Chapter 6 Surrender
CHAPTER SIX
SURRENDER
GRIFFIN
We woke tangled together on the couch, dawn light filtering through the lookout windows. The storm had passed, leaving the world wrapped in pristine white. Ava was still asleep, her face soft and peaceful against my chest.
I didn't want to move. Didn't want to break whatever spell had settled over us in the night.
But my radio crackled to life.
"Griffin, status report." Rafe's voice, crisp and professional.
I carefully extracted myself from Ava, grabbing the radio. "Copy. We're secure. Conditions?"
"Clear for now. Roads should be passable by noon. How's Ava holding up?"
I glanced at her. She'd shifted on the couch, still sleeping, one hand curled under her cheek. Beautiful. Vulnerable.
Mine.
"She's good. Did excellent work yesterday."
"I figured. The hiker's stable, by the way. Full recovery expected." A pause. "You sound different."
"Different how?"
"Like you remember how to be human." Rafe's tone held something that might've been approval. "Stay put until the roads clear. I'll send coordinates for extraction."
The radio went silent.
I turned to find Ava awake, watching me with those sharp green eyes.
"Morning," she said softly.
"Morning." I crossed back to the couch, unable to stay away. "How'd you sleep?"
"Better than I have in months." She reached up, pulling me down beside her. "You?"
"Same."
We sat in comfortable silence, the morning light turning her hair copper-gold. I wanted to touch her. Wanted to pull her into my lap and kiss her until neither of us could remember why we'd ever been scared.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Roads clear in a few hours. We head back to town."
"That's not what I meant." She turned to face me fully. "What happens with this? With us?"
I'd been thinking about that all night. About the impossibility and the inevitability of whatever was building between us.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I've never been good at this. At letting people in. At trusting that it won't all fall apart."
"Me either."
“But I want this. You. Us. Even if it scares the hell out of me.” I caught her hand, lacing our fingers together. "If you do."
"I'm terrified."
"Good. Me too." I brought her hand to my lips. "But I'd rather be terrified with you than safe alone."
She leaned in, her forehead resting against mine. "When did you get so good with words?"
"I've been practicing. Had this whole speech planned about how you're the bravest person I've met and how I can't stop thinking about you and how yesterday when that slope released, the only thing I could think was that I needed to keep you safe..."
She kissed me, cutting off the rambling.
It started soft. Gentle. A question and an answer all at once.
Then it changed.
Heat punched through me, sharp and instant, the kind that erased every good intention I’d had about taking things slow.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer. I cupped her face, deepening the kiss, tasting coffee and something sweeter underneath. She made a sound in the back of her throat, half moan, half surrender, and everything ignited.
"Griffin." My name was a plea. "Take me upstairs."
"You sure?"
Her eyes locked on mine. The difference hit me like cold air, this wasn’t desperation, it was choice. "Last night was about surviving. This morning is about living. I want, I need..."
"What do you need?"
"You. All of you. No holding back."
Something fierce and possessive roared through me. I stood, lifting her with me. She wrapped her legs around my waist, her mouth finding mine again as I carried her to the loft.
The bed was still unmade from where we'd slept that first night. A lifetime ago. Everything had changed since then.
I laid her down carefully, taking a moment to just look at her. Hair spread across the pillow. Lips swollen from kissing. Eyes dark with want.
"You're beautiful," I said roughly.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true." I settled over her, bracketing her body with my arms. "And because I want you to believe it. Want you to see yourself the way I see you."
"How do you see me?"
"Strong. Brave. Competent as hell. Sexy enough to make me forget my own name." I kissed her throat, felt her pulse jump. "And mine. Completely mine."
"Yours," she agreed breathlessly.
I took my time undressing her, peeling away layers, kissing newly exposed skin, learning every curve and plane.
Every inch felt like a promise I didn’t deserve and still wanted anyway.
She wasn't passive. Her hands explored my back, my shoulders, finding scars and tracing them like they were something precious instead of broken.
"These don't make you less," she whispered against my collarbone. "They make you real."
Something in my chest cracked open.
