Worth it.
Ryder is harder to sneak up on, mostly because he has the energy of a man who can hear a moral threat from three zip codes away.
I find him upstairs near the window, dusk folding itself over the town outside. The room is dim, all soft blue shadows, and the last light of evening slipping through the glass.
And the lamp is off.
That stops me.
Because when I first got here, Ryder slept with one lamp on low. Always. Like darkness was something to negotiate with, not trust.
Now the room is quiet. Gentle. Dark in a way that doesn’t feel dangerous.
He turns before I say anything, because of course he does.
His eyes find mine immediately. “You’re quiet.”
“You stole my line.”
His mouth shifts, almost smiling.
I step further in, glancing toward the lamp and then back at him. “It’s off.”
“Sometimes.”
Sometimes.
Which, translated from Ryder, probably means:this matters more than I know how to explain without having a stress response.
I move closer until I’m standing right in front of him.
“You sleep better now?” I ask softly.
His hand comes up, settling at my waist in that soothing way that still undoes me every time.
“Sometimes,” he says again. “But this wasn’t sleep. Just an afternoon nap.”
I raise an eyebrow.
He exhales through his nose, already irritated that I am successfully forcing emotional honesty out of him through eye contact alone.
“But I do sleep better when you’re here,” he says.
My chest does that stupid, achy thing again.
I slide my hands up his chest, feeling the solid warmth of him under my palms. “Good,” I tell him. “Because I’m here a lot.”
That finally gets a real reaction. A small one, but real. His thumb moves once at my waist. “I noticed.”
“Stalker.”
“Problematic choice of word.”
I laugh, and the sound softens the room even more.
Then I tip my face up and kiss him, because sometimes feelings are easier with mouths.
He kisses me back slowly.
