Chapter 9 Hale
Hale
I wake to the feel of her. The weight and warmth of her tucked against me like she belongs there—and she does.
One of her legs is thrown over my hip, her palm resting open against my chest like she’s keeping time with my heart.
The room is all slow dawn and quiet heat.
Nothing in me plans on leaving this bed anytime soon.
She’s still asleep.
I breathe her in. Quiet. Careful. The scent of her hair—soap and sex and something that’s only Wren—slides into all the scraped-out places in me and fills them up.
I shift just enough to see her face. Soft mouth.
Lashes at rest. A tiny crease between her brows like even her dreams refuse to give up their fight.
I move lightly so I don’t wake her, easing my hand along the length of her spine.
Lazy strokes. Nothing greedy. The kind of touch you give when you’ve got all the time in the world.
Her skin warms under my palm, goosebumps rising in the trail I leave behind.
I press my mouth to her temple. Once. Twice.
She sighs, the sound threading right through me.
“Morning,” I whisper into her hair, not really expecting an answer.
She gives me one anyway, a low hum that’s more feeling than word. Her fingers curl against my chest, then drift lower as she nuzzles closer, nose skimming my throat. My pulse jumps. She feels it. I know she does, because her mouth tips into a sleepy smile I can feel against my skin.
“Are you awake?” I ask, voice rough.
“Mm.” Her lashes lift, eyes hazy and wicked all at once. “Now I am.”
I should say something chivalrous. I don’t.
I slide my thumb beneath the hem of her (my) shirt and trace the warm line of her waist. Her breath catches, small and sharp, and she tilts her chin up to find my mouth.
The kiss is unhurried but deep, the kind you don’t walk away from the same.
She tastes like night turned into morning.
She shifts, climbing over me, knees bracketing my hips. The sheet drapes around her back like a halo. Sunlight paints her in soft gold and shadow, and for a second I forget what it means to be careful. I just want.
“Hi,” she whispers against my mouth, smile in it.
“Hi,” I answer, hands finding the curve of her thighs, the dip of her waist, the small of her back. I hold her like she’s the only thing in my orbit—which she is.
“Touch me,” she says, open and sure.
“Tell me where.” Always a question. Always hers to answer.
“Everywhere,” she breathes, and then she kisses me again, slow turning hungry.
Her hips roll, a lazy glide that short-circuits my good intentions.
Heat sparks low and spreads. I feel her shiver when my hands map the slope of her ribs, the elegant pull of her shoulder blades under my palms. I take my time, learning her again even though I didn’t forget a single inch.
She bends to my throat, teeth grazing skin, and my control frays. I grip her a little harder—steady, not possessive—guiding the rhythm she’s setting. She gasps into my neck, and the sound goes straight to my head.
“You good?” I ask, because I need the word even when her body is telling me yes a hundred different ways.
“Yes,” she says, voice soft and wrecked, eyes on mine. “Don’t stop.”
I don’t. I follow the path she gives me, hands sliding under cotton, up warm skin, down again.
The soft hitch of her breath teaches me more than any map could.
She moves like tidewater until the space between us is nothing but heat and friction and the clean relief of being exactly where we’re supposed to be.
She sits back a little, bracing her hands on my chest, hair a dark spill over her shoulder. The sight of her looking down at me stills the world. I palm her hips and guide, slow and deeper, and she answers with a roll that makes my vision blur at the edges.
“Hale,” she says, and hearing my name like that does dangerous things to my control.
“Wren.” It’s a vow, a warning, a thank-you.
We move together, unhurried but inevitable.
The rhythm builds, not frantic—steady, sure, ours.
Every sound she makes, every catch of breath, every stuttered sigh, I collect and keep.
I tip her forward and kiss her again, and it’s teeth and tongue and gratitude.
Her fingers lace with mine, pinning our hands above my head, and the restraint hits me like a match to dry tinder.
I could flip her, take over, burn the morning down.
She has me caged instead, and I let her, because trust looks good on both of us.
“Look at me,” she says, and I do. I don’t look away while she chases the edge with my name on her mouth.
When she breaks—soft and sharp, a tremor rolling through her—I feel it like it’s happening inside my own skin.
I follow a breath later, the world going bright behind my eyes, and the only thing keeping me grounded is her weight, her hands, her yes.
The room comes back slow. Wind in the pines. The faint tick of the baseboard heater. Her heartbeat settling under my palm. She collapses onto me, boneless and laughing under her breath, and I wrap her up, dragging the sheet higher like that can keep the whole world out.
