Chapter 14 #2
He hauled her up before he planted her on the granite. Cold stone shocked the backs of her thighs.
Titus fisted her sweater and yanked it up with his grip bruising in its honesty. She scraped his lower lip with her teeth and swallowed the sound that broke from him.
He shoved her legs apart and fit himself between, urgent and unhurried at once. “This what you want, Chef?”
She raked her nails down his back with her voice stripped raw. “Less talking.”
He pushed into her, thick and sure, with the shock of him crowding out everything but want. The argument twisted itself into heat. Kyla met his thrust with her own jaw clenched and eyes screwed shut. The storm outside faded, replaced by the rasp of his breath and the slam of hips against marble.
She clung to him, every cord of muscle and every rut of bone, and let her body confess what her pride would not. The pace bordered on savage with sweat beading between them and frustration unwinding with every shove.
His hands bruised her hips and dragged her closer. She dug her heels into his lower back and arched, silent except for the wild hitch of her breathing.
He groaned her name once with his voice fraying at the edges. She clenched around him with her thighs trembling as her release slammed through her. He followed and buried his face against her throat with both of them gasping like they had outrun the cold.
For a while they did not move. Her hands slipped free and lay splayed beside his shoulders. Snow stacked itself high against the window with wind striking the house but never making it inside. The air in the kitchen went bright with sweat and steam and something forgiven but not forgotten.
Titus eased back with his breathing ragged. She caught his wrist, held tight for a heartbeat, then let go. Their eyes met, not soft, but knowing.
“I could have handled that with words,” he said with his voice wrecked and almost smiling.
“Some things do not translate,” she replied. Her lip split in a grin neither of them tried to fix.
Outside, the world stayed white noise. Inside, Kyla slipped off the counter and fixed her sweater with his heat lingering everywhere she had let him mark. He stepped close and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. She allowed it. Silence returned, more comfortable than before.
Make-up sex did not change the blizzard or the cabinet placements or the ache under her ribs. It did not solve anything permanent. But in the press of isolation, it left her breathing easier and counting the hours in the warmth two people could strike from each other when words ran out.
Christmas Eve inside the Victorian with every window weeping condensation and the rooms full of kin and strays and more noise than the house had managed in a decade.
Titus slid a ham in beside a bubbling pan and let his elbows settle against the old marble while he scanned for any sign Kyla might need saving or at least a way out.
He caught Juniper’s voice, sharp as ever. “You call these mashed potatoes? I should send the lot back to Georgia.”
Someone shot back an answer Titus could not catch. Plates clattered. Roscoe ducked from kid hands and aimed for the safety under Titus’s boots. His mother’s voice wove through the mix on speakerphone with her Atlanta accent bright.
“Kyla baby, I hope you are feeding them good.”
Saffron’s worries lingered at the ends of every phrase, even the cheerful ones. From across the table, Kyla flicked her gaze upward with her jaw tight and lipstick fresh, but the curve of her mouth held steady only through effort.
Her hand moved in her lap. Titus recognized the sign. She had hit her limit. She reached for the wine bottle, topped her glass, then slipped away between chairs.
He waited a beat before moving. It took effort not to bark at Juniper to quit tossing biscuits or call the dog to heel or even look too eager to flee the holiday parade. Titus eased back into the pantry with the small walk-in still faintly smelling of dried oregano and old apples.
Shelves boxed him in with pasta, vinegar, and the flour jar she had labeled his way only because he complained. His breathing stayed rough with his pulse in his throat and each breath scraping off the noise outside.
He leaned against a crate, closed his eyes, and pressed his head to the shelves. One minute. Maybe two. Time to draw a line between what people needed from him and what he needed to keep for himself.
The door clicked behind him. Kyla slid in and shut it with a gentle but final thud. She did not startle. Instead, she moved to him directly and fit herself into the space in front of him as if they had planned it.
Neither of them spoke. Her palms landed flat against his chest, steady and sure, and pushed him back to himself.
She lifted her eyes and searched his for something honest, not the version trotted out for family or holidays.
For a moment, the only world that existed fit within the closet and the hush of their breath.
Titus raised a hand and cupped her jaw with his fingers beneath her ear. Her skin felt warmer than the wine, warmer than any kitchen. He drew her close until their foreheads touched.
“You holding up?” he asked low enough that the words would not leave the pantry.
Her mouth twitched. “Depends. If one more person asks for cranberry sauce, I am burning the whole thing down.”
He barked a quiet laugh with his ribs easing at the threat. “I will haul you over my shoulder and claim self-defense.”
“You would break the china,” she murmured.
Her laughter, small and strangled, rattled against his sternum. For a minute they stayed locked together with Kyla’s body curled in so tight even memory faded behind the present.
Titus ducked his head with his lips brushing her cheek, her jaw, then settling at her mouth. She met him there with the first touch hesitant while both of them checked for an audience. Nothing but old jars and secrets.
Her hands snuck into his shirt and pressed hard enough to drive out the cold he had not known he carried. He kissed her slow and deep and let the noise outside dissolve into a rhythm he could control. A careful sort of hunger.
Kyla’s hands stilled at his chest with her fingers curling just beneath the collarbone. He wanted to linger and taste the moment down to the last drop, but she pressed closer and stole the air between them until all that remained was the catch in her throat and the shudder in his chest.
On the far side of the door, laughter spilled from Juniper, half-teasing, half-command. Plates passed. Chairs scraped back. Roscoe yelped after a loose ham bone. Kyla froze with her lips resting against his as if she asked for another minute behind closed doors.
Titus trailed a thumb under her eye along the line where her smile threatened to break loose. “Family can wait,” he said, more promise than fact. “We can sneak out for a bit.”
She snorted, stepped away, and gathered her hair into a loose knot with her fingers less steady than usual. He missed her weight before she had even moved.
“We make a good team,” she said, not quite looking at him.
He reached out, curled her fist inside his, and kissed the tips of her fingers one at a time until her eyes darted up and her mouth finally eased open with a little sigh. They slipped back into the dining room just before the dessert plates came out.
Juniper arched an eyebrow but did not say a word. For the rest of the night, every time noise threatened to tip Kyla off balance, Titus touched her wrist or brushed behind her chair, a quiet sign that behind any doors he stayed on her side.