1
The Good Girl
The morning light caught the edge of the knife blade and split itself into something beautiful.
I watched it happen from across the room, my hands still wrapped around a coffee mug that Nathan had bought me last month—ceramic, hand-thrown, the exact shade of blue that reminded me of the ocean I'd never seen. He'd noticed me staring at it in a shop window. Had gone back the next day to buy it without being asked. That was the thing about Nathan Cross: he noticed everything, and he acted on it before you even knew what you needed.
"You're staring," he said from the kitchen, his voice still rough with sleep.
"I'm admiring." I took a sip of coffee that tasted exactly right—he'd learned how I took it within the first week, had never gotten it wrong since. "There's a difference."
"Mm." He crossed the room in bare feet and loose sleep pants, his chest still bare, the scars I'd catalogued a hundred times catching the light. The bullet graze on his left shoulder. The knife wound on his ribs. The thin white line along his hip that he'd never explained, and I'd learned not to ask about. "Admiring what, exactly?"
I set down the mug and reached for him, my fingers finding the waistband of his pants. "Everything."
The kiss started soft—the way morning kisses should, all slow warmth and the lingering taste of sleep. But Nathan had never been content with soft for long. His hands found my hips, lifted me onto the counter with an ease that still made my stomach flip, and I wrapped my legs around him as the kiss deepened into something hungrier.
"I have to go to work," I murmured against his mouth.
"It's Saturday."
"I know. Matt needed someone to cover inventory."
"Matt can wait." His lips traced down my throat, finding the spot where my pulse hammered, and I let my head fall back against the cabinet. The coffee mug sat forgotten beside me, steam still curling into the morning air. "I've been thinking about you all night."
"You were asleep."
"Dreaming, then." His teeth grazed my collarbone, and I gasped. "You were wearing that blue dress. The one with the little flowers."
"The one I wore yesterday?"
"That's the one. You were making breakfast, and I was watching you, and I thought—" He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, his own dark with want. "I thought, that's my girl. That's the woman I'm going to marry."
The word still hit me like a physical thing.Marry.Three months since Gabriel, three months since the world had rearranged itself around Nathan's steady presence, and I still wasn't used to the idea that someone wanted to keep me. Not condition me, not train me, not mold me into something useful—just keep me, exactly as I was.
"Say it again," I whispered.
"That you're mine?" He shifted closer, his hips pressing against mine through the thin fabric of my nightgown. "That I'm going to marry you? That I've never felt anything like what I feel when I'm inside you?"
"Yes." The word came out breathless. "All of it."
He kissed me again, harder this time, and I tasted the coffee on his tongue and the hunger underneath. My fingers found the drawstring of his pants, pulling it loose, and he made a sound against my mouth that was half laugh and half groan.
"You're insatiable."
"You're the one who started this."
"I started with a kiss. You're the one taking my pants off."
I paused, my hand still wrapped around the drawstring. "Do you want me to stop?"
"God, no." His forehead pressed against mine. "Never stop. Don't ever stop."
The first thrust made me gasp. He lifted me slightly, adjusting the angle, and when he pushed inside I felt the familiar stretch of him—that perfect fullness that still surprised me every time, no matter how many mornings we'd done this. His hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise, and I welcomed the marks. Evidence of being wanted. Proof that I existed in someone else's world.
"Look at me," he commanded, and I did. His eyes were the color of pine forests, dark and deep and full of something I was still learning to name. "I love you."
The words hit different than they used to. Before, they'd been something I performed—words I'd been trained to say on command, sounds that meant nothing except compliance. But Nathan had spent months teaching me that love could be a choice instead of a reflex, and every time he said it now, I believed him a little more.
