Chapter 8 Marisa
MARISA
The kitchen holds us like a warm hand.
The counter is cool under my palms.
The fire breathes from the great room, orange and steady.
The storm hushes the windows, a white noise that makes every breath louder.
I am inside heat and citrus and the taste of chocolate that still clings to my tongue.
I am held at the waist, the shoulder, the jaw.
I am kissed until my knees forget their job and then reminded how to stand by hands that know when to steady and when to let me sway.
Cruz is in front of me.
Roman is at my side.
Deacon is a quiet wall at my back.
They are different kinds of gravity and somehow all of them pull me toward the same center.
I am open and shameless with them now.
I have already given.
I have already taken.
I am still shaking from the last slow wave that moved through me and left me bright.
I can feel my heartbeat where our bodies meet.
Nothing in me is cold.
“Look at me,” Roman says, his voice a warm order. He tilts my chin with two fingers. “Breathe.”
I do, because he asks.
Deacon’s hand settles at the base of my neck, not heavy, just certain.
Cruz smiles at me like sunrise, then kisses me like he means to gather every small sound I have been too careful to make.
“Tell me what you want,” he says, mouth close to mine. His breath is cinnamon and heat.
“You.” The word is small and sure.
He laughs under his breath, sweet and a little wrecked. “Me you will have.”
He sits back just enough to see my face.
His hands slide to my hips and hold.
He moves with the patience of a man who could hurry but would rather make time behave.
I anchor my hands to his shoulders and let my body tell him how close I am to the edge and how ready I am to be pushed over it again.
“Good girl,” Roman says softly, the praise landing like heat at the base of my throat.
“Perfect,” Deacon adds, and the word sounds measured, like he checked it twice.
I climb again, not like a sprint, more like a tide.
Cruz sets the pace, steady, deep, drawing me out of the stiffness I wear around the world and into the loose ease I keep only for this kitchen and these hands.
He kisses me through the moments when my breath breaks.
He says my name like a promise, then again like a prayer. When I forget to ask for more, Roman reminds me.
“Use your voice,” he says, quiet in my ear. I do. I ask. It makes everything simpler.
I fall with my eyes open.
I fall while kissing Cruz.
I fall while Roman’s palm steadies my throat.
I fall while Deacon’s forehead rests for one brief second between my shoulder blades like a man who has come home from a long road.
It is not loud.
It is inside, thorough and flooding, the kind that steals language and then gives it back as a laugh.
I shake. I breathe. I trust.
They hold.
Cruz is close. I can feel it in the way his breath changes.
He tries to wait.
His jaw locks like a gentleman pretending patience will save him. It will not, and it does not need to.
“Come with me,” I whisper, taking his face in my hands. “I want you to.”
He jolts, like the words traveled straight through his chest. “Yes, mi cielo.” His voice drops rough and grateful.
He falters, then moves again with a purpose that makes me grip him harder.
He keeps his eyes on mine, as if he needs proof that I mean this.
I give it to him. I tip my hips in answer.
I order him with my body in the most honest way I know.
He breaks in the way I have learned is his alone.
Not a shout. A quiet unmaking.
A gasped thank you in Spanish against my mouth.
A tremor through his arms.
A rush that empties him and fills the room at the same time.
He hides his face in the curve of my neck and laughs once, soft and shocked, like it always surprises him how good it can be.
Roman’s hand slides to the back of my head. “You did well,” he tells me, pride warm and unhidden.
Deacon exhales a prayer that does not belong to any church I have ever been to.
His lips brush the crown of my hair, careful like a man setting down a tool he respects.
The quiet after is generous.
We do not jump away from each other. We do not apologize for anything.
We breathe like people who have made good use of a night while the storm edits the rest of the world out.
Cruz kisses my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my mouth, then rests his forehead on mine. He is smiling like a man who plans to remember this forever. “Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” I answer, light-headed and very alive.
Roman steps back first because he is the one who knows when to move the next piece on the board.
He reaches for a clean kitchen towel, hands it to me with the same seriousness he hands anyone a weapon, and turns the tap for warm water.
Deacon hands me water in a glass he wiped dry like it mattered.
Cruz pulls my sweater from where it waits by the mugs, shakes it out with tenderness that makes my throat ache, and helps me slide it on without making the moment less naked.
“Sit,” Roman says, patting the counter like a doctor who knows how to be gentle.
I hop up.
He crouches to fix a sock that has lost the battle with my ankle.
