20. Dane Gallagher #3
The bed changes the angles, small adjustments, but we find it without speaking. We always do. She shifts her hips slightly, and I follow. Then we settle into the rhythm together.
I keep it slow. There’s no reason not to—nothing pressing in on us, nothing waiting outside this room that matters right now. She exhales softly, her hands sliding over my back.
Time stretches.
Her breathing is the first thing to change. It always is. It slips out of rhythm, turns into something her body takes over without asking. Heat builds under my hands, along her skin. The room stays quiet around us—just her breath, mine, and the distant noise of a world that doesn’t belong here.
Her nails press into my back.
“Harder,” she says, barely above a whisper.
I give it to her.
It builds the way it always does—natural, inevitable, something between us that doesn’t need explaining. Her legs wrap around me, shifting everything, and she makes a small sound against my jaw. I press my face into her throat.
“You’re mine, Charlotte.” It comes out rougher than I expect.
Her eyes open and find mine. “I know I am.”
“Say it.”
“I’m yours, Dane.” No hesitation. No doubt. “I always have been. I always will be.”
“I’m not letting this world take you from me.” There’s more in that than I mean to show, but I don’t take it back.
Her hand slides to the back of my neck, holding me there. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m with you. Always.”
I believe her.
It doesn’t erase the fear, but it steadies it—gives it something to push against. I rest my forehead against hers and keep moving with her, holding onto that as long as I can.
A low sound leaves her, steady, caught in the rhythm between us. Then she tightens, and I know she’s close. Something in me tightens with her.
I move harder, faster.
“Oh—” Her legs pull me in tighter. “Dane—”
“I know,” I say, my voice rough. “I’ve got you.”
She breaks against me, the sound pressed into my shoulder, and I feel it through all of me. I stay with her through it, holding steady until it fades, until the tension leaves her body.
I pull out of her, and the orgasm hits hard. It tears through me in long pulses against the sheets, a groan forcing its way out through clenched teeth while each wave rolls up my spine hard enough to leave me shaking.
The linen catches everything, and I’m still trembling by the time the last of it fades, hips finally going still, breath coming in rough, uneven pulls.
For a moment, I just stay there, breathing.
Then I lie down beside her and pull her into me. We stay like that—close and still—while everything settles and our breathing evens out.
“What are you thinking?” Charlotte asks.
I stare up at the ceiling. “That we walk back into all of it tomorrow and the world decides we’re something that needs explaining. Something it needs to fix.”
“And?”
I let out a breath. “And you start to believe it.”
She lifts her head and looks at me. “Dane—”
“I know.”
“No—actually know it. Don’t just say it.”
“I’m trying.” I glance down at her. “You’re better at that than I am.”
She studies me for a second, then shifts against me. “You’re used to being in control. Out there, you had to be. You made every call. You thought three steps ahead. That’s how we survived.”
“That’s exactly how we survived. I can’t switch that off overnight.”
“I understand,” she says, softer. “I do. But that isn’t our life anymore.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how to not be that. I need it… the control. It’s what makes things feel safe.”
Her hand slides up my chest. “You can relax now. You don’t have to hold everything up by yourself anymore.”
Letting go feels impossible.
Looking after her isn’t something I do. It’s who I am.
For years, everything began with the same question:
Is she safe?
I like carrying the weight. I like knowing where she is. I like being the one who stands between her and anything that might hurt her.
If I'm not protecting Charlotte, then who am I?
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I don’t know how to be anything else.
She shifts closer, settling back against me.
“I’m not going to let anything touch what we are,” I say.
“I know.”
“I mean it, Charlotte.”
“I know you do.”
Her hand rests over my chest, fingers tracing slow, absent circles. The conversation settles on its own. Nothing else needs to be said.
Her breathing evens out not long after, and she’s asleep within minutes. I feel the exact moment it happens—the way her hand goes slack and the shift in her breath.
A city doesn’t sleep. I’d forgotten that. There’s always something—traffic, voices, movement. No real silence. Just a constant hum that never quite stops.
I lie there listening to it, thinking about the island. The graves under the trees. The unfinished chess game. The pearls. The promise I made about a necklace—about carrying pieces of that life into this one.
I don’t sleep. I just hold her and let the noise exist beyond the walls, letting the world keep moving without us for a little while longer.
They can ask whatever they want. Build whatever version of us they need.
They don’t get this.
This is ours.