Chapter 5
Sophia
Raider lifts his head from the rug, watching us both. The kitchen has gone very quiet. The honesty hangs between us.
Gavin clears his throat. “I guess Raider and I should probably get going.”
“No!” The word slips out before I can stop it.
Gavin goes still. His eyes settle on mine. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not ready for you to leave yet.”
“Not ready?”
“No.” My heart starts beating faster. “I mean… I’ll need your help. My ankle still hurts. And the chickens will start yelling at sunrise. And you already ate my leftover soup, so I’ll need help making something to eat...”
He steps closer. “You’re listing excuses.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the real reason sounds slightly ridiculous.”
“Try me.”
I swallow. “Because tonight has been the longest conversation we’ve ever had and I don’t want it to end yet.”
Silence fills the kitchen. Raider shifts on the rug and sighs.
Gavin reaches for the edge of the table. “Good.”
My eyebrows lift. “Good?”
“I don’t want to leave either.”
My stomach flips. “You don’t?”
“No.”
He pulls out the chair across from me but doesn’t sit right away. Instead he studies my face like he is trying to memorize it.
“I’ve been thinking about asking you out for months.”
My eyes widen. “Why didn’t you?”
“You were always busy.”
“Selling vegetables.”
“Yes.”
“That seems like a weak excuse.”
“I’m aware.”
I laugh softly. “Well… if it helps, I would have said yes.”
“That helps a lot.”
He finally sits. The kitchen feels warmer somehow. Raider stretches out on the rug, apparently satisfied that he doesn’t have to go anywhere.
I look at Gavin across the table. “So, what happens now?”
He reaches across the table and gently takes my hand. The touch is warm and steady. My breath catches.
Gavin looks at our joined hands like he is just realizing he did that. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Neither of us pulls away.
Raider opens one eye and watches us for a second before deciding this situation is acceptable.
The house settles around us. The clock ticks quietly. The garden outside rustles in the night breeze.
I squeeze Gavin’s hand slightly.
“You know,” I say softly, “this might be the strangest first date in history.”
He leans back in the chair, still holding my hand. “Probably.”
“But it’s nice.”
“Yeah.” Gavin watches me for a moment. Then his voice drops. “Sophia.”
“Yes?”
“Can I kiss you?”
I smile. “I was wondering when you were going to ask.”
Something warm settles in his eyes. He stands slowly, still holding my hand, and steps around the table.
Raider lifts his head from the rug, watches us for exactly two seconds, decides we are not doing anything dangerous, and drops his chin back down.
Gavin stops beside my chair. “You sure?” he asks quietly.
“Yes.”
He cups my jaw with one hand and leans down.
His kiss is slow and careful at first, like he is giving me time to change my mind.
I don’t. My fingers curl into the front of his shirt and I kiss him back.
The moment deepens quickly. All the tension from the past few hours, the rescue and the worry and the long looks at the farmer’s market that never turned into anything, it all crashes together at once.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests lightly against mine. His thumb traces my jaw.
“Sophia,” he murmurs.
“Yeah?”
He says nothing for a moment. Just looks at me in a way that makes me feel like we have been here before somehow. Like we were always going to end up in this kitchen, his hand on my face, the whole night stretching out in front of us.
“You should rest that ankle,” he says finally.
I give him a look. “You’re changing the subject.”
“I’m being responsible.”
I summon every ounce of bravery I’ve ever possessed and say, “You’re off the clock now, Officer Holt. There’s no need to be responsible.”
The invitation is clear in my voice, and Gavin doesn’t hesitate to respond. He straightens and scoops me up before I can protest.
“Hey,” I say, laughing.
“You’re not walking.”
“Fine by be.”
Raider stands and follows us down the short hallway like this is the most normal thing in the world.
Gavin pushes open the bedroom door with his shoulder. He sets me gently on the edge of the bed, takes my face in both hands, and kisses me again.
This kiss is different.
Slower. Deeper. The kind of kiss that is not leading anywhere else—yet—but feels like it plans to.
I press my hand flat against his chest. I can feel his heart. It is moving just as fast as mine.
He pulls back by an inch and looks at me.
“What?” I whisper.
“Nothing.” His voice is rough. “Just looking.”
The room is quiet and warm and suddenly very small with him in it.
