Chapter 8
PROXIMITY
Melinda
S omething changed somewhere around day four and I can't pinpoint exactly what.
It was gradual, the way a tide comes in.
You don't notice each individual inch of water.
You just look up and suddenly realize the shore is gone.
We still gently spar about protocols and parameters and whether reorganizing his tactical gear by frequency of use constitutes interfering with operational equipment.
It does not but he disagrees.
I do it anyway while he is walking the perimeter.
He comes back, looks at it, opens his mouth, closes it, and make coffee.
I count that as a win.
But something underneath the arguing has shifted.
He hands me my coffee before I ask. Two sugars, already in it. He knows I take two sugars.
I know he takes it black, that he drinks the first cup fast and the second one slow, and that if I make breakfast before he's had either one, he will eat whatever I put in front of him without complaint.
He fixes the window latch on the east side. I mentioned it once in passing because the wind kept catching it, a small persistent sound.
The next morning it didn't rattle anymore.
He didn't tell me he fixed it, but I know he did.
These are the small things I've been collecting.
Small things. The kind that means nothing individually and means everything assembled.
They are the things that tell me he cares.
I've stopped pretending I don't notice him. I notice him constantly.
I watch the way he moves through the cabin, which is quiet for his size.
I notice the way he goes completely still when he reads.
And the way he looks up from whatever he's doing when I laugh at something.
Every time.
Like the sound catches him off guard.
I don't think he knows he does that.
I have no intention of telling him.
I'm going to keep it and take it out when I need something good to think about.
"What are you making?" he says from the table?
"French toast."
"We have bread."
"We have excellent bread. Eagle provisions continue to impress."
"And eggs."
"And eggs. And vanilla extract, obviously."
"You say that every time."
"Because it's true every time."
I hear the almost-sound. I've become fluent in his almost-sounds. That one means he's amused.
A slightly different one means he's surprised.
The very rare third one, which I've only heard twice, means something I'm not ready to examine.
"Do you want to know the secret to good French toast?"
"I suspect you're going to tell me."
"The custard ratio. Most people rush it. Dip and cook and wonder why it's eggy. You must let the bread absorb. At least thirty seconds per side."
"That seems like a long time."
"Good things take time."
I say it to the pan. Not to him.
The cabin goes quiet.
"Is that a principle or a recipe note?"
I turn around.
He's looking at me and not at the pan, not at his tablet.
He’s looking at me. With a new expression.
"Both."
I turn back to the stove.
The French toast comes out perfectly. He eats all of it, says nothing, pours us both more coffee.
I decide that counts as a standing ovation.
It starts because I'm a doctor.
That's what I tell myself.
He's doing gear inventory at the table after his morning run.
His shirt rides up when he reaches across for the equipment bag, and I see the scar properly for the first time.
Not just the glimpse I saw before through the kitchen window, but the full length of it in the morning sun.
It runs from just below his ribs around toward his back.
It’s jagged at one end where the initial wound was rough.
I see that it is cleaner at the other where someone with actual skill sutured it in careful layers.
Two separate healing patterns. Field first. Clinical after.
And just below it, the tattooed coordinates I saw the first morning. Sharper in this light. A date and a string of numbers in dense black numerals.
"That needed more than field stitching."
He looks down. Looks at me. "Eventually."
"How long between field and clinical?"
"Forty-eight hours."
I keep my face neutral. Forty-eight hours is a very long time.
"Can I look at it?"
A silence that goes on long enough to mean something.
"Why?"
"Because I'm a doctor and that scar has at least two separate healing patterns and I want to assess whether it was managed correctly."
He looks at me. Then he lifts his shirt.
I go clinical. I genuinely do, even though I’m running my hands along his incredibly muscular abs.
For about thirty seconds. I trace the scar with my fingertips, checking the tissue, the depth, whether it healed flat. It did, mostly.
Better than should expected for forty-eight hours without proper care.
My fingers brush the coordinates. He doesn't move.
"What is this?"
Then I register that my hand is still on his ribs, and the skin is warm under my fingers, and his breathing is not as even as it usually is.
"Shrapnel."
"How many fragments?"
"It was three. They got two."
My hands go still.
"There's still one in there."
"Too close to the spine. Removal posed more risk than leaving it."
I look up at him. He's looking down at me. We are much closer than I realized.
"Does it hurt?"
"No."
"Does it ever?"
"Sometimes. In cold weather."
"You should have told someone."
"I'm telling you."
Something in the room shifts. The morning light. His eyes on mine.
"Is this still a medical assessment?"
"No."
"Good."
And he catches my wrist.
His grip is gentle. Not stopping me. Just holding as he gently pulls my whole body next his.
I look up at him, and he looks down at me.
"Kaden."
"I know."
"We're in a professional?—"
"I know."
"And there are about twelve reasons why?—"
"Melinda."
I stop.
He brings my wrist up slowly and turns it.
He presses his lips to the inside of it, right over the pulse point.
His lips are warm and deliberate.
Unhurried. Like he decided this was what he was going to do and is doing it completely.
Every coherent thought I have dissolves along with every one of the twelve reasons.
He lifts his eyes to mine and I see he is dark, steady and decided.
"I've been sure for days. I've been ignoring it for days."
"Stop ignoring it."
He kisses me.
“That’s the new plan,” he says with a grin before he kisses me again.
Not like the kitchen. Not quick or impulsive.
This is a deliberate decision, committed to completely.
There will be no stopping this time.
It's slow.
Achingly, deliberately slow. Like he decided that if this is happening it's happening fully.
Like I'm worth the time.
His hands move to my face, both gently tracing.
