"Couple down in town. Wedding present to themselves." I wipe my hands on a rag. "Twentieth anniversary. They wanted something that'd outlive them."
She's quiet, tracing the joint where two pieces become one with no seam you can feel. Then she looks at me over her shoulder, and there's no flirt in it, just a plain kind of seeing. "You're really good. Like, this is art. Does the town know they've got a man up here making heirlooms, or do they just think you're the scary one who never comes to the festival?"
"A bit of both."
"Their loss." She turns back to the wood, and her thumb keeps moving over it, and something in my chest pulls loose. Vanessa used to ask what a piece would sell for. Never once touched one like it was worth the touching.
"You want a drink," I say, because I need to say something.
"In a minute." She faces me fully now, leans her hip against the bench. "I want to tell you something first, and I want you to let me get through it."
Here it is. Everybody's got a speech. I brace for the angle.
"I almost didn't come up here," she says. "Not because of you. Because four days ago a man I just met sucked my own pleasure off his fingers in the back of a club and looked at me like he could see the whole inside of me, and that scared me more than anything dirty he could've done." She holds my eyes. "I came up anyway. So you know I'm not pretending this is small. It's a month. I'm leaving. But I'm not going to lie to you and call it nothing, because you asked me for the truth, all of it, and that's the truth."
She didn't have to say any of that. There's no play in it, no leverage she's setting up to pull later. She just handed it over because I asked her to once, days ago, and she meant it. The thing I've been guarding for a year and three months goes quiet in my chest for the first time.
"Come here," I tell her, rough.
She crosses the floor. My hand finds the back of her neck, and I kiss her slow, tasting that honesty still warm in her mouth, walking her backward until her spine meets the workbench.
"You came up my mountain," I murmur against her lips. "Told me the truth in my own workshop. You're not leaving here on your feet."
"Promises."
I lift her onto the bench, sweep a chisel and a coil of cord out of the way, and strip the tank top over her head. Her bra goes next. Full breasts spill into my hands, dark nipples already tight, and I drop my mouth to one and pull until she gasps and grabs my hair. The other I roll between my fingers, and her hips start a slow grind against nothing.
"Off," I say, and tug at her jeans.
She lifts for me. I peel the denim down her thick thighs and toss it, get my hands on the soft give of her, the curve of her hips, the heat of her already slick when I drag two fingers through her.
"Wet again," I say against her stomach, working my way down. "You drove up here soaked, didn't you. Thinking about my hands the whole road."
"Maybe stop talking and use them."
I drop to my knees on the workshop floor, hook her thighs over my shoulders, and put my mouth on her. She swears at the ceiling. I take my time, slow circles of my tongue around her clit, two fingers curling into her, reading every shift of her hips and giving her more of whatever makes her thighs clamp around my head. She tastes better than the club. She comes apart faster too, grinding into my face with no shame at all, and I work her through it until she's pushing my forehead back, too sensitive, laughing and breathless.
I stand. Get my jeans open, roll on the condom from my back pocket, and pull her to the edge of the bench by her hips.
"Hold on to me."
She wraps her arms around my neck. I press in slow, watching her face, feeling her stretch around me, and the sound she makes when I bottom out goes straight up my spine. Tight. Hot. Gripping me like she doesn't want to give an inch back.
"Fuck," she breathes.
"I know." I pull out and drive back in, and her whole body jolts. "Look at you. Came up here to prove you weren't scared, and now you're shaking on my cock."
"Shut. Up." She bites my shoulder. "Harder."
I give it to her harder. The bench rocks. Bear gives up and flops in the doorway with a sigh. Her nails rake down my back, and she meets every thrust, and the bratty mouth dissolves into nothing but my name and yes and there. I get a hand between us, thumb on her clit, and feel her start to climb again.
"Give me another one," I tell her, low. "You can. I've got you."
She breaks on a cry, clenching around me so hard it drags me right over the edge with her. I bury myself deep and hold her there, both of us shaking, her heart slamming against my chest.
For a long minute neither of us moves. I keep her wrapped up, her face tucked into my neck, my hand spread across her bare back, and the quiet up here is the good kind for once.
"Color," I say into her hair.
