Not tonight.
He takes the washcloth back to the bathroom. I hear the water run again. Then the lamp in the bathroom clicksoff and he comes back to bed, where he turns off the bedside lamp before pulling me against his chest. His chin drops to the top of my head as he keeps one hand moving slow through my hair.
I press my palm flat against his sternum. Feel his heart beating under my hand, steady and sure.
He exhales, deep and content. “How are you feeling?”
I consider the question. Really consider it.
I’ve been waiting a long time for the right person to do this with.
And I found him.
At the wrong time.
In the wrong circumstances.
With an end date already written into the arrangement.
But lying here in the moonlight with the mountains in the window, his heartbeat under my hand and the summer still stretching out ahead of us, I can’t make myself regret a single thing.
“I’m mad,” I say.
When he tenses, instantly on alert, I add, unable to stop smiling, “I’m mad that we haven’t been doing this the whole time.”
His arms pull me tighter as he shakes with laughter.
“Such a fucking brat,” he murmurs, and kisses me more.
Chapter 26
Nirvana
WALKER
Ranch life reset my internal clock. Every morning a five o’clock wakeup whether I want it or not, regardless of how many hours I tossed and turned the night before. But this morning I don't resent it.
Last night I fell asleep, deeply sated. At peace, for once. With my woman in my arms.
And this morning I’m awake in the dawn light with her still in my arms. So I’m grateful for every minute I get to savor these early hours.
Sadie’s warm against my body as I spoon her from behind. Her head on my pillow, one hand still twined in mine. Her copper hair is spread out across the pillow in every direction. She's breathing slow and even, deeply asleep.
The room is that shade of early morning gold that only happens in the summer, when the sun clears the mountain ridge and comes through the window at a high angle. Dustmotes move in the light above the bed. Somewhere outside a meadowlark starts up.
I've been waking up the same for years now. Even in a new bed, new house, with a fresh new start. But always the same old me.
Feels like a new me this Sunday morning.
I press my mouth to Sadie’s hair and breathe her in. She’s leaving at summer’s end and I already know it’s gonna hurt like hell. But I think about how fucking brave she’s been. Not just last night, when I took her virginity, but from the very first day I met her.
I wait for the regret to arrive. The morning-after guilt. The voice that says what have you done.
What comes instead is a feeling of rightness that’s nothing like the fear I've been living in for weeks. The sense that no matter what comes, this moment right here is what life is about. To wake up with the woman of your dreams in your arms.
To do it every single morning of your life, if you could.
Eventually she stirs. Then she tilts her face up and blinks at me, slow and sleep-warm, hair everywhere, and my heart twists painfully in my chest.
