Slade
The mountain light goes long and gold through the cabin windows and she is still here.
Her glass on my counter. Her boots by my door.
She took one step toward me. I took the rest.
Her mouth is warm and she kisses me like she's already decided.
Her hands are on my chest, the back of my neck, pulling herself against me until the full weight of her body hits mine.
Her tongue drags slow against mine and the sound she makes against my mouth empties me.
The curve of her waist under my palms. How she fits against me — hips to hips, her breasts pressed against my chest through two layers of cotton, the heat of her coming through all of it.
I'm already hard against her stomach and she shifts and feels it and neither of us says anything about it.
"Piper." Against her mouth. Like something I'm allowed to say out loud.
She pulls back just far enough to look at me. Dark eyes.
"I'm here," she says. "I'm not going anywhere."
I pick her up. Her legs wrap around my waist — full hips, strong thighs — and I carry her through the cabin with her mouth against my throat and her breath coming fast against my skin.
The bedroom is small. The bed is made because I make my bed every morning — military, habit.
She undoes that order in about four seconds.
Her back on my sheets, her dark hair on my pillow, her hands pulling my shirt over my head before I've set her down all the way.
Her palms run across my shoulders, down my arms, back up — mapping me, unselfconscious, thorough.
I slow down. Not because I want to. Because I need to see her.
She lets me. Watches me watch her while I pull her shirt up over her ribs, over the swell of her breasts, over her head.
Her bra is plain — dark cotton, no lace.
I unhook it with one hand and her breasts settle free, full and heavy, nipples tight in the cool air.
She arches up and I press my mouth to the hollow of her throat.
Her pulse under my lips. Fast. Certain.
I drag my mouth lower. Her collarbone. Her sternum.
I roll her nipple between my thumb and forefinger — slowly, watching her face — until she draws a sharp breath through her nose.
I close my mouth over her — tongue flat, then circling, then flicking — and her back arches off the mattress.
I drag my teeth across the tight peak of her and she makes a cracked sound.
She slides her fingers into my hair and grips hard enough to sting.
"You don't have to be careful with me," she says.
"I know." I drag my mouth across to the other breast. Down the curve of her ribs. The soft give of her stomach where her breathing moves under my lips. "I'm not being careful. I'm paying attention."
She exhales hard. Her grip in my hair tightens.
I take my time with her. Every part of her I can reach — the curve of her hip, the soft skin inside her thigh where she shivers when I press my mouth there. The scent of her skin is everywhere.
I pull her underwear down off her legs. She is wet — slick across her inner thighs, her folds swollen and dark. I run my thumb up through her center, slow and flat, gathering the heat of her, and she goes still — held breath, held everything.
When I lower my mouth between her thighs she stops holding still.
I lick into her — a full drag of my tongue from her entrance up through her folds to her clit, tasting the salt and heat of her — and the sound she makes goes through me like voltage.
I work her with my mouth, learning the pressure that makes her thighs tense, the angle that pulls those short broken sounds from her throat.
When I seal my lips around her clit and suck she jolts hard and grabs the sheets.
I slide two fingers inside her and feel her clench around me as I curl them forward, and she stops being quiet entirely.
Her hips lift against my mouth and I grip them and hold her there.
Her thighs press against my ears and her heels dig into my back and I don't come up until her whole body jolts and she gasps my name.
"Now," she says, pulling me up by my shoulders. "Slade. Now."
Her hands are on my belt, then my waistband, efficient and direct.
I help her because my hands are shaking.
She wraps her hand around me — warm, firm, her grip exactly right — and I groan against her neck and press my forehead to the mattress beside her head.
She strokes me once, twice, her thumb dragging slow across the head of my cock, and my hips move against her grip.
When I push inside her she gasps and her nails dig into my shoulders and I go still — not pulling back, just holding. The heat of her closes around me in one slow deep slide.
"Okay?" Against her temple.
"Yes." Her hips shift against mine, drawing me deeper. "Don't stop."
I don't stop.
I move and she moves with me. Her legs lock around my waist, pulling me deeper. Her breath comes in short, sharp sounds against my neck. I press my forehead to hers and her eyes are open, looking at me, and the vulnerability in them hits me harder than anything her body is doing.
She is here. She chose this. She chose me.
The guilt is there — at the edge, where I pushed it on the mountain. I should tell her. But the moment I do, this ends — her hands on me, her trust, how she says my name like I'm someone who earned it. That terror has made me a coward, and I am here anyway.
It doesn't cancel this. It occupies the same room without touching it — I am the man whose hands her brother died in, and I am the man whose hands she is in now.
She comes apart with my name in her mouth and I follow her with my face buried in her neck and the weight of her around me and everywhere.
After, I hold her. She presses her forehead to my chest and her breathing slows and her body goes heavy and warm against mine in the last of the mountain light.
"Can I stay?" she murmurs.
I pull the quilt up over her shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere."
She falls asleep with one hand flat on my chest, over my heartbeat. Her dark hair is everywhere across my pillow and the weight of her palm makes my chest ache — she is here, trusting me with the unconscious weight of herself.
I've been awake for an hour, listening to her breathe.
I am in love with her.
I have been falling since before I met her — from Owen's stories, the way he talked about Piper like she was the fixed point everything else in his life orbited.
She'll fight you on everything and she'll be right about most of it.
She makes terrible coffee. She's the best person I know.
I fell in love with a description. The woman sleeping in my cabin is more than the description.
I also have not told her the truth.
I have not told her I was Owen's assigned medic. I have not told her I was the last person who held him. I have not told her that her brother said her name three times on a mountain I will never name — twice when he was lucid, once at the end.
I've been telling myself there was no right moment. She needed Owen first. All of that is true. None of it is the reason I stayed quiet. The reason is that I'm afraid of what happens to this — her breath against my ribs, the way she said my name — when she knows what I was doing on that mountain.
The cabin is dark and the August crickets are loud outside the window and her hand rises and falls with my breathing.
Owen knew. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I have to tell her. Tomorrow morning, before she finds it on her own, before another hour passes where she trusts me with something I haven't earned yet. I owe it to Owen and I owe it to the woman who fell asleep on my chest like I'm someone she can rest against.
Tomorrow morning.
Her hand tightens once in her sleep, fingers curling against my skin. I cover it with mine and hold it there..