The same hands that check perimeters and carry weapons and caught me before I hit the pavement.
Those strong hands are now holding my face like I'm delicate and fragile.
I grab the front of his shirt because I’m not and I intend to show him.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. "You're sure?"
Not quite a question. He can see the answer. But he asks anyway. The care underneath it. The fact that this man who never wastes a word used one to make sure I was with him.
It undoes me more than anything physical could.
"Yes. Are you?"
Something moves across his face.
It’s raw at the edges.
"I've been sure for days," he says again.
"Then stop being sure from a distance and own this. I won’t break.
He kisses me deeper. His hands slide from my face to my shoulders, pulling me closer, like distance was always the problem and he's finally done tolerating it.
We move down the hallway and through the bedroom door.
He reaches back and closes it. The click of the latch like a decision made and sealed.
He sets me against the wall in the morning light like he's memorizing.
I reach for the hem of his shirt, and he lets me pull it over his head.
I spread my hands flat on his chest and feel his heartbeat. Its fast and steady.
I can now see the tattoo across the right side of his chest now in full light. Simple black linework.
It’s a compass rose, north arrow shorter than the others, as though pointing somewhere unnamed but important.
There is a name beneath it I can't quite make out without leaning in. I don't ask.
He hasn't offered. Some things are for later.
He reaches for my hands and watches my face. Giving me every moment to change my mind.
I don't change my mind.
I take off my shirt, and his breath catches when he sees me.
Not the clinical inhale of surprise. Something deeper.
Like the sight of me hits him somewhere he wasn't bracing for.
I have spent years in a body that takes up space.
A woman with hips and weight and presence, and I have never apologized for it.
But I have never had a man look at me the way he is looking at me right now.
Like more is exactly right. Like he was built to hold exactly this.
"You're—"
"If you say something professional right now, I will never forgive you."
The corner of his mouth twitches. It’s there and then gone.
"Beautiful." Simply. Like a fact, he’s been sitting with for days and he finally let it out.
His hands come to my waist. The full span of them. Large and warm and certain.
His thumb traces the curve of my hip, slow, like the shape of me is worth learning.
His mouth finds my throat and my collarbone. The curve of my shoulder.
His hands move down my sides, reading what makes me shiver and what makes me press closer.
I pull him in closer as I run my hands along the ripples of his body.
Both of us are exploring new territory, amazed at what we learn.
His mouth trails lower and I stop thinking about the wall behind me.
I stop thinking about anything except the heat of him and the way his hands keep finding new places that turn my breathing into something I don't recognize.
I shiver as I say, "Kaden."
"I've got you," he says against my skin.
His voice is low and certain.
Like a promise with his entire history behind it.
"Bed," I manage.
He lifts me. Sets me on the mattress.
And helps me take off my pants.
Then he follows me down.
He takes his time. Full attention. Nothing wasted.
His mouth moves from my throat downward, unhurried.
He finds a spot that makes my back arch off the mattress and stays there.
Learning exactly what makes me gasp and then uses all of it at once.
His mouth keeps moving lower.
I tense. Not in the way that means stop.
In the way that means my body has already decided to get there before my brain.
He looks up.
"Melinda?"
"Yes. Please. For the love of?—"
His mouth finds me.
He is thorough and unhurried devastating in his patience.
He reads every shift in my breathing, every sound I make, adjusting and learning me like a language.
When I come apart it's sudden, the totality of my body rocking to a climax.
I can’t help but whisper his name.
He eases me through the contractions of my body as he works his way back up.
Mouth is gentle on my stomach, my ribs, pausing at the scar on my shoulder from the ramp.
He kisses it once. Like an apology to a bruise as he gently allows me to recover.
He’s letting me lead now, not wanting to think of himself before I’m ready.
I pull him up to me and I kiss him hard.
“Now, please."
"Please," he repeats. Something in his voice I've never heard. Low and rough and barely controlled.
He isn't gentle as he enters inside me, yet he isn't rough.
He is precise and present and when he moves, I make a sound as it takes my breath away.
He goes still, pausing, looking at me, waiting for a signal that it’s okay to keep going
I show him by moving my hips to take in more of him.
Then he moves.
Slow at first, controlled with the same discipline he applies to everything else.
I wrap my legs around him to take in more. The angle of our union changes and fractures his control.
His face settles against my neck, and I hear him breathing harder.
"Melinda."
"I know."
"I can't?—"
"Let it.
His slow becomes urgent, as my hands are his hair, his mouth against my throat, now he lets go completely.
His whole weight against me as he’s breathing hard.
He holds on as he let’s go.
We shift slightly so we can lie beside each other.
His arm across my waist. My head on his chest.
The cabin quiet around us.
His heartbeat slowing back toward steady. I listen to it for a long time.
The morning light has moved across the floor. I didn't notice time passing. I don't mind.
I trace the scar on his ribs. Absently. Like I have the right, it’s part of me now.
"Good things take time," he says.
I go still.
He said it. He used my line. Back at me.
I lift my head. He's looking at the ceiling, the corner of his mouth doing the thing.
"Was that a recipe note or a principle?"
"Both."
I drop my head back on his chest a I chuckle.
"I don't want this to end."
I say it out loud. It’s unplanned but it’s the kind of honest that only comes when every defense is somewhere else.
He goes still. I feel the weight of what I just put in the room.
He pulls me closer instead of pulling away. His lips against my hair. His arm tightening.
He doesn't say anything.
He doesn't have to.
I close my eyes and let myself have it. All of it. Just this once.
His breathing changes. Not toward sleep. Toward something resolved.