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Two steps closer.

"I love you."

The words fill the cottage. Heavy. Certain. Taking up all the space between us and leaving none for doubt.

"I love you, Selene. Not because you're older. Not because you're younger. Not because of any number on either side of this thing. I love you because you fight over sandwiches and fuss over scratches and came to a town where you knew nobody and started over from nothing. That takes more guts than anything I've ever done with a chainsaw."

Her eyes filling. Holding the tears the way she holds everything. With effort. With control. With the fierce determination of a woman who learned that crying was weakness and hasn't unlearned it yet.

"Your ex said I'd get bored." Another step. Close enough to touch her. Close enough to see the pulse in her throat. "Selene. I've been staring at the same mountains for four years and haven't gotten bored yet. I eat the same turkey club from Sal's three times a week. Same sandwich. Same day. Still love it. I don't do bored. I do rooted. I do deep. And I wanna grow deep with you."

Her arms uncross. Her hands are shaking.

"Jake." Whisper. "I'm scared."

"Be scared. I'll be steady. That's what I do. That's what I've always done. The work nobody sees, the holding-things-together part. Let me hold this. Let me hold us."

She breaks. Not dramatic. No collapse. Just the wall coming down. All at once. Stepping forward into my chest. Caught with both arms. Held all the way.

"I love you." Into my shirt. Muffled and wet and perfect. "I love you, and I'm thirty-five and terrified and don't know what I'm doing."

"That's okay. I'm twenty-seven and I've never been more certain of anything in my life."

Wet, broken laugh. Her hands fist in my flannel. She pulls back just enough to see my face. What's in her eyes isn't fear anymore. Something that came out the other side of fear and found sunlight. Something brave and permanent.

"Say it again."

"I love you, Selene."

"Again."

"I love you." Both hands on her face. "Your fight. Your fear. Your sharp mouth. Your soft hands. Every wall you built and every brick I pulled out. All of it. Everything."

She pulls my mouth down.

This kiss is different from the bonfire. That was ignition. This is the fire after. Slow, consuming, everywhere. Burning through the last distance between us until nothing is left.

She walks me backward. My flannel off my shoulders, thermal over my head. Her palm flat on my chest where my heart is hammering.

"Slow," she says.

Then her sweater comes off and slow becomes the hardest promise I've ever tried to keep.

On the bed. Kissing every inch of her. Mouth on her throat, her collarbone, her breasts. Nipples between my lips, tongue circling, her back lifting off the mattress. Down her stomach. Taking my time because she asked for it and because she's spent years with a man who probably never gave her this. This worship. This attention. This deliberate, devoted focus on making her feel everything.

Her jeans. Her underwear. Gone. Spread out underneath me, gorgeous and open and trusting me with everything she is.

My mouth between her thighs. Tongue sliding through her folds, flat against her clit. Circling. Finding the rhythm that makes her grip the sheets with both hands. Her hips rolling against my face. Two fingers inside her, curling, working in time with my mouth. Her thighs shaking, heels digging into the mattress.

"Jake... fuck..."

She comes with my name on her lips. Whole body clenching around my fingers, back arching, the sound she makes raw and surprised like she forgot her body could do this. I hold her through every wave, don't stop, working her through every aftershock until she's pulling me up by my hair.

"Inside me. Now."

Condom on. Jeans somewhere on the floor. Her legs wrapping around me as I push in slow. Her breath catches. Then she exhales, her body opens, and she takes every inch of me.

Her eyes on mine. Connected. Something raw and real and bigger than sex passing between us.