6. Rourke
six
Rourke
Morning light's coming in low through the curtains when I wake up, and she's still there.
Curled into my side, one hand splayed flat over my heart like she fell asleep checking it was still going.
I lie still a long minute just watching her breathe, hair a mess against my pillow, and think that I have never once in my life woken up and wanted to stay exactly where I was instead of getting up and getting to work.
I get up anyway. Make coffee. Bring two mugs back to bed instead of drinking mine standing at the counter the way I always do, and she stirs when I set hers on the nightstand, blinking up at me like she's trying to remember where she is and deciding she likes the answer.
"Morning," she says, voice rough with sleep.
"Morning."
I sit on the edge of the bed, and she pushes herself up against the headboard, quilt pooling around her waist, and for a second I just look at her — messy-haired, sun coming warm across her shoulders, mine in every way that matters even if neither of us has said the word yet.
"You're staring," she says.
"I know."
She smiles into her coffee, and I reach over and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, and the two years I've spent not telling anyone about the cider suddenly feel like the easiest thing in the world to finally say out loud, here, in this bed, with her.
"I've been thinking about the cider."
"Yeah?"
"Two years I've had Orrin asking. Two years I've had every excuse ready.
" I turn my own mug in my hands, not drinking it yet.
"But it was never really about the cider.
It was about letting somebody in on the parts of me that aren't easy.
My grandfather's press. My call on the blend.
Once it's got a label, it's not just mine anymore — people get to have opinions about it, get to be wrong about it in some review I can't argue back against."
"You already let me in on it." She says it soft, tracing the rim of her mug with one finger. "First night, in that barn. Before you'd decided anything about me either."
"That's different."
"Is it?"
I don't have an answer that isn't the truth. "No. It isn't."
She's quiet a second, the kind of quiet that means she's deciding whether to say the next thing. Then: "The piece I filed isn't the one my editor asked for."
"What'd she ask for?"
"Heritage orchard profile. Eight hundred words, three quotes, a photo of you looking rugged next to a tree.
" She smiles, tired and real, none of the polish I bet she uses on people who aren't me.
"What I actually wrote is about a man who spent two years scared of a decision, and how one long night finally taught him the difference between careful and afraid.
It's not what she asked for. It's better. "
"You wrote about me."
"I wrote about all of it." She sets her mug down, reaches for my hand instead. "You're just the part I couldn't leave out."
I set my own mug down too. Pull her into my lap instead of answering, her knees bracketing my hips, quilt sliding down to pool somewhere around us, and this time when I kiss her there's none of the distance left that was there four days ago — just her hands sliding into my hair, already sure, already home.
It’s slow. Morning-slow, sun-warmed, unhurried in a way last night wasn’t.
She undoes nothing because there’s nothing left to undo—we’re already bare, already tangled—but she takes her time anyway. Palms flat against my chest, fingers tracing the lines of muscle like she’s learning the shape of me by heart, because she has all the time in the world to do it now.
I can feel every small shift of her weight, the soft press of her thighs against mine, the way her breath catches when her hips brush the hard length of me.
I lay her back against the pillows. She pulls me down with her, and when I settle over her she looks up at me steady, sun catching her eyes, nothing held back at all.
The light turns her skin gold. I can see the faint marks I left on her throat last night, the way her chest rises and falls a little faster the longer I just look at her.
“I’ve got you,” I say, and mean it as more than the morning.
“I know.”
I take my time. Mouth first—tracing down the line of her throat, lingering at the soft spot just under her ear until her breath stutters. Collarbone next, then lower, open-mouthed and unhurried, until I’m between her breasts and she’s arching up off the sheets, one hand sliding into my hair.
I keep going, kissing down the soft plane of her stomach, nuzzling the warm skin just above where she’s already wet for me.
“Look at you,” I murmur against her. “Already this ready for me.”
When I finally put my mouth on her she makes a soft, broken sound—my name, quiet instead of gasping it. I stay there longer than either of us expected, slow and thorough, tongue flat and steady, then circling, then sliding lower to taste how wet she is. Her thighs tremble against my shoulders.
“Rourke—”
“I’ve got you,” I say again, voice rough. “Just feel it.”
I keep going until she’s tugging at my hair, trying to pull me back up, hips restless under my mouth.
When I finally push inside her we both go still a beat. Foreheads together. She’s so warm, so soft around me, taking every inch like she was made for it. Her hand finds mine on the pillow beside her head and laces our fingers tight, like she needs the anchor of it as much as I do.
I can feel her pulse where we’re joined. I can feel the way she flutters around me when I roll my hips just once, testing.
“Fuck, you feel perfect,” I tell her, quiet. “Every single time.”
We move slow. Her hips meet mine unhurried, deliberate, every shift measured and deep. Sunlight slides warmer across the bed with every minute that passes. I keep my free hand under her thigh, holding her open so I can feel every drag of my body into hers.
She’s wet enough that the slide is effortless, but she’s still tight—still gripping me like she doesn’t want to let go even for a second.
I watch her face the whole time. The way her eyes go half-lidded.
The soft parting of her mouth every time I sink all the way in.
The flush that spreads down her throat and across her chest.
“That’s it,” I murmur. “Take all of me. Just like that.”
I can feel her getting closer in the way her breathing changes, in the way her fingers tighten around mine. I don’t speed up. I just keep the same deep, steady rhythm until she comes with my name breaking soft against my shoulder, her whole body drawing tight and shuddering under mine.
The way she pulses around me pulls the last of my control right out of me.
“Coming for me already,” I say against her skin. “Good girl.”
I follow right after, burying my face against her throat, hips pressed flush as everything in me finally, fully, lets go. I stay buried deep while I come, feeling every wave of it, feeling her still fluttering around me like she wants to keep me there.
She curls into my side after, hand flat over my heart again. We’re both breathing hard. The sheets are a mess. The sun has moved far enough that it’s painting a warm stripe across both of us.
“That felt different,” she says, voice still rough.
“Yeah.” I press my mouth into her hair, still catching my breath. “Nothing left hanging over it this time.”
We lie there a long while, coffee going cold on the nightstand, sun climbing higher over the trees outside the window. She traces the line of my collarbone with one finger, unhurried, like there’s nowhere else on earth she’d rather be.
I keep my arm around her and let myself believe, for once, that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be too.
"What happens now?" she asks eventually.
"You keep the piece you already wrote. I’ll make some calls about the cider." I say it plain, because plain is the only way I know how to say anything that matters. "And I figure out how to ask you to stay without sounding like a man who's known you a week and already lost his mind over you."
"You could just ask."
"I know." I kiss her forehead this time. "Give me till the market. I want to do it right."
She doesn't push for more than that. Just settles back against me, quiet, morning light spilling gold across both of us, and neither one of us says what we're already certain of: that this was never going to end with her getting on a plane.