I reach up and tug the front of his vest. “Stay.”
“Sophia.”
“I mean it. Stay tonight.”
He reads my expression for a long moment. Then he nods.
He kneels beside the bed and checks my ankle first. Of course he does. I watch him work, the careful hands and the focused expression, and something about the combination of it, the tenderness under all that steadiness, makes my chest ache in a good way.
“You’re staring,” he says without looking up.
“How can I not? Have you see yourself?”
He glances up at that. There’s a flicker of something in his expression, pleased and a little surprised, before he looks back down.
“It’s not worse,” he says.
“Good.”
He stands and removes his vest, setting it on the chair in the corner, along with his police belt. I hope he’ll keep undressing, but he doesn’t. Instead, he sits on the edge of the mattress and the whole bed shifts with his weight.
Then he reaches for me.
The kiss starts slow again but doesn’t stay that way. His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back, and I feel the soft graze of his beard against my jaw as his mouth moves to my throat. I grip his shoulders and pull him closer, and he makes a low sound that I feel more than hear.
“Gavin,” I breathe.
He lifts his head to look at me. His eyes are dark now, warm and intent. He runs his thumb along my lower lip.
“Still okay?” he asks.
“Yes.” I pull him back down. “One hundred percent yes.”
He lays me back against the pillows and stretches out beside me, taking his time, touching my face like something worth being careful with. I reach for the hem of his shirt and he lets me pull it over his head. In the low lamplight he is exactly as solid as he felt carrying me out of that ravine.
I spread my hand over his chest. “Hi,” I say.
He looks at me, and then he smiles. A real one, slow and crooked, the kind I have never seen on him at the farmer’s market.
It is a very good smile. The best smile.
“Hi,” he says back.
I reach over and clicks off the lamp. The room goes dim, lit only by the thin light coming under the curtains, and somehow that makes everything feel even more intimate. He finds the hem of my shirt and pauses, fingers resting at my waist, waiting.
“Yes,” I say, before he has to ask.
He undresses me slowly and carefully, the way he does everything, and I stop trying to feel self-conscious about any of it because the way he looks at me makes that impossible. Like I am exactly what he was hoping to find.
When I reach for his pants, he watches my face the whole time. I undo the button and zipper, and he shrugs them the rest of the way off. Then I pull down his boxer briefs, and gasp when his cock springs free.
Every inch of this man is big… hard… perfect.
I have thought about this so many times. On those Saturday mornings when he was buying eggs and not saying much and I was pretending not to notice him. I had wondered, in the back of my mind what it would be like to have all that focused quiet attention turned on me.
Now I know.
It is overwhelming in the best possible way.
He takes his time learning what I like. He asks with his hands and listens with his whole body and when he finally sinks into me, when there is no space left between us, I hear him say my name low against my throat like it means something to him.
It means something to me too.
We find each other with room for laughter and the small awkwardness of newness, but what I notice most is how present he is. Fully, completely there. His hands and his voice and the warmth of him surrounding me. He pays attention to every sound I make, adjusts, takes his time.
At some point I stop thinking entirely and just let myself feel it, the weight of him, the warmth, the slow build of everything I had not let myself want on all those Saturday mornings.
With each thrust, he brings me to heights I’ve never known, and when I finally crest the precipice, my inner walls gripping him like a vice, I cry out his name. He follows a moment later, spilling into me with a primal moan.
Afterward we lie quietly in the dark. His arm is around me, my head on his chest, and the only sounds are the settling of the house and the distant call of an owl somewhere in the trees.
Raider has, at some point, migrated from the hallway to the rug beside the bed. I can hear him breathing.
“Your dog seems comfortable here,” I say.
“He adores you.”
“I’ve been bribing him with biscuits for eight months.”
Gavin’s chest moves with a quiet laugh.
I tip my head back to look at him. He is staring at the ceiling with an expression I can only describe as settled. Content.
“You know,” I say softly, “spraining my ankle might have been the best mistake I’ve ever made.”
He looks down at me. His hand moves slowly through my hair. “I should have walked up to your booth and said a complete sentence months ago.”
I laugh. “Better late than never.”
“Yeah. Better late than never.” He trails a hand down my body, coming to rest on my pussy. “But I think we should make up for lost time.”
And he makes passionate love to me a second time… and then again a few hours later.