Chapter 12 Morning After
TWELVE
Morning After
EVIE
I wake to birdsong.
The canyon is coming alive around us—the tentative chirps of dawn, the rustle of wings, the distant call of something larger moving through the trees below. The sky has shifted from black to deep blue, the first pale fingers of light reaching over the eastern ridge.
Jon is still asleep.
He looks different like this. The tension that lives in his jaw has eased, and the lines around his eyes have softened. One arm is still wrapped around me; the other has fallen to his side, palm up, fingers loosely curled. Vulnerable in a way he never lets himself be when he's awake.
I study him in the growing light. The scar through his eyebrow. Stubble darkening his jaw. The mouth that said such filthy, beautiful things to me in the dark.
Something stirs in my chest. Something warm and dangerous and entirely too real for a woman who's known this man for less than a day.
I shift carefully, trying not to wake him. But the movement presses me against his hip, and I feel it—the unmistakable evidence that his body is awake even if his mind isn't. Hard. Ready. Straining against his jeans like it's been waiting for me.
A wicked idea takes root.
I ease out of his arms slowly. He stirs, murmurs something unintelligible, but doesn't wake. Good. I want to surprise him. Want to give him something he didn't ask for, the way he gave me things I didn't know I needed.
I work his belt open carefully. The button. The zipper. Each tiny sound seems deafening in the morning quiet, but he doesn't stir. Still deeply asleep, exhausted from the day before, from everything we did in the dark.
When I free him, he's already fully hard—thick and heavy in my hand, twitching at my touch. I wrap my fingers around him, stroke once, and watch his face.
His brow furrows. A soft sound escapes his throat. But his eyes stay closed.
I lower my head.
The first touch of my tongue makes him groan—low and rough, still more asleep than awake.
I take my time. Taste him. Learn the shape of him with my mouth, the way I learned the rest of him with my hands.
He's hot against my lips, velvet over steel, and when I take him deeper, his hips jerk involuntarily.
"Evie—" His voice is wrecked, confused. "What—"
"Shh." I pull back just long enough to meet his eyes. He's awake now, staring down at me with an expression that's half disbelief, half desperate hunger. "Let me."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to." I hold his gaze as I lower my mouth again. "I want to taste you. I want to make you feel good. I want—" I swirl my tongue around the tip, watch his eyes flutter. "I want to watch you fall apart."
His head tips back against the rock.
"Fuck."
I take that as permission.
The sounds he makes are different from last night—rougher, less controlled. He's not performing now, not trying to be anything for me. He's just feeling. His hand finds my hair, tangles in it, but he doesn't push. Doesn't try to control the pace. Just holds on like he needs something to anchor him.
"Evie." My name is a groan. "Sweetheart. I'm—you need to—"
I don't stop. Don't slow down. I want this. Want to feel him come undone. Want to be the one who breaks him open.
The canyon fills with light around us. Pink and gold spilling over the ridge, painting the granite walls in colors I've seen a hundred times but never like this.
Never with a man's pleasure vibrating against my tongue, never with the taste of him flooding my senses, never with this fierce, possessive joy burning in my chest.
His hand tightens in my hair. His hips buck. And then he's coming—hot and hard and endless, his whole body shuddering, my name torn from his throat like a prayer.
I take everything he gives me.
When it's over, he's boneless. Sprawled against the rock, chest heaving, staring at the sky like he's not entirely sure he's still alive.
"Good morning," I say.
He laughs—breathless, wrecked. "Jesus Christ, Evie."
"You're welcome."
"I think I saw God."
"Just me." I crawl up his body, settle against his chest. His heart is hammering beneath my cheek. "Though I'll accept 'goddess' as a substitute."
"Goddess." He wraps his arms around me, pulls me close. "Witch. Siren. Whatever the hell you are, I'm keeping you."
"That's a lot of commitment from a man who's known me less than a day."
"It's been a very eventful day." He presses a kiss to my forehead. "Give me five minutes, and I'll return the favor."
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." He rolls us so I'm beneath him, his weight pressing me into the rock, his mouth finding my throat. "I want to. I want to taste you while the sun comes up. I want to make you scream loud enough to scare every bird in this canyon."
"Jon—"
"Five minutes." He's already working his way down my body, lips, teeth, and tongue leaving trails of fire.
It’s less. He’s true to his word, his focus absolute, his mouth a devastating mix of heat and precision that has me gripping the cold granite until my knuckles turn white. I shatter in the morning light, a quiet, broken sound escaping me that he catches with a kiss.
But the moment the tremors stop, the operator is back. The golden light isn't just beautiful; it's a spotlight.
"We’re burning daylight, sweetheart," Jon murmurs against my skin, his voice already losing its velvet edge to something sharper. Tactical. "Sun’s hitting the ridge. If they have spotters on the opposite rim, we’re sitting ducks."
The haze of pleasure evaporates, replaced by the cool, hard logic of survival.
We dress in silence, the rustle of clothes and the snap of his holster the only sounds in the crevice.
The world feels new and possible, but the sun is fully up now, the canyon bathed in golden light that reveals exactly where we are.
"Ready for the last eighty feet?" I ask.
Jon grins. His hair is a disaster, his clothes are rumpled, and there's a mark on his neck that I definitely put there. He looks thoroughly debauched, but his eyes are serious again. Lethal.
"Ready to follow you anywhere." He says it lightly, but he's already scanning the rim above. "Lead the way, sweetheart."
I turn to the rock above us, find my holds, and start to climb.
This time, I'm not alone.