Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
OWEN
The gasket costs eleven dollars at the hardware store in Crimson Hollow. I buy it on Wednesday morning, which means I drove forty minutes down the mountain for an eleven dollar rubber seal when I could've ordered it online and had it in three days.
Boone rides shotgun with his head out the window the whole way back, ears flapping, tongue sideways. He knows where we're going. When I pass the turnoff for our cabin, he doesn't even look. Just keeps his eyes on the trail that leads down to her place.
"We're fixing an oven," I tell him. "That's it."
He ignores me.
Priya opens the door before I knock. Flour on her collarbone.
Hair twisted up with what looks like a chopstick holding it in place.
Bare feet on the cold wood floor. She's wearing a sweater that's too big for her, hanging off one shoulder, and leggings that do things I'm going to pretend I don't notice.
"You actually came."
"Said I would."
"People say a lot of things." She steps back to let me in. "Coffee's on. The oven is still committing crimes against my chimney cake."
Boone goes straight for his spot near the counter where she fed him scraps last time. Already has a spot. After one visit. The dog has claimed territory in this woman's kitchen faster than I've claimed anything in three years.
The oven takes twenty minutes. Pull the door, strip the old gasket, clean the channel, press in the new one, check the seal with a dollar bill. Easy work. Mindless hands. Which is a problem because it leaves my brain free to notice things.
She hums while she works. Some Bollywood song, I think, based on the melody.
Her hips move with it, subtle, probably unconscious.
The recipe cards are spread across the counter in a system that makes sense to her and no one else.
She's prepping dough while I work, kneading with the heels of her hands, folding it over, pressing again.
Her hands are small. Strong. She uses her whole body when she kneads, leaning her weight into the counter, shoulders rolling. Flour dusts her forearms. A smudge of it sits on her jaw where she pushed hair out of her face.
"You're staring," she says without looking up.
"Watching you try to murder that dough."
"It's brioche. It needs aggression." She folds it over, drives her palm down. "My grandmother used to say dough should be afraid of you. If it's comfortable, you're not working hard enough."
"Smart woman."
"The smartest." Quick smile. Gone fast but real.
"She died two years ago. The cookbook is sort of for her.
Every recipe connects back to something she taught me, even the ones from places she never visited.
She'd find the thread. Hungarian chimney cake, Indian cardamom, Japanese milk bread.
She'd taste them all and say the same thing. "
"What?"
"Needs more ghee."
A laugh gets out before I can catch it. Actual sound. From my actual chest. Priya looks up from the dough, startled, and then her whole face opens. Dark eyes wide. That dimple appearing in her left cheek.
"Oh my God. You laughed."
"Don't make it a thing."
"It's absolutely a thing. Owen Tate laughed in my kitchen. I'm putting it in the cookbook acknowledgments."
"Please don't."
"Too late. 'Thank you to the grumpy mountain man next door for validating my grandmother's comedy with his single, reluctant laugh.'"
My mouth does something. I'm not sure what to call it because the muscles haven't been used for this purpose in a while. But it feels dangerously close to a smile.
The oven seal holds. She tests it by preheating to three fifty, and the thermometer reads three fifty two. Close enough. She looks at me from across the kitchen with so much warmth I have to drop my eyes to the toolbox.
"How much do I owe you?"
"Eleven dollars."
"For the part and the labor?"
"I don't charge labor."
"Owen."
"Priya."
She crosses her arms. The sweater slips further off her shoulder. Brown skin. Smooth. My eyes stay on the toolbox. Mostly.
"Fine. Then I'm feeding you. Sit down."
I should leave. The oven's fixed, the job's done, and every extra minute in this kitchen is another thread pulling loose from the neat, sealed life I built on that mountain.
But she's already pulling containers from the fridge, and something bubbles on the stove that fills the cabin with garlic and ginger, and Boone has stretched out on the floor with the kind of sigh that means he's settled for the afternoon.
She makes aloo paratha. From scratch. Rolling the stuffed flatbread thin, pressing it onto the hot griddle, brushing it with ghee until it puffs golden.
A bowl of yogurt with fresh mint. Mango pickle from a jar with a handwritten label.
