Chapter 5 The Bed
THE BED
ELI
The storm hit on Friday night.
I'd been watching the weather reports all week, tracking the system that was supposed to bring light snow through the weekend. Light snow that had turned into a full-blown blizzard that would dump two feet by morning.
Which meant the mountain roads would be impassable. Which meant Clara wouldn't be able to get home tonight.
Which meant she'd have to stay here. In my cabin.
I stood at the kitchen window, watching her truck struggle up the driveway through the driving snow. She'd come by to finalize wedding details—what time, where to meet Nash, what to do if the weather got bad.
Now we had our answer.
The door burst open, and Clara stumbled in on a gust of wind and snow, shaking ice from her hair.
"Holy shit," she said, wrestling the door closed behind her. "When did it get this bad?"
"About an hour ago." I helped her out of her coat, trying not to notice the way her sweater clung to her curves. "Roads are already getting sketchy."
She pulled out her phone, frowned at the screen. "No signal."
"Tower's probably iced over."
"So I'm stuck?"
"Looks like it."
We stared at each other for a long moment, the weight of what that meant settling between us.
Clara sleeping here when we both admitted this wasn’t going to be some cut and dry fake wedding.
Clara in my space for the entire night. Clara twenty feet away from my bed while I tried to pretend I wasn't dying to put my hands on her.
"Couch is comfortable," I said finally.
"Right. The couch."
But neither of us moved toward the living room.
"You hungry?" I asked, because cooking was something I could do with my hands that didn't involve touching her.
"Starving."
I made steaks and roasted vegetables while Clara sat at the kitchen table, the ring I'd forged catching the light every time she moved her hands. She was nervous—I could tell by the way she kept twisting it around her finger.
"Second thoughts?" I asked.
"About the wedding?"
"About staying here tonight."
She looked up at me, and something flickered in her brown eyes. "Are you having second thoughts?"
"No." The word came out rougher than I'd intended. "But Clara, you being here, sleeping twenty feet away from me the night before we get married..."
"What about it?"
I set down the spatula and turned to face her. "I told you I was halfway in love with you. That was yesterday. Today I'm all the way gone."
Her breath caught. "Eli."
"I'm just saying. If you sleep on that couch tonight, I'm going to spend the entire night thinking about carrying you to my bed. About what you'd look like spread out on my sheets. About all the ways I want to touch you after we say those vows tomorrow."
Heat flared in her eyes. "And that's a problem because?"
"Because if I touch you tonight, I won't stop."
She stood up slowly, walked around the table until she was close enough to touch. "What if I don't want you to keep your hands to yourself?"
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. "Clara."
"What if I've been thinking the same things? What if I've been imagining what it would feel like to have you touch me like you mean it?"
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't make this harder than it already is."
She reached up and touched my face, and I couldn't stop myself from leaning into her palm.
"Tomorrow we get married," she said quietly. "Tomorrow I become your wife, even if it's just on paper. Tonight I'm just Clara, and you're just Eli, and we're snowed in together."
"Just Clara and Eli," I repeated.
"Just us."
I stared down at her—at this woman who'd asked me to marry her and somehow made me fall in love with her in the process—and felt my resolve cracking.
"The couch," I said.
"The couch," she agreed.
But when she went up on her toes and kissed me, soft and sweet and full of promise, I knew she wouldn’t be sleeping on the couch tonight.
CLARA
We made it through dinner without touching each other.
Barely.
Every time Eli moved around the kitchen, I was hyperaware of his presence. The way his jeans hugged his thighs. The way his flannel stretched across his shoulders. The way he kept looking at me like he was fighting the urge to crowd me against the nearest wall.
By the time we finished eating, the tension in the cabin was thick enough to cut.
"Storm's getting worse," Eli said, checking the window.
"How much worse?"
"Bad enough that even if the roads clear by morning, we might not make it to town for the ceremony."
My heart stopped. "What do you mean?"
"I mean we might have to postpone."
"No." The word came out sharper than I'd intended. "No, we can't postpone. The deadline is Christmas Day. If we don't get married soon—"
"Hey." Eli crossed to where I was standing, put his hands on my shoulders. "We'll figure it out. Nash has a four-wheel drive. Worst case, he comes here."
"Here?"
"Why not? We get married in front of the fireplace. Just us and Nash. Simple."
The idea of marrying Eli in his cabin, in front of the fire where we'd shared so many quiet moments, made something warm unfurl in my chest.
"You'd be okay with that?" I asked.
"Clara, I'd marry you in a snowbank if that's what it took."
The intensity in his voice made my breath catch. "Eli."
"I'm serious. Tomorrow, next week, next month—I don't care when or where. I just want to call you my wife."
The words slammed into me. "Even though it's supposed to be temporary?"
Something shifted in his expression. "Is it?"
"Is it what?"
"Temporary."
