Chapter Fourteen
Jo
The door clicked behind us and the house exhaled. I did too.
Nate set his keys in a bowl by the entry, then turned every light down to low.
The firebox was already stacked; he struck a match and fed it in.
Flame caught with a hush, the kind of sound that makes you want to lean closer.
I rubbed my hands together for the show of it, but it wasn’t the cold I was fighting.
It was the way tonight made a dangerous part of me feel safe.
“Coffee?” I asked, because pretending this was about coffee bought me a few more seconds of not deciding anything else.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Let me get the mugs.”
We moved like we’d done this before. Him at the cabinet, me at the kettle, the small domestic choreography of a life I didn’t have and shouldn’t want.
Steam rose, the scent of cinnamon from an old tin he found in a drawer, the wood popped in the fireplace like polite applause.
We sat on the rug with our backs to the couch.
I handed him a mug and cradled mine like it could anchor me to the moment.
He didn’t rush. He just looked at me, all that new grief and quiet steadiness in his eyes, and asked, “Do you want me to hold you?”
“Yes.” It came out honest and small. “Please.”
He slid closer, his arm easing around my shoulders, careful like I was something he didn’t want to bruise.
I sank into him and let the fire warm the front of me while he warmed the rest. Our breaths lined up without trying, his chest rising against my side in a rhythm that sent a slow heat curling through me.
One night, I told myself. Borrow the feeling and return it in the morning. Don’t build a future out of it. Don’t build anything.
He pressed his chin to my hair. “Tell me what you need.”
“Something that feels like staying,” I said, and hated how close my voice was to breaking.
“Okay,” he said. No questions. No bargains. Just okay.
I turned and kissed him.
It started soft. Thank you. I’m here. Don’t talk.
And then the part of me that had been starving pressed closer.
His mouth answered with patience, matching the pace I set.
The taste of him lingered, warm and faintly sweet from the coffee, drawing me deeper as his lips parted mine with a gentle insistence that made my pulse quicken.
His hand stayed open at my back like a promise: take what you want; I’ll keep you steady.
“I don’t want to think,” I breathed against his lips.
“Then don’t.” His thumb traced the line of my jaw, sending sparks along my skin. “I’ve got you. If anything’s too much, you say stop.”
“Yes.” I said it like a pact with myself.
We moved without standing, knees to rug, hips to hips.
I shifted into his lap and the world narrowed to the solid heat of him beneath me, the way our bodies aligned with an effortless pull.
I heard the scrape of my zipper when he eased it down.
He didn’t lift my sweater yet; he waited, asking with his eyes and the slow curl of his fingers at my waist, his touch light but electric, building an ache I hadn’t named.
“Yes,” I told him again, and raised my arms.
Air met skin; firelight met skin; his gaze found all of it and went reverent.
He kissed the place below my collarbone like it had been waiting all my life.
The brush of his lips there ignited a shiver that traveled low, pooling hot and insistent.
Tenderness pooled just as fast; anger flashed through it, bright and percussive.
I kissed him harder. I took his bottom lip between my teeth, and when he caught the tremor in that, he gentled me with his hands and gave me his mouth again, slow, steady, patient like a metronome.
Each kiss deepened the pull between us, his breath mingling with mine in hot, uneven bursts.
It made me furious in a way that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with what I couldn’t fix.
“Don’t be gentle,” I said, and then, betraying myself, “No. Be gentle and don’t stop.”
“I can do both,” he said, voice rough with restraint. “Tell me.”
I told him by moving. By rolling my hips down, feeling the answering tension in him that sent a thrill through my core.
By finding his belt, by fumbling and then laughing once, helplessly, at my own urgency.
He smiled. God, that warm, unfair smile.
And helped, the two of us navigating buttons and denim like we were unwrapping a gift we both knew we shouldn’t keep.
“More?” he asked when we were skin to skin where it mattered, his warmth pressing against me in a way that made my breath hitch.
“Yes.” The word was a shiver.
He kissed me like he had time. I kissed him like I didn’t.
When his hand slid between us, he paused. “Here?”
“Yes.” My voice didn’t shake this time.
He learned me quickly. Listening with his fingers, reading the answers in my breath.
Every stroke built a fire that spread, coiling tighter until I arched into his touch, lost in the sweet pressure.
I didn’t have to be the brilliant daughter with the plan in my head.
I didn’t have to be the liar whose house of cards would fall if she pulled one wrong piece.
I only had to be a woman who was allowed to close her eyes and feel.
The first crest came quiet and sudden, a heat that unspooled everything I’d tied down. I hid my face against him and let it take me. He held me through it, the same steady hold he’d offered when the lights went out, grounding instead of claiming.
“Stay with me,” he murmured against my mouth, like a vow and a warning. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
“I’ll tell you,” I promised, and pulled him closer.
The world opened and narrowed in the same breath.
The fire popped. Snow whispered against the window.
His rhythm found mine and then followed it when I changed, when anger flared and I chased it like I could outrun everything waiting outside this room.
He matched me, then slowed me, then matched me again, not to win but to meet me where I needed him most, each movement drawing out the heat until it consumed us both.
A hot laugh caught in my throat and turned into something else. He felt it and pressed his mouth to my temple.
“I’ve got you,” he said again, as if it was the only thing he needed me to remember.
I did. I remembered it when the second crest built. When I grabbed for him and he was already there, when the edges went soft and the center went bright, and I didn’t hold anything back. His name left me like a confession. Mine left him like an answer.
After, the room came back in pieces: the scrape of wool under my knees, his heartbeat where my palm had ended up, the taste of cinnamon cooling in our mugs.
He didn’t let me move away. He gathered me in, wrapped a throw around both of us, and breathed with me until my pulse found a normal that had nothing to do with running.
“Water?” he asked softly.
“Later.” My voice was wrecked. “Just this.”
“Okay.” He pressed a kiss into my hair. “This.”
We stayed on the rug until my skin cooled and the fire found a quieter burn. When I shifted, he stood in one fluid, unshowy motion. Strong, careful. And lifted me like it wasn’t an effort, like I wasn’t a thing to be carried but a thing to be kept safe for exactly as long as I wanted.
“Put me down,” I whispered against his neck, for the pleasure of hearing myself lie and the pleasure of not meaning it.
“No,” he said gently, and we both smiled because I’d already asked for tonight.
He took me upstairs. The bedroom was dark except for the river of firelight under the door. Sheets were cold for a second, then not. He slid in behind me and fit his palm over my sternum like he could hold the pieces in place while I slept.
“I’m not good at this part,” I said into the pillow. I meant the after, the quiet, the not planning my escape in the next breath.
“Then sleep,” he murmured. “I’ll be good at it for both of us.”
I let my eyes close. The snow kept tapping on the windows. The fire downstairs exhaled beside the coffee we’d deserted. If there was a clock somewhere counting down to Sunday, it didn’t tick loud enough to matter.
For one night, I let myself believe there was a world where coffee and firelight and a man’s steady hand could be mine without cost. For one night, I let myself stay.
Sleep found me before regret did.