I kissed her. “You’re the best thing on this ridge.”
Her breath hitched.
I moved slowly at first, deep enough to make both of us feel every inch. This wasn’t the creek bank, with cold water nearbyand sparks in every dare. This was my bed, her hands on my back, my name in her mouth, and night settling around the cabin.
Sunny met every stroke. She touched my face, my shoulders, my scarred forearm when I braced beside her head. Her thumb moved once over the old mark, and something in me gave way.
I had built this place with one bed, one good pan, one life that didn’t ask anybody to stay.
Now Sunny was under me, around me, in every breath I took.
I buried my face against her neck. “Stay tonight.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Stay tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Stay when you can.”
Her arms tightened. “Ask me for what you mean.”
I lifted my head.
Her eyes held mine, flushed and fierce and tender.
I drove into her once, slow and hard enough to make us both gasp. “I don’t mean one night, and I don’t mean one weekend. I mean my life, Sunny: calendars and pop-ups, your ridiculous aprons in my laundry, arguments about garnish, and mornings here because you choose them.”
A tear slipped into her hairline.
“I choose it,” she said. “I choose you.”
I kissed her and stopped holding back.
Sunny rose to meet me, her voice breaking, her heels pressing into my lower back. I slid one hand between us and found her clit. She gasped into my mouth.
“Come with me,” I said.
“I’m close.”
“I’ve got you.”
“You always say that like I believe you.”
“You believe me.”
Her eyes opened.
She smiled, breathless and wrecked. “Yes, I do.”
I stroked her clit and drove into her until she came around me, tight and hot and shaking, a cry breaking from her mouth. The feel of her took me over the edge. I thrust deep, held there, and came with her wrapped around me, her hands in my hair as she clenched through the last wave.
For a long time, neither of us moved.
The cabin settled around us in small sounds: wood cooling, sheets shifting, the faint call of night insects beyond the screen. Sunny’s heartbeat slowed under my palm. Her skin was warm and damp against mine. A loose curl stuck to her cheek, and I brushed it back.
She opened one eye. “Please tell me there are biscuits downstairs.”