He smooths it over the bone with a concentration that would be funny if it did not make my eyes sting.
Deacon leans against the stove and watches my face like a monitor, measuring color and breath and the way my hands move now that I am not holding onto anything. “Anything light-headed, sweetheart,” he asks.
“Only the good kind,” I say, and sip the water because he will not ask twice.
Cruz grins at the sound of that and kisses my knee through the knit. “We can fix the other kind with soup.”
“Says the medic,” Roman answers, standing again and rolling his shoulders like the air returned to his body in stages.
“I said soup,” Cruz repeats, already at the pantry. “Not orthopedics.”
Late-night ramen happens the way everything with them happens.
Quickly, competently, and with more care than any of them will admit.
Roman lifts a stockpot to the stove and fills it like he is fueling an engine.
Deacon finds the good noodles and checks the date on the package even though he knows it by heart.
Cruz pulls green onions and an old head of bok choy from the crisper and kisses the leaves like he can make them perk up with love.
“Your pantry has a false brick,” I say, still a little dazed, legs swinging.
“Your memory has incredible aim,” Cruz says without turning. “No questions, Miss Cinnamon Whisper.”
“Did you just call me ‘Miss Cinnamon Whisper?’” I ask.
“I did,” he answers. “And I stand by it.”
Deacon snorts softly, then hands me a cutting board and a knife, handle first, like a gentleman loaning a pen.
“Can you slice the scallions on a bias,” he asks. “Thin. We want the curl when they hit the heat.”
“Please respect my skills,” I say, hopping off the counter. My knees are a little wobbly so Roman’s hand appears at my waist without making a thing of it. I steady under his palm and set to work.
Roman heats oil in the bottom of the pot until it shimmers.
He adds garlic, then ginger, and the smell of it punches bliss into the air.
Deacon cracks eggs into a small bowl and sets a timer with the precision of a man defusing a bomb.
Cruz hums an old love song under his breath and measures soy with an eye that never misses.
The broth deepens.
The steam kisses my face.
I taste with a spoon and adjust the salt by a whisper because I can.
“Chili oil,” Deacon suggests, holding up a jar.
“Always,” I answer. “Just enough for heat, not enough to make Roman preach.”
Roman pretends not to hear that.
He is at the espresso machine, eyes narrowed like a man facing a rival.
He pulls two quick shots, sets one in front of me, and slides the other to Deacon, whose black-hearted cold brew sits on the counter like a challenge.
“To balance,” Roman says dryly.
“To blasphemy,” Deacon replies and drinks both. It makes Roman’s mouth twitch, which is the Jackals’ version of a laugh.
Cruz tastes the broth and closes his eyes. “This is the potion we needed,” he says.
“Potion implies witches,” I say. “We are clearly saints.”
“We are clearly neither,” Roman says, pouring noodles into the roll of a boil.
The eggs go in and out at six and a half minutes.
Deacon cools them in water with ice he counted.
Cruz lays out bowls and sets chopsticks across them with the kind of care you give to sacraments.
I scatter scallions that curl on cue. Roman ladles broth like a man pouring out mercy.
He splits the eggs with the back of a spoon and reveals yolk that glows like a small sun.
We eat standing around the island, slurping respectably, happy in that quiet way that only happens when your body has been thoroughly considered and then fed.
My first mouthful is hot and salty and bright with ginger.
I make a noise that might embarrass a person raised in a different kitchen.
“Do not apologize,” Deacon says, deadpan. “This room enjoys honest feedback.”
Cruz taps his chopsticks against his bowl and pushes the chili oil my way. “A little more,” he says. “You like danger.”
“I like flavor,” I answer.
Roman watches me eat with an expression that would be stern if the corners of his eyes did not soften. “Bread,” he says suddenly.
“Bread,” I echo, confused.
“For tomorrow,” he says. “Bread for men who are going to move wood in the morning.”
“Copy that,” I say automatically, then laugh. “You are not my captain.”
He gives me a look that says I am his something, which is unfair to my heart and very effective.
Deacon wipes chili oil from my lower lip with his thumb, then looks mildly pleased when I catch his wrist and lick the taste from his skin. “Terrible influence,” he says to no one.
“Honest influence.” I take another bite.
We talk about small things, which are not small.
Which toothpaste is currently banned because Isla says it tastes like sadness. Which hen is trying to boss Cleopatra and losing.
Which prospect set a record today for how many times a person can track snow into the kitchen without noticing.