"Don't."
"Don't what."
"Don't ask me that like I might not know my own mind."
I huff a laugh into her hair. "Noted."
"Garrett."
She almost never uses that. She uses Hawk. Garrett lands in a part of me that hasn't been used in fifteen years.
I bend. Pick her up under her thighs. She wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck and I carry her to the bedroom that's been hers all week.
The door closes behind me with a kick.
The bed is a double. Quilt my mother pieced before she died. Pillow that smells like her now because she's been sleeping on it for five nights.
I lay her down careful. Ribs. Ankle. I'm catalogued on both.
Then I stop being careful about anything else.
My mouth finds hers. The kisses I've been rationing for five days stop being rationed. She arches up into me and her hands are in my hair and her good leg hooks behind my thigh and pulls.
I break off long enough to get my flannel over my head. My shirt goes with it. She sits up, winces once, pulls the Henley up and off, and it's dark in the bedroom except for the lamp in the hall but I can see her, freckles across the tops of her breasts, nipples already tight, soft belly I want to put my mouth on, scar along her knee from a field season that went wrong.
I put a hand flat on her sternum and ease her back down.
"Let me."
"Let you what."
"Everything."
Her eyes darken.
"Yes."
I start at her mouth. Work my way down. Throat. Collarbone. I take one nipple into my mouth and she makes a sound that tells me the Henley has been a problem for her too. I spend time there. Too much time. Not enough. Her hand fists in my hair and holds me and I feel the shudder that rolls through her when I drag my teeth.
I switch sides. She arches. Swears.
My beard scratches down her stomach. She laughs once, breathless. "That's going to leave a mark."
"Good."
I hook my fingers in the waistband of the borrowed flannel pants she's been living in and work them off slow, mindful of the wrapped ankle. I drop them over the side of the bed.
Pause.
Look at her.
She's flushed down her chest. Thighs pressed together because she's always going to be her, even here, even now, careful with what she shows and what she holds back. I put one hand on each knee and open her.
"Garrett."
"I've been thinking about this for five days."
"Only five?"