I stared up at him, at this man who'd become everything to me in less than a week, and felt the last of my defenses crumble.
"I don't want it to be," I whispered.
"Good," he said, and then he was kissing me.
This kiss was different from the others. Deeper. More desperate. Like we were both drowning and this was our only source of air.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
"Clara," he said, and my name sounded like a prayer.
"I know."
"If we do this—if we cross this line—there's no going back."
"I don't want to go back."
He studied my face for a long moment, like he was memorizing every detail. Then he took my hand and led me toward his bedroom.
The room was simple, masculine. A king-size bed dominated the space, covered with a dark quilt that looked handmade. Moonlight filtered through the window, casting everything in silver.
"You sure?" he asked.
Instead of answering, I reached for the hem of my sweater and pulled it over my head.
Eli's breath caught. His eyes tracked the lace, the curve of my waist, the way I breathed like I already belonged to him.
"Beautiful," he said, and the reverence in his voice made me feel like a goddess.
I reached for him then, started unbuttoning his flannel with shaking fingers. He stood perfectly still, letting me undress him, his gray eyes never leaving my face.
When I pushed the shirt off his shoulders, I had to bite back a gasp. He was all muscle and scars, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. A line of dark hair disappeared beneath his jeans.
I let my hands explore his chest, tracing the scars, learning the feel of him. When I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his collarbone, he groaned.
"Clara."
"I want you," I said against his skin. "I want this. I want us."
He lifted me then, laid me down on his bed like I was something precious. The quilt was soft beneath me, warm from the heat of his body.
"We should wait," he said, but his hands were already skimming over my skin. "Until after the wedding."
"Why?"
"Because you deserve—"
I silenced him with a kiss. "I deserve you. And you deserve to be happy. We both do."
He stared down at me for a long moment, then reached behind me to unhook my bra. When he pulled it away, his eyes darkened with want.
"Christ, you're perfect."
He kissed me then, his mouth traveling from my lips to my throat to the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder. When he took my breast in his mouth, I arched beneath him with a cry.
"Eli, please."
"Please what?"
"Touch me. All of me."
His hands skimmed lower, finding the waistband of my jeans. "Here?"
"Everywhere."
ELI
I'd imagined this moment a hundred times since the day I met her.
Clara in my bed. Clara beneath me. Clara saying my name like a prayer.
But nothing I'd imagined came close to the reality.
She was soft and warm and responsive, her body arching into my touch like she'd been made for me. When I stripped away the last of her clothes and finally had her naked beneath me, I had to stop and just look.
"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious.
"You're perfect," I said, and meant it. Every curve, every freckle, every inch of skin that I wanted to worship with my mouth and hands.
I kissed my way down her body, taking my time, learning what made her gasp and moan and whisper my name. When I settled between her thighs, she looked down at me with eyes dark with want.
"Eli."
"Let me," I said. "Let me take care of you."
I used my mouth and tongue until she was writhing beneath me, her hands fisted in my hair, her body tight with need. When she finally came apart, crying out my name, I felt like I'd conquered the world.
"Come here," she said, pulling me up to kiss her. "I need you inside me."
I reached for my wallet, found the condom I'd been carrying like an optimist. When I moved over her, she wrapped her legs around my waist and guided me home.
The first slide into her heat nearly undid me. She was tight and wet and perfect, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from finishing before we'd even started.
"Okay?" I asked.
"More than okay." She lifted her hips, taking me deeper. "Move, Eli. Please."
I moved then, setting a rhythm that had us both gasping. She met me thrust for thrust, her nails digging into my shoulders, her mouth hot against my neck.
"I love you," I said against her ear, the words torn from somewhere deep inside me.
"I love you too," she gasped. "God, Eli, I love you so much."
We moved together like we'd been doing this for years instead of the first time. Like our bodies had been waiting for this moment, this connection, this perfect joining.
When Clara came , her body clenching around me like a fist, I followed her over the edge with a groan that sounded like her name.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, her head on my chest, my fingers tracing patterns on her bare shoulder.
"So," she said eventually.
"So."
"That happened."
"It did."
She lifted her head to look at me. "Any regrets?"
I brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Just one."
Her face fell. "What?"
"That we waited this long."
She laughed, the sound bright and joyful in the quiet room. "We've known each other for six days."
"Longest six days of my life."
She kissed my chest, right over my heart. "What happens now?"
"Now we get married. For real this time."
"For real?"
"Clara." I tilted her chin up so she had to meet my eyes. "That ring on your finger? The vows we're saying tomorrow? The way I feel about you? None of it's fake anymore."
"None of it?"
"Not a damn bit."
She smiled then, the kind of smile that could stop wars and start them. "Good. Because I was never very good at pretending anyway."
Outside, the storm raged on. But inside, wrapped around the woman I loved, I'd never felt more at peace.
Tomorrow we'd get married.
Tonight, she was already mine.