a warm stripe across the bed, across them, turning the gray room gold. The gators bellowed in the moat. A mockingbird started its morning repertoire from the cypress stand—cycling through stolen songs, one after another, like it couldn't decide which one to keep.
His breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t reached for the nightstand. He hadn’t grabbed a condom. As much as he hated the damn things, they were necessary since Dove wasn’t taking any birth control. Something about having an IUD removed sometime after she’d left the military and but hadn’t gone about getting on the pill yet. Something she kept meaning to do and never did.
He was about to say something, but then Dove's hands found his face. Held him there. Made him look at her while the world narrowed down to the space between them, and all thoughts that weren’t Dove drifted away. There was nothing left but he heat and her skin and the sound of her breathing and the way her eyes, even wrecked, even swollen and red-rimmed and exhausted, were the most alive thing he'd ever seen.
The conversation could wait a moment or two.
“Do you have to leave for your meeting with Keaton and Fallon soon?” she asked.
“About a half hour, but you can come if you want to. Actually, I’d feel better if you did. No reason for you to be alone.”
“I’m not staying in this reptile-infested house by myself.”
He chuckled. “You know, since we’re a thing, you kind of need to get used to that.”
“Not sure that’s possible.” She shivered, tossing her arm and leg over his body."
He kissed her nose. “After the meeting, I want to come back here because they’re exhuming my father’s body, and then I need to get ready for the town meeting.”
She propped herself up on his chest. “So far, I haven’t been able to make a connection between Sovereign Resources and the Hendersons, but I’m going to dig deeper.”
“My land wouldn’t necessarily help Sovereign. They can access the water reservoir where the limestone is without setting foot on Mallor’s Landing,” he said. “But Fallon and Keaton gave me some paperwork about how their blasting could upset the natural habitat that Mallor’s Landing has provided for three generations. Not to mention the eco tours and educational programs run through the commercial side.”
“Do they believe you could stop them from mining?”
“Neither one of them can be completely sure, but they do think I have the power to make Sovereign’s life a little bit miserable in gaining permits and whatnot. But they could also be prepared for the likes of me. They could already have answers to all the questions I’d ask. Could have a plan in place to protect the wildlife here. It’s not like companies like that aren’t aware they’re gonna disrupt communities.”
“What about the Hendersons and their threat to expose you if you don’t sell and how that might play into all this?” She arched a brow. “You can’t just ignore that and think it will go away.”
“I’m not going to and I’ll talk with Keaton, Fallon, and Dawson.” He tucked her into his side. “But I don’t want to think about any of that right now. I want to take ten minutes of silence before the world gets loud again.”
And for a moment, there was nothing else. Just the two of them, tangled together in a bed that smelled like coffee and cypress and something new. Something that he was ready to admit to himself but wasn’t sure either one of them was brave enough to embrace what it meant. He’d deal with the lack of a condom when he wasn’t too scared to discuss the implications.
Chapter Fourteen
Dove leaned against the counter, mug in hand, and watched as Trent made eggs.
It was such a normal thing to do—cracking shells against the rim of a cast-iron skillet, the butter sizzling, the smell of coffee filling the kitchen alongside the early morning light—that Dove almost forgot they were living inside a disaster. Almost forgot that her uncle was dead. That someone had planted pythons on this property. That a blackmail note was sitting in an upstairs drawer. And the man standing barefoot at the stove had just had sex with her like the world was ending.
She moved to the table, sat with her legs pulled up beneath her, wearing his shirt again, her hands wrapped around a mug that was too hot, but she didn't care. The heat felt good. Everything about this kitchen felt good—the old linoleum, the gurgling coffee maker, the way the light came through the window above the sink and caught the steam rising from the skillet in slow, lazy curls.