She plates it and puts it in front of me at the small table by the window where the afternoon light comes through the aspens.
The first bite does what the pie did. Shuts everything off. The potato filling is spiced with cumin and green chili. The bread is crisp on the outside, soft and layered inside, rich with ghee. The pickle burns in the back of my throat, and the yogurt cools it. Every flavor is precise.
"My Nani made this every Sunday," she says, sitting across from me. "Vikram used to say it was too heavy for brunch."
The name comes out casual. Practiced. But something tightens around her mouth.
"Vikram?"
"My ex husband." She tears off a piece of paratha. "We were married for four years. He liked being married to someone interesting. He didn't like being married to me."
Direct. No self pity. Just stating what happened the way you'd state that a gasket was shot.
"His loss," I say.
The words come out before I've thought about them. She looks up. Those dark eyes again, and this time they're searching for something in my face. Whether I mean it. Whether I'm just being polite.
I mean it.
"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"Probably the nicest thing I've said to anyone."
She smiles. Slow. The dimple. The flour still on her jaw. And something in my chest turns over, warm, unfamiliar, uncomfortable in the way circulation hurts when blood returns to frozen fingers.
After lunch she walks me to the door. The cabin is small enough that this means four steps from the table. She's close. Close enough that when she turns to say goodbye, her back nearly touches the doorframe and my chest is a foot from hers.
"Thank you for the oven," she says. Quiet now. The teasing gone from her voice.
"Thank you for lunch."
"Eleven dollar gasket and a meal. I think I owe you at least a chimney cake when I get the recipe right."
"I'll be here."
The words land between us. I'll be here. As if I've made a promise I didn't intend. Her eyes widen slightly. The air in this doorway is thin and charged, and her mouth is right there, full and soft, and her body is warm so close to mine I can feel it through my flannel.
She reaches up and brushes something off my jaw. Flour, probably. Her fingertips drag against my beard, and every nerve in my body fires at once.
My hand comes up before I've decided anything. Fingers closing around her wrist. Gentle. Holding her hand against my face. Her breath catches. Those dark eyes drop to my mouth. Her pulse drums fast under my thumb.
"Owen."
"Yeah."
"If you're going to kiss me, you should probably do it before one of us starts overthinking."
My mouth is on hers before she finishes the sentence.
She tastes like mango pickle and mint. Her lips are soft and her body arches into mine when my free hand finds her waist, pulling her close.
She makes a sound against my mouth. Small.
Surprised. Then her hands fist in the front of my flannel, pulling me down to her, and the kiss goes from careful to desperate in the space of a breath.
Three years. Three years of nothing. Silence and woodsmoke and the sound of my own footsteps on an empty porch.
And now this woman's mouth is open under mine and her tongue slides against my lower lip and my hands are on her hips pulling her flush against me so she can feel exactly what she does to me.
She feels it. Her hips press forward. A moan hums through the kiss that I swallow whole.
"Tell me to stop," I say against her mouth. Half prayer. Half dare.
"Do I look like I want you to stop?"
She doesn't. She looks like she wants to climb me. Her eyes are dark and blown wide, her breathing ragged, and both hands have migrated from my chest to my shoulders, gripping hard.
My hands slide down to the backs of her thighs. She jumps when I lift her. Legs wrapping around my waist, arms around my neck, mouth finding mine again as I carry her through the only doorway in this cabin that matters.
Her bedroom is small. Bed against the wall, quilt bunched at the foot, afternoon light pouring through a window that faces the mountain.
She lands on the mattress with her hair spreading dark against white sheets, and I stand at the edge of the bed looking down at her like I'm trying to memorize something I don't deserve.
"Off," she says. Tugging at my flannel. "All of it."
The shirt goes first. Then the undershirt.
Cool air hits my chest but her eyes on me are warm enough to compensate.
She sits up, runs her palms flat across my stomach, up through the hair on my chest. Her fingers trace a scar below my collarbone from a branch that caught me during the Wheeler Ridge fire.
She doesn't ask about it. Just touches it.
Gentle. Then pulls her sweater over her head.
