20. Dane Gallagher #2
City light slips through the gap in the curtains, a thin, pale line catching along her collarbone, her throat, the edge of her jaw as she tilts her face up to mine.
Outside, there’s traffic, voices, an entire world that kept moving while we were gone. In here, it’s only us.
Her hands press against my chest. Mine find her waist, her skin still warm and damp under my palms.
We kiss slowly, unhurried, neither of us rushing. We move without breaking it, her stepping back while I follow, my hands firm at her waist as her mouth keeps moving against mine.
The backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed, and we stop there for a second, breathing each other in.
Something’s been building in my chest since the dock. I didn’t have room for it then—too much noise, too many people, too many cameras pointed in our direction. Too much attention. But I have room for it now.
One clear thought.
Mine.
Not claimed. Not forced. Something that built slowly over years without either of us ever needing to name it. Not ownership—something deeper than that. More necessary. And I know the world we’ve come back to won’t understand it.
She lifts her hands and cups my face gently. Then I kiss her again, and we move together without thinking, the last bit of distance disappearing as the bed catches us. We go down still connected, still holding onto each other.
She’s beneath me, and I brace myself on my forearms like I always do. I never let my full weight settle on her—never have. It’s instinct at this point. The same instinct that’s spent years learning how to account for anything that might hurt her before it can.
Her hair fans across the sheets, still damp from the shower, the strip of light from the window catching along her cheekbone. Something shifts in my chest when I look at her. Quiet, but real.
She smiles, and I feel something inside me loosen.
I lower myself and kiss her again, slower this time. She makes a soft sound against my mouth, her fingers sliding into my hair.
And suddenly I feel it clearly—where we are, what this is.
The same.
And not.
Nothing between us has changed, but everything around us has. It alters the feeling just enough to make it new, and I don’t mind that nearly as much as I thought I would.
I pull back just enough to look at her.
“It’s loud out there.”
“It is.” Her eyes flick briefly toward the curtains. “And this is our life now.”
Then she looks back at me, already reading me the way she always does. “Say what you’re actually thinking.”
I stay quiet for a second before answering.
“I don’t know how to do this. Out there.” I shake my head slightly. “When it was just us, I knew how to handle it.”
“You still do.”
“It’s different now. People are going to talk about how this happened. Whether it’s—”
She presses her fingers gently to my mouth.
“Stop, Dane. None of them were there. They don’t know what we survived. They don’t know anything about us.” Her voice stays calm and steady. “Let them think whatever they want.”
I hold her gaze for another second before I lean down and kiss her jaw, her throat, the place beneath her ear that always makes her breathing catch. I let the rest of it go.
I move lower slowly, and she tips her head back to give me room. Her hands stay in my hair, softer now, following instead of holding on.
There’s no rush to any of this. No pressure. Just a real bed, a locked door, and nothing waiting for us outside this room.
I take my time moving down the center of her body, across her ribs, feeling the subtle changes in her breathing beneath my hands.
I’ve known every version of her. From the beginning until now. I feel it in the way she responds to me, the way she moves with me, the way nothing between us has ever needed explanation.
No one outside this room knows her the way I do.
That thought settles somewhere deep and solid inside me.
I move lower, and her breath catches harder this time.
Her fingers tighten in my hair.
“Mmm… Dane.”
Her thighs spread as I lower my mouth to her, slow and deliberate, my tongue finding her in one long stroke that makes her hips jerk beneath me.
I do it again.
And again.
Unhurried.
I flatten my tongue against her, and the sound she makes isn’t even a word anymore—just pure feeling.
I know how to read her after all these years. The rhythm of her breathing. The sounds she makes. The smallest shifts in her body that tell me what she needs before she says it aloud.
She’s never been quiet with me here.
I like that.
I slide one finger into her and feel the immediate way she tightens around it while I keep my mouth moving steadily against her. Focused. Intent. I adjust slightly until I find the angle that pulls a sharp breath from her chest.
Her hand tightens hard in my hair.
I add a second finger, curling them gently, and her whole body reacts beneath me. I keep the same steady rhythm with my mouth, tracking every change in her breathing, every tremor that runs through her.
“That feels—” she starts, then loses it. “Dane… that feels so good.”
I know when to ease back and when to hold steady, when she needs more and when she needs exactly this—no change, no variation. Just constant.
“Oh shit,” she breathes, her voice thinner now. “Please, Dane—right there. Don’t stop.”
I don’t.
The tension builds fast, familiar. Her thighs press tighter against my shoulders, her breathing slipping out of rhythm. I keep everything exactly the same—my fingers, my mouth, the pressure, the pace. She doesn’t need anything different. She needs this.
Her grip in my hair tightens enough to hurt. I let it.
“Oh—” Her voice breaks. “Oh… Dane… it’s happening.”
I feel the shift as it hits her.
She comes apart with a low sound that opens into something louder, her body tightening and lifting against me.
I stay with her through it, steady, easing just slightly as the intensity peaks, then softening as it fades, guiding her through every last wave until her grip loosens and her body settles.
Her legs fall open, and I move back up slowly. Her hand finds my face, pulls me in, and she kisses me.
“God, I love you,” she says.
“I love you too.”
When I glide into her, I watch her face. I always do. It’s instinct—needing to see her, to know exactly where she is in it.
Her eyes lock onto mine and stay there, completely present, and something in my chest that’s been tight eases, just a little.