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She lay still. Not the old stillness, not the kind her body had learned in a house where being noticed meant being hurt. She lay still because she wanted to. Because the weight of his arm felt good. Because the sun was coming in and the sheets smelled like him, like cedar and clean cotton, and her body was loose in a way she’d spent her whole life years not knowing was possible.

His thumb moved against her stomach. A slow stroke, half-asleep.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“Mm.” His mouth found the curve of her neck. Pressed there, warm, unhurried. “Been awake.”

“How long?”

“A while.” His arm tightened, pulling her closer. “You were sleeping. I wasn’t going to wreck that.”

She turned in his arms. Faced him. His eyes were open, blue and steady in the early light, and the look on his face was the one she’d spent months running from. Open. Loving. Aimed at her with the full weight of his attention, the way he looked at everything that mattered to him.

She didn’t look away.

His hand came up to her face. His thumb traced the line of her jaw, her cheekbone, the edge of her mouth. She turned her head into his palm. Pressed her lips against the heel of his hand.

He inhaled.

She kissed him slowly. Her mouth found his, soft, her hand sliding up his chest to his neck, her fingers curling against the warm skin behind his ear. He kissed her back with the same patience, no urgency, his hand moving from her face to her hair, threading through it.

She shifted. Pressed closer. Her thigh slid over his hip and the contact drew a sound from him, quiet, restrained, and she felt the heat of him against her belly.

“Sloane.”

“I’m not running.” She said it against his mouth. “I’m here.”

His forehead dropped to hers. His breathing changed. She felt it through the bond, the flood, relief and wanting and a tenderness so vast it made her throat ache.

She pulled her shirt over her head. He watched her. His eyes moved over her body, her breasts, the softness of her stomach, the curve of her hips, and for the first time she let him look without bracing for judgment. She sat there in the morning light, bare from the waist up, and she didn’t fold her arms. She didn’t cover herself.

He sat up and pulled his own shirt off. She put her hands on his shoulders and ran them down his arms, feeling the muscles ripple beneath her palms. He was warm under her hands, and she mapped him slowly, deliberately, learning the geography of a body she’d only ever touched in the dark or in a rush.

He pulled her into his lap. She straddled him, her knees on either side of his hips, her hands on his face. She kissed him again. Deeper. His hands spread across her lower back, wide, steady, holding her.

She reached between them. Found him. Guided him inside her, and the stretch of it, slow, unhurried, drew a breath from her chest that shook at the edges.

She held still. Full. His forehead was against her collarbone. His hands gripped her hips, not pushing, not guiding, just holding.

Then she moved. Slow, rolling her hips against his, and the friction built in a long, devastating wave. He groaned against her throat. She pressed her mouth to the top of his head. Breathed him in.

He lifted his face. Looked at her. She held his gaze while she moved, and when his hand came up to cup her breast, his thumb circling her nipple, her eyes closed. Not hiding. She opened them again.

“Stay with me,” he begged, his voice cracking.

She pressed her hand against his cheek. “I’m staying. I promise.”

He shifted the angle, and she gasped. Her nails dug into his shoulders. Chris’s lips moved down her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, his mouth open against her skin, his breath coming faster. She matched him. Her hips rolled, her back arched, and his arm locked around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.

She could feel everything. His want, his focus, his attention on her body like a language he’d been studying for months. She let her own side open. Let him feel what she was feeling: the heat, the fullness, the terrifying, weightless trust of choosing to stay in someone’s arms when every instinct she’d ever built told her to leave.

He made a sound against her skin. Raw. Wrecked.

Her rhythm broke first. The orgasm hit like a wave pulling her under, her whole body clenching, a sound tearing loose that she didn’t try to muffle. He followed, his hips driving up, his arm tight around her, his face buried in her neck.

They stayed like that. Breathing, tangled, her forehead against his temple, her fingers loosening on his shoulders where they’d left marks. The bond blazed wide open, carrying everything, and she didn’t close it.

She let him feel it all.