Brown skin. Full breasts in a simple cotton bra. Soft stomach. My hands shake when I reach for her. Actually shake. She notices. Takes my hands in hers and puts them on her waist.
"I've got you," she whispers.
The bra unclasps and falls away. Her nipples are dark, pebbled in the cool air. My mouth finds one while my thumb rolls the other, and the sound she makes bows her back off the mattress. Sweet. Responsive. Every touch gets a reaction.
Leggings come down her hips. No underwear. Just Priya, bare on white sheets with her thighs falling open, and my brain goes blank.
"You're so fucking beautiful."
She pulls me down by the belt. My jeans are too tight and have been since the kitchen. Getting them off takes longer than it should because her hands are helping, which means they keep brushing against my cock through the denim, and every accidental touch makes my vision narrow.
Naked against her. Skin to skin. Her body is warm and soft, every curve pressing into me. My mouth drags down her throat, between her breasts, across her stomach. She squirms when my beard scrapes her hip bone.
"Owen. God."
"I've been thinking about this since you brought me that pie." Lips against her inner thigh. "Couldn't sleep. Kept thinking about your mouth."
"My mouth?"
"And your hands in that dough." Breath against her pussy. She shudders. "The way your hips moved when you hummed. Everything."
My tongue finds her clit and her whole body jerks.
She's wet. Swollen. I work her slow, flat tongue strokes from her entrance to her clit, learning what makes her gasp and what makes her grab the sheets.
Two fingers press inside, curving up, finding the spot that makes her thighs lock around my head.
"Right there. Fuck, right there, don't stop."
I don't stop. Her hips roll against my mouth.
My free hand spreads flat on her stomach, holding her down while I suck her clit between my lips and pulse my fingers.
She comes with both hands in my hair, pulling hard, back arched, a sound torn from her throat that I'm going to hear every time I close my eyes for the rest of my life.
Before she's finished shaking, I'm reaching for my jeans on the floor. Condom from the wallet I had the foresight to restock in town this morning, which tells me everything about how much I was lying to myself about this being just an oven repair.
She watches me roll it on. Dark eyes half lidded. Chest heaving. Her legs spread wider. "Come here."
I settle between her thighs. The head of my cock nudges against her entrance and we both go still. Eye contact. Her hand on my jaw. Her thumb tracing my bottom lip.
Then I push inside her and the world narrows to this.
Tight. Wet. Her walls grip me as I sink in slow, inch by inch, giving her time to adjust. Her mouth opens on a silent moan. Nails bite into my shoulders.
"More."
I give her more. Deep strokes that bottom out, my hips grinding against her clit at the end of each one. Her ankles lock behind my back, changing the angle, taking me deeper. She's vocal. Telling me what she wants with her body and her words, and every sound she makes winds me tighter.
"Harder. Owen, please."
My hand slides under her hip, tilting her up, and the next thrust pulls a cry out of both of us. Faster now. The headboard taps the wall. Her breasts bounce with each stroke. I drop my mouth to her neck, her collarbone, her ear.
"You feel incredible," I manage. "Been dead for three years and you're bringing me back to life."
Her nails rake down my back. Her pussy clenches. "I'm close. I'm so close."
My thumb finds her clit. Tight circles while I fuck her deep, watching her face, watching her come apart.
She breaks with my name on her lips. The clench of her around my cock pulls me over with her.
My forehead drops to her shoulder as I come harder than I have in years, buried inside her, both of us shaking.
Quiet. Her fingers in my hair. My face against her neck. Heartbeats hammering against each other through pressed chests.
"Owen?"
"Yeah."
"That was better than my pie."
A laugh. A real one. Full, from somewhere deep in my chest that hasn't been accessed since before the fire. She feels it against her skin and holds me tighter.
Boone's nails click across the cabin floor outside the bedroom door. He sighs and settles against it with a thump.
I should get up. Get dressed. Walk back up the mountain and spend the night staring at the ceiling and cataloging all the reasons this can't happen again.
My arm pulls her closer. Her back against my chest. Her hair tickles my chin. The aspens throw gold light across the bed.
This can't happen again.
My nose presses into her hair. She smells like ghee.
This is absolutely going to happen again.