Chapter 10
The Next Morning
Titus woke with sleep thick on his tongue, sleep still clinging to the back of his throat. His left shoulder throbbed each time he drew a deeper breath, a steady reminder of last night written into muscle. He stayed still.
Kyla lay across him, half draped over his chest, her palm spread over his heart as if she had staked a claim there in her sleep.
Her fingers rested wide, unmoving, warm.
He narrowed his focus to that contact, to the slow rise and fall of his breathing beneath her hand, to the quiet pressure of her body against his.
Her cheek rested just below his collarbone. Her mouth stayed soft, lips parted enough to let her breath pass steady and even. She lay angled toward him, one thigh thrown across his hip, the covers twisted tight beneath them.
Heat lingered between their bodies, caught in the sheets, trapped in the small space they shared. He didn’t look for the clock. Light told him enough. Morning had already started whether he wanted it or not.
He took stock without moving. A split at his lip. A deep bruise forming under his ribs. Tightness through his thigh where she had wrapped herself around him and refused to let go.
Faint scratches down his side where her nails had caught and dragged. Every mark stayed accounted for, a tally pressed into skin.
His mouth curved despite himself. Pain never unsettled him. The way she had taken him apart and put him back together in the same breath—that left him off balance.
He kept his arms loose. One stayed bent beneath her neck. The other lay flat beside him, fingers spread against the mattress so he wouldn’t pull her closer and risk waking her.
Every nerve stretched to take her in, to register her skin, her warmth, the steady press of her weight across him.
Her knee pressed into his side. The smooth slide of her calf passed over a bruise that already deepened. He fixed each detail in place.
The damp heat beneath the quilt. Sweat cooling along his stomach. The faint trace of her shampoo tangled with the sharper scent of sex in the air.
If he moved, she would wake. He slowed his breathing, forcing his body into stillness. Outside, cattle shifted in the east lot, the sound faint through the closed windows.
Morning stayed at a distance for now. Inside this bed, everything narrowed to the woman stretched across him.
He let himself watch her. The curve of her brow. The loosened coils of her hair scattered across his chest and the pillow. One tight curl brushed his skin just below his throat. He kept his breath shallow so it wouldn’t shift.
Her ribcage rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Once, her breath hitched, then settled again. His pulse beat heavy beneath her palm, impossible to hide, pushing against her hand in slow, insistent thuds.
Fragments of the night edged in. Her mouth against his ear. Her voice stripped down to demand. The way she had taken what she wanted and made no apology for it.
He cut the memory short before it could carry him too far. This was better. Certain in a way nothing else had been.
He did not reach for her. He did not risk breaking this.
Questions pressed at the edges anyway. Would she pull away the moment she woke? Would she draw a line between them and expect him to stand on the far side of it? Would she pretend this meant less than it did? He had no way to brace for that.
He focused outward instead. The scrape of cattle hooves. The faint shift of wood as the house settled. The slow movement of light along the quilt. He locked himself into those details, anything to keep from moving.
Her fingers twitched once in her sleep, brushing across his chest. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them again. He would not fall asleep. Not now. Not when morning would decide what came next.
Kyla stirred a few minutes later. Her lashes brushed his chest in a light, testing sweep. Titus braced for it without moving.
She shifted, pushing up onto one elbow. Her hair slid across his skin, a loose curtain that followed the motion. Her gaze moved over him, taking him in piece by piece. He stayed still under it.
She traced him without touching at first. The bruise at his collarbone. The broken skin at his lip. The lines her nails had carved down his side. Her expression stayed unreadable, but her focus did not waver.
He waited for the recoil that might follow. It never came.
Her fingers hovered, then lowered. She traced the bruise at his shoulder, slow, careful, her touch light enough to register without pressing. He drew in a breath through his nose and let it out just as steady.
Her thumb passed over the mark at his throat where her teeth had broken skin. She paused there, then smoothed over it as if she could erase the edge of it without removing what it meant.
His ribs expanded under her hand. He searched her face for hesitation. Found none.