I kissed her, deep and desperate, pouring every emotion I couldn't name into the contact. She arched against me, skin to skin, and I groaned at the sensation.
"Need you," I managed. "Now."
"Yes."
I moved down her body, kissing and tasting, learning what made her gasp, what made her moan, what made her say my name like a prayer. When I finally settled between her thighs, she was trembling.
"Griffin, please..."
I pushed inside slowly, watching her face, seeing the exact moment pleasure overtook everything else.
We moved together, finding a rhythm that felt both new and inevitable. Her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me deeper. Her nails raked down my back, marking me. And with every thrust, every kiss, every whispered word, the walls we'd both built crumbled completely.
This wasn't just sex. Wasn't just physical release.
This was surrender.
"Look at me," I said roughly.
She did, her green eyes meeting mine, and I saw everything reflected there, trust, desire, and something deeper that terrified and exhilarated me in equal measure.
"I've got you," I promised. "Always."
"I know." Her hand cupped my face. "I trust you."
Her voice didn’t shake. Mine did.
Those three words, the same ones she'd said yesterday, broke me open completely.
I kissed her as the rhythm intensified, as her body tightened around mine, as we both chased something that felt like salvation.
"Griffin..." Her voice broke. "I'm..."
"Let go. I've got you."
She came with my name on her lips, her body clenching around me, and I followed, falling into sensation and safety and something that felt dangerously like love.
After, we lay tangled together, hearts pounding, skin slick with sweat despite the cool air. I pressed kisses to her shoulder, her neck, her temple, unable to stop touching her.
"We're definitely in trouble now."
I laughed, the sound rusty but real. "The worst kind of trouble."
She rolled to face me, her expression serious. "If we're doing this, I need to know you're in it. Really in it."
"Ava." I caught her hand, bringing it to my chest, right over my heart. "I haven't been casual about anything in my life. Especially not you."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying..." I took a breath, letting myself be brave. Her eyes dared me to lie. I couldn’t.
Not with her heartbeat still under my hand.
"I'm saying that I'm falling for you. Hard and fast and probably too soon.
I'm saying that when that slope released yesterday, all I could think was that I needed to keep you safe.
I'm saying that the idea of you leaving Bitterroot makes me want to punch something. "
Her eyes shimmered. "I'm not leaving." Running didn’t work. Healing might.
"You're not?"
"I signed the contract, remember? I'm the new technical rope coordinator. That's a real job with real responsibilities." She smiled, soft and certain. "And there's this grumpy mountain man I can't seem to stop thinking about."
"He sounds like an idiot."
"He's perfect." She kissed me, gentle and sure. "And I'm falling for him too."
Something settled in my chest. Something that felt like home.
"So we're doing this," I said.
"We're doing this."
"And when it gets hard..."
"We'll figure it out. Together." She traced the scar through my eyebrow. "No running. No hiding. Just us."
"Us." I tested the word, liked the way it felt. "I can do that."
We stayed in bed as the morning light strengthened, talking in quiet voices about everything and nothing. She told me about growing up in Colorado, about the first time she'd rappelled down a cliff face, about her grandmother who'd taught her to be fearless.
I told her about my grandfather's carvings, about learning to read mountains before I could read books, about the years I'd spent running from my own guilt.
"What would you carve for me?" she asked eventually. "If you were carving something."
I thought about it. "A heart. But not the typical kind. Something with rope knotwork. The kind that holds even when everything else fails."
Her breath caught. "Griffin..."
"Too much?"
"No. Perfect." She kissed me softly. "When you make it, I want to see it."
"You will."
My radio crackled again. Reality intruding.
"Griffin, Ava. Roads are clear. Time to come home."
Ava sighed. "I suppose we should get dressed."
"Probably." I didn't move. Neither did she.
"Just five more minutes," she said.
Five minutes to memorize the way we fit. Five minutes before reality tried to tear it apart again.
We lay there, wrapped in blankets and each other, while the world outside waited. And for the first time in three years, I wasn't afraid of what came next.
Because whatever it was, we'd face it together.