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“Goran.”

“I’m here.”

“I can feel your hand.”

“I’m sure you can.”

The not-purr had no discipline left. It ran down through her where she lay against me until I was sure she could feel it in her spine.

I kept asking. Not because I needed permission now. Being asked still wrecked her, and I am not a fool who abandons a method that works.

I put my fingers on her clit and was relentless. I traced her ear with my tongue.

She went first, and I followed her.

After, she lay sprawled and boneless half across me, drawing patterns on my chest with one finger. I ran my hand down the length of her spine slow enough to almost put her to sleep.

“That was even better than the first time,” she said. “Don’t tell the first. It’ll sulk.”

“Won’t tell it.”

“It gets better than that? Nobody warned me. There ought to be a pamphlet. I could write it. Bellflower & Brew, purveyor of fine teas and⁠—”

“Rain.”

“Sleeping. I’m sleeping. Look how asleep I am.”

She burrowed in under my jaw, fit her cold feet between my shins, let out one long breath, and fell asleep.

I lay under her with her heart pattering against me. There would be time for the plantings and buildings, and I let them wait.

Tonight was for this.

Somewhere toward dawn, I slept.

I didn’t dream. Didn’t need to.

I’d already found it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

GORAN

Iwoke before dawn, same as every day of my life, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t get up.

The habit pulled. The stock needed feeding at first light, the stove needed wood, and forty years of my father’s voice said a farm ran on the male who rose early.

Rain stirred. Settled. Slept on.

Turnip could wait half an hour. The stove could wait. My father, rest him, had never once held this argument in his arms, or he’d have rewritten the saying.

Eventually I had to get up. Ginger would be banging at her cat door, and Turnip would revolt. The last time he’d done that, it had taken me three days to do the repairs.

After finishing my chores, I started breakfast.

Rain came out wearing only my shirt.

It fit her like a tent despite being rolled at the cuffs at least six times. The hem brushed her knees. She made tea in it like it wasn’t remarkable, humming, her hair loose, the sleeves still swallowing her hands so she had to flip them back to pour.