Her fingers moved lower, following a faint scar along his side, dragging her nails in a shallow line that sparked across his skin. His jaw tightened, but he did not move away.
When she reached his mouth, her thumb pressed gently at the split in his lip. A brief sting, then a dull ache that settled behind it. He accepted it without reaction.
She watched him as she did it. Not testing him. Not apologizing. Reading him.
Her breathing shifted, slower but less steady than before. Silence tightened between them, filled with everything neither of them put into words. She kept touching him, not erasing anything, not softening what she had done, only marking it, counting it.
Each pass of her hand gave the ache shape. Last night written out across his skin in bruises and shallow cuts and the quiet tremor in her fingers.
His arms prickled. He had nowhere to hide from it. She looked up and met his eyes. He held her gaze.
Her hand rested over his heart again. Warm. Firm. Certain.
For a brief moment, he let his eyes close. Not to escape it. To feel it. Then he opened them again.
She stayed where she was, watching him, her palm still spread over his chest as if it belonged there.
Kyla shifted higher, her elbow brushing his ribs as she pushed herself up. Sunlight cut across her face, catching along the edge of her cheek while the rest of her stayed veiled by loose curls. Titus did not move.
She looked down at him without guard, without the distance she usually kept between herself and the world. No coat, no knife in hand, no orders shaping her voice. Only skin and sleep-soft honesty, and something steadier beneath it.
Her breath caught low in her chest. He felt it where her palm still rested over his heart. The small hitch pulled tight through him, sharp enough to register, quiet enough to matter more than anything spoken.
The scent of her lingered close, clean soap layered over sweat and the lingering heat of the night. She did not rush. She let the moment stretch, let him see her without interruption.
Her mouth curved, not into a smile meant for anyone else. This stayed private, contained between them. She lifted one hand and brushed hair back from her face, her gaze never breaking from his.
“I’m redesigning the ranch kitchen,” she said.
Her voice came rough with sleep, the edge worn down but still unmistakably hers. She did not soften it further. “Permanently.”
The words settled into him without warning. Not light. Not easy. Something that reached deeper than anything she had given him before.
His chest tightened around the meaning. Not a retreat. Not a mistake. A decision placed down between them with no room for negotiation.
He exhaled once, slow, then moved.
His arms came around her waist and drew her down against him in one clean motion. No hesitation. No space left between them. Her body followed, settling fully over his, her thighs bracketing his hips, her knees pressing into the mattress on either side of him.
Her weight came down solid and certain. He felt it everywhere. Through his ribs. Through the ache in his shoulder. Through the line of his hips where she settled herself without asking.
She did not pull away.
She let her forehead rest against his. Their breaths met and matched, falling into the same rhythm without effort. Her hands moved over his shoulders, pressing into muscle, memorizing him in a way that did not ask permission.
His grip tightened at her waist. He kept her close, kept her grounded against him as if distance could undo what she had just said.
She stayed there, breathing shallow, steadying herself as much as him. He lifted one hand and set it at the small of her back. His thumb moved once, slow, tracing the line just above her tailbone. He felt the faint tremor that followed.
Her breath faltered.
Her eyes closed for a moment, lashes catching the light. When she opened them again, nothing in her expression had shifted. The decision remained. Firm. Unmoved.
His hand moved upward, fingers trailing along her spine, following each ridge as if he could fix the path into memory. He did not rush it. He did not press harder than necessary.
She leaned into him, her nose brushing his, the contact light but intentional. No retreat. No second-guessing.
His throat tightened. Words pressed up and stalled there. He swallowed them back. He kept touching her instead.
Silence stretched between them. It settled over them with a steadiness that matched the way her body stayed pressed to his.
Titus slid his hand into her hair, fingers threading through the dense coils at the base of her skull. He cradled her there, careful without loosening his grip. His thumb found the tender curve of her neck where his teeth had marked her hours before.
She shivered under his touch. Not from cold. A slow, contained reaction that moved through her without breaking her composure. Her chest lifted, pressing against him, then settled again. Her arm draped across his ribs, her knuckles grazing the bruise she had traced earlier.