Chapter 2 The Weight of Want
The walk was two blocks and a lifetime.
Marlene’s hand stayed locked in Gideon’s the whole way—his palm rough, callused in the places a rifle stock would wear against skin.
She catalogued that detail without meaning to.
The night air hit her flushed cheeks, the October chill doing nothing to cool the heat coiling low in her belly.
Their footsteps echoed on cracked pavement.
Neither spoke. Words felt beside the point now, after everything they’d already confessed in the diner.
Her apartment building rose up in the dark—a converted Victorian chopped into four units, sagging porch, paint peeling in long curls. She’d hated it for three years. Tonight it looked like sanctuary.
“Third floor,” she said.
Gideon caught the screen door before it slammed. She felt him behind her on the stairs, close enough that the heat of his body bled through her thin shirt. The stairwell light was burned out. Her key missed the lock twice before she got the door open.
Then they were inside.
Her apartment was small. Kitchenette to the left, couch to the right, a hallway leading to a bedroom she suddenly couldn’t remember if she’d made the bed in. A streetlamp outside the window threw orange light across the floor in slats.
The door clicked shut.
Marlene turned.
And Gideon was there—pressed against her before she could draw breath, one hand bracing the doorframe beside her head, the other finding her hip with an urgency that bordered on desperation. His thigh slid between her legs, parting them, pinning her to the door with a pressure that made her gasp.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice wrecked, “if this is too fast.”
Her answer came out as a sound, not a word. Something between a laugh and a moan. “I just dragged you to my apartment. What do you think?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Then his lips were on hers again.
This kiss was nothing like the diner. No table between them, no fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
Just the solid heat of his body boxing her in, his thigh pressing up into the ache that had been building since the moment he’d first touched her wrist.
Her head fell back against the door with a thud she barely registered.
His mouth left hers. Trailed down her jaw. Found the pulse point hammering in her throat.
“You have no idea,” he murmured against her skin, “how long it’s been.”
“Since what?”
“Since I wanted something this badly.”
Marlene’s hands fisted in his jacket. The jacket she’d unbuttoned in the diner.
She pushed it off his shoulders now, and this time he let it fall.
The heavy canvas hit the floor with a soft thump.
His t-shirt was thin, worn soft from too many washes, and through it she could map the landscape of his chest—the hard ridges of muscle, the place where his heartbeat slammed against his ribs.
She wanted that shirt gone.
Her fingers found the hem. Tugged.
Gideon broke the kiss long enough to yank it over his head.
The streetlamp light fell across him in orange and shadow.
Scars she hadn’t expected—a puckered line across his ribs, another on his shoulder, pale and old.
She’d known about the tours, the three deployments he’d mentioned over coffee, but knowing and seeing were different things.
Her fingertips brushed the scar on his ribs before she could stop herself.
His breath caught.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be.” His voice was rough now, rougher than before. “Just—don’t stop touching me.”
She didn’t.
Her palms flattened against his chest. Slid up over his shoulders.
Pulled him down to her mouth again. The kiss deepened, and his thigh shifted between her legs, and the friction sent a shudder through her that started somewhere in her spine and radiated outward until her toes curled in her sneakers.
His hands found the hem of her shirt. He didn’t pull it up. Not yet. His thumbs traced the strip of bare skin just above her waistband—back and forth, maddeningly slow—and she arched into the touch without meaning to.
“Gideon.” His name came out breathless, urgent.
“Marlene.” He said it like he was testing the weight of it. Like he wanted to memorize how it felt in his mouth.
She reached behind her for the lock. Her fingers found the deadbolt, slid it home with a click that seemed louder than it should have been.
The sound made something shift in him. His whole body went taut, coiled tight as a spring, and when he looked at her again his eyes were black in the dim light—pupils blown wide, irises reduced to thin rings of whatever color they’d been before.
She still didn’t know what color his eyes were.
That seemed absurd now, with his thigh between her legs and his bare chest pressed against her and the smell of him everywhere—cedar and salt and something metallic, like the air before lightning.
“I want to see you,” he said.
She knew what he meant.
Her hands were steadier than she expected.
The hem of her shirt caught on her chin, and he helped her pull it free, his knuckles brushing her collarbone.
The shirt joined his jacket on the floor.
She stood there in her jeans and her bra—plain black cotton, nothing fancy, the kind of thing you wore for a twelve-hour shift—and the way he looked at her made her feel like she was wearing silk.
His thumb traced the strap where it curved over her shoulder.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. No flourish. No exaggeration. Just a fact, stated plainly, like he was reading it off a map.
Her throat tightened. “You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.” His eyes met hers. “I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean.”
The words landed somewhere deep in her chest.
Someplace that had been hollow for a long time.
She’d been called sweet by regulars who didn’t know her name.
Helpful by her father when he needed someone to cover inventory.
Pretty enough by a boy in high school who’d meant it as a compliment and hadn’t understood why she’d flinched.
But beautiful, said like that—like an observation, indisputable—that was new.
She pulled him down to her mouth because she didn’t trust herself to speak.
The kiss was slower now. Less frantic. His hands settled on her waist, thumbs rubbing circles against her hipbones, and she let herself sink into the sensation—the heat of his bare chest against hers through the thin cotton of her bra, the solid press of his thigh,
the way his breathing matched hers, ragged and fast.
Her fingers found the button of his jeans.
She paused.
Looked up at him through her lashes, a question in the tilt of her chin.
He answered by covering her hand with his. Guided her fingers to the button. Let her work it free. The zipper split open with a sound like a secret being told.
His forehead dropped to hers. Their breath mingled in the narrow space between their mouths.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“Whatever we want.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.” She slid her hand beneath the waistband of his jeans, just barely, just enough to feel the heat of his skin and the sharp hitch of his hips. “Is it enough?”
He kissed her instead of answering. Deep and searching, his tongue sliding against hers, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head. His fingers tangled in her hair. Tugged just enough to tilt her chin up, to expose the long line of her throat.
His mouth followed the path he’d made.
Her bra strap slipped. His lips found the newly bare skin of her shoulder. Then lower—the swell of her breast, the lace edge of the cup. He didn’t move the fabric. Just breathed against it, his exhale hot through the cotton.
Her knees threatened to buckle.
“Bedroom,” she managed. “Down the hall. Left side.”
He lifted his head. His lips were swollen, his hair mussed from her fingers. In the orange streetlight, with his scars and his hollow eyes and his hand cradling her skull, he looked like something out of a dream she hadn’t known she was having.
“You sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
The words came out steady. True. Terrifying.
Gideon stepped back. Just far enough to let her move. His hand found hers in the dark—the same way it had at the diner, twenty minutes and a lifetime ago—and she led him down the hallway.
Her bedroom door was open. She’d left the blinds half-drawn, and the streetlamp painted the room in stripes of light and shadow. The bed was unmade. She didn’t care.
She turned to face him.
And waited.