“You weren’t planning on leaving the bed anyway,” she murmurs, smug.
“Not a chance,” I say, kissing the corner of her mouth. “I’m exactly where I belong.”
She traces the scar on my shoulder, light as a thought. “You okay?”
“With you like this? Better than okay.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and let my thumb linger along her jaw. “You?”
She nods, nose nuzzling my throat again. “Mm. Safe.”
The word lands right in the center of my chest. I pull her closer, greedy for the warmth. “Good. That’s the point.”
We drift there, dozing in pieces, trading lazy kisses that aren’t headed anywhere and still feel like everything. When she eventually starts to slide off, I hook an arm around her waist and haul her back.
“Breakfast?” she asks, smiling into my skin.
“In a while.” I roll us so she’s under me, caged by my arms but free to move. Her grin turns reckless. “I’ve got other priorities.”
“And what are those?” she teases.
“Memorizing,” I say, kissing my way down the line of her throat. “Reinforcing.” Another kiss, lower. “Revisiting.”
She laughs, breath hitching when my mouth finds the place that makes her go soft. “Professor,” she says, voice shaking. “I didn’t know this was a study session.”
“It’s a master class,” I murmur, and feel her shiver.
Outside, the day can do what it wants. Inside, the two of us make a small, bright world under rumpled sheets. We’ll get up when we have to. We’ll face whatever comes. But not yet.
Not when she’s wrapped around me.
Not when I can finally, finally take my time.
By late afternoon the cold has teeth. The kind that bites through flannel and finds your bones. I set another log in the stove and let the room warm while I step out onto the porch with the sat phone, the antenna angled toward the thin blue slash of sky over the trees.
I call family first.
Not blood. Better.
“Yeah?” Nate answers like he hasn’t slept in a week. With him, that’s not a tell.
“Status,” I say.
“You owe me a bottle for this one,” he replies.
Paper shuffles on his end, a faint keyboard clatter.
“Liam popped up on a camera two towns over. Gas station near Route 39. Hoodie, ball cap, kept his head down. Facial match isn’t perfect, but the gait is good and the clerk remembered the scar by his ear. ”
My grip tightens. “When?”
“Last night. Eleven twenty-three. He was driving a dark SUV with rental plates. Guess where he didn’t buy it?”
“Here.”
“Bingo. He’s not stupid. He’s circling.”
I stare into the trees until they blur, forcing my jaw unclench. “Micah?”
“Already in motion,” Nate says. “He’s been shadowing a biker crew that runs favors for Liam’s money man. If the crew moves south, we’ll have a breadcrumb trail.”
“And the other thing?” My voice goes lower. I already know I’m not going to like the answer.
Nate sighs. “Three girls flagged as missing in the last six days from that same cluster of towns. Two reported, one not—sister’s afraid to go to the sheriff.
The reported pair are locals. Waitress and a hairdresser.
The unreported one is a college kid renting a cabin with friends—went to ‘meet someone’ and didn’t come back. ”
I close my eyes. “Any overlap with the SD card victims?”
“Too soon to tell,” he says, tired and pissed in equal measure. “But the pattern smells right. Short-term rentals. Cash pickups. No cameras where there should be cameras.”
“Liam’s testing the perimeter,” I say.
“He’s finishing something,” Nate replies. “And if he thinks Wren’s alive and carrying that card, he’ll come to you. He’ll make it a point.”
“Let him,” I say, meaning it.
There’s a beat of silence. Nate knows that tone. “I’ll keep you updated. You need anything?”
“Yeah,” I say. “If Micah finds the SUV, I want the address before the sheriff does.”
“Done.” Nate pauses, then adds quietly, “Don’t make me bury you, Hale.”
“Wouldn’t dare,” I say, and cut the line.
The door creaks behind me. I don’t have to look to know it’s her. Wren’s footsteps are soft and sure now, like she lives here for real.
“You’re doing your ghost calls again,” she says, leaning on the frame with that half-grin that’s more challenge than humor. The wind tugs a strand of hair across her mouth. I want to tuck it behind her ear.
“Checking on a few things,” I say, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her closer.
She leans back, studying me. She’s getting good at it—reading the micro-cracks in my armor. “You get answers?”
“Some.”
Her eyes flick to the phone, then back to me. She doesn’t push out here. Just nudges my shoulder with hers before heading inside. “You’re cooking,” she announces like it’s law. “And not jerky.”
“I was thinking venison and potatoes,” I say.
“Sold. I’ll chop.”