7. Lara
seven
Lara
Shaw drives. I watch the treeline, thinking about him walking through that crowd. All those people, Canada Day in full noise and colour, and he came through all of it and found me. I don't come to things like this. I want you to know I came to this.
The cabin appears around the last bend, and he cuts the engine. The valley is visible below, the bonfire still glowing far down in the park. The night is warm and full of cricket sounds and the smell of warm pine and dry grass.
"It's beautiful up here at night," I say.
"Yeah." He looks at the valley, then at me. The lamp from the dash is on his face, and his expression is settled in a way I haven't seen before. No more working things out. He's arrived. "It is."
We go inside, and he opens all the cabin windows.
The night air moves through the cabin and brings the ridge in with it — pine and warm rock and the faint smoke from the valley.
He lights the lamp on the worktable instead of the overhead and the cabin goes amber and close, the memory cards in their jar catching the light, everything quiet and purposeful.
He comes up behind me and puts his hands on my waist. I lean back into him. We look at the valley together — the bonfire small below, the river catching the last light, the sky going deep blue at the edges. Ten seconds, maybe. Then he turns me around and kisses me.
Unlike yesterday, he doesn't stop.
He gets my shirt over my head and steps back to look at me.
I let him. His eyes move over my breasts, my stomach, the curve of my hips, and there's nothing complicated in his face.
No hesitation. He wants me. All of me. The lamp throws warm light across the room, and I stand in it and don't apologize for a single inch.
His hands follow where his eyes have been. He cups my breasts, thumbs brushing my nipples, and I pull in a breath. He does it again, slower, watching my face. My nipples go hard under his thumbs, and he feels that and keeps going until I put my hand on his chest and push him back.
"Shirt off," I say.
He pulls it over his head. I look at him the same way he looked at me. Broad chest, hard stomach, the build of a man who works outside every day and doesn't think about it.
I undo his belt myself. Get his jeans open and push them down.
He's hard and thick. I wrap my hand around his cock and feel the weight of him.
I stroke him once, root to tip, and he exhales hard.
I do it again. His hips push forward slightly, involuntarily, and I like that. I like that I do that to him.
I press my mouth to the head. Lick slowly across it. Taste the salt of him. Then I take him in, as much as I can, and suck, and his whole body goes rigid and his hand fists in my hair.
"Fuck," he says. Low. Genuine.
I do it again. Work him slow and thorough, my hand at the base, my mouth on the rest, and he lets me go long enough that his breathing goes ragged and his grip tightens, and then he pulls me off.
"Bed," he says. "Now."
He lays me down and gets my underwear off in one move.
Stands over me for a second just looking.
Then he comes down over me and his mouth finds my breast and I arch up into it.
He sucks my nipple hard and I make a sound and he does it again, then moves to the other side, and I get my hands in his hair and hold on.
His hand slides down my stomach. Between my thighs. He finds out immediately how wet I am and makes a low sound against my breast.
"Fuck, Lara."
Two fingers, slow. I push my hips up.
"More," I say.
He gives me more. Works me open while his mouth moves from my breasts to my throat to my ear.
I stop being quiet about any of it. He finds the right angle and the right pressure and stays there, steady, and I am completely in my body — not thinking, not managing anything.
Just his hand and his mouth and the warm night air through the open windows and the sound of the river below.
"Right there," I say. "Don't stop."
He doesn't stop. He adds his thumb, and I gasp and my hips start moving on their own. He stays with me, matches me, keeps the same pressure and the same rhythm until I come with both hands gripping his shoulders and my thighs clamped around his hand and his name in my throat.
He works me through every second of it.
I'm still shaking when he moves over me. Gets his jeans the rest of the way off. Settles between my thighs and I feel his cock against me, and I roll my hips toward him.
"Shaw."
He pushes in slowly. I feel every inch of it. He goes still when he's all the way in, and I look up at him, and his face is open in a way I haven't seen before. Here. Looking at me like I'm something he wasn't prepared for.
I roll my hips. He exhales.
"Move," I say.
He moves.
Deep and slow at first. I wrap my legs around him and take it. His hands grip my hips and his mouth drags along my collarbone. I dig my heels into his back and pull him in harder and he gets the message. The headboard finds the wall.
Thump, thump, thump.
He picks up the pace. I meet every stroke. His hand gets between us, finds my clit, and I gasp and clench around him, and he does it again, watching my face, learning exactly what it does to me.
"Harder!"
He gives me harder. Long, deep strokes and his hand working and his mouth at my ear. I am loud. I don't care. The open windows let the summer night in. The lamp throws shadows on the walls. None of it matters except him and this and right now.
I come the second time with my nails in his back and my hips grinding hard against his hand and my whole body pulling tight and then releasing all at once.
He drives into me through it, deep and steady, and when I'm done he buries himself and follows — hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave marks, face in my neck, a sound I feel in my chest.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, and neither of us moves for a long time.
His hand is in my hair. Slowly, absently, like he's thinking. The cricket sounds comes through all the open windows. The cabin smells like summer and woodsmoke and him. I am boneless and warm and entirely unwilling to be anywhere else.
"The silence is different now," he says finally. "With you in it."
I tuck closer. His arm pulls me in.
"Good different?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "The best kind."
The valley is dark now, the bonfire down to a glow, the town quiet below the ridge. The night air is warm on my skin, and Silver Ridge is small and lit below, alive in its mountain ring.
His arms tighten. Just slightly. Just enough.
The valley glows below, soft and golden, and the summer night holds everything, and I close my eyes, and I am completely, entirely, unhurriedly home.