Chapter 7
SEVEN
EMMA
I’m standing at the kitchenette in my cabin, waiting for water to boil and trying very hard not to think about Kendrick’s hands, mouth, chest, everything—not necessarily in that order—when my phone lights up.
Subject: Wildest Dreams Proposal — Gallery Review
My stomach drops straight through the floorboards.
I open it before I can breathe myself out of it.
Emma,
We’ve reviewed the preliminary shots you sent and we’re impressed. If you can finalize your series by the end of the month, we’d like to move forward with a winter showcase. Send the full set by next Friday. This is the opportunity we discussed. It’s yours if you want it.
—Mara
My fingers tighten around the phone.
This is what I came here for. This is what I left New York for. This is what I uprooted my entire life for—raw, real, honest work that means something.
It should feel good.
It should feel incredible.
Instead, a pressure settles in my chest. Heavy. Breath-thinning.
Because suddenly, it doesn’t feel like just an opportunity.
It’s a deadline. An ending.
And endings never arrive alone. They take things with them.
I turn off the kettle before it screams, pressing my palms flat on the countertop.
I should be excited. I should be jumping up and down. I should be texting everyone I know.
Instead, all I can think is:
How am I supposed to leave now?
The thought is ridiculous. I hardly know him. I’ve only kissed him twice. I’ve only—
Nope. I’m not thinking about last night again.
I lock my phone, shove it facedown on the counter, and tell myself to focus. I need one more day of good light. One more day to pull something meaningful out of myself. One more day where nothing changes.
One last day.
A knock sounds on the door.
My heart lurches. I already know who it is.
I open the door and there he is—Kendrick, hands in his jacket pockets, hair slightly mussed from the wind, eyes steady in that way that makes everything else inside me tip off balance.
“You ready?” he asks.
No.
Yes.
I don’t know.
I shoulder my camera bag. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
He doesn’t tell me where we’re going. He just drives with quiet confidence, turning onto a narrow forest road I haven’t seen before. The trees close in overhead, filtering the early winter light into soft stripes.
We park beside a trailhead with no sign, no marker, nothing but a dirt path leading into deep woods.
“This way,” he says, guiding me with a nod.
I follow him, boots crunching over frost, my breath puffing into the cold air. The trail slopes downward, winding between mossy stones and half-frozen ferns. Water murmurs somewhere in the distance.
After about fifteen minutes, the trees part—and I stop.
“Oh,” I breathe.
A waterfall spills down a cliffside into a crystalline pool, steam lifting where the water hits the rocks. Winter hasn’t frozen it yet—just edged it in delicate lace. Everything glimmers faintly in the low morning light.
It’s beautiful.
No—breathtaking.
“I didn’t know this was here.”
“Most people don’t,” Kendrick says. “Locals keep it quiet.”
“Why show me?”
He looks at me with a softness that slides straight under my ribs. “Because you said you came here to capture something real.”
The words hit me harder than they should.
He steps closer but doesn’t touch me—not yet. “You can’t take this photo for anyone else. Not your agent. Not the gallery. Just you.” A beat. “Just us.”
The breath I take is shaky. “Kendrick…”
He doesn’t fill the silence. He lets me feel it. He lets it settle.
I lift my camera, framing the shot—water, light, the faint mist rising like breath from the earth. But when I click, the image feels empty.
Flat.
Too far away from what’s really moving inside me.
“Here,” he murmurs.
He moves behind me, not touching, but close enough that warmth radiates through the layers of our coats. My pulse jumps. He nods toward a rocky outcrop a little closer to the water.
“Try from there.”
I move, placing each step carefully over the frost, adjusting my lens, crouching slightly for the angle.
Click.
Better.
Not enough.
I lower the camera and look back at him.
He’s watching me with an expression I can’t unsee—open, steady, hungry and quiet all at once.
Something inside me breaks open.
I walk toward him. Slowly at first. Then faster, until I’m close enough to touch him, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.
“Kendrick,” I say softly, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
His hand lifts, brushing my jaw with his knuckles. The gentlest touch. The kind that undoes me.
“You don’t have to know.” His voice is low, rough. “You just have to be here.”
I swallow hard. “I’m leaving soon.”
His thumb strokes my cheek. “I know.”
“This is… complicated.”
“I know that too.”
“And you still—?”
“Yeah,” he says, the word pulled straight from his chest. “I still.”
It’s not a sentence. It doesn’t need to be.
My breath catches. “Kendrick…”
He closes the distance, his mouth brushing mine once—barely a kiss, more like a question.
I answer it.
I kiss him, hands sliding into his jacket, fingers curling in his shirt. He exhales sharply against my lips and pulls me close, arms wrapping around me with a certainty that makes my knees tremble.
This time is different.
This time is slow, deep, reverent—like he’s touching me with intention, with meaning, with everything he’s been trying not to feel.
He lifts me, guiding us back to a sheltered space beside the rocks, the steady roar of the waterfall muffling everything but our breaths, our small sounds, the heat blooming between us.
He lays me down gently, brushing hair from my face as he leans over me.
“You sure?” he murmurs.
“Yes,” I whisper, every part of me warm and full and aching. “Kendrick… yes.”
And when he kisses me again—slow, consuming, tender in a way that unravels every defended part of me—I know two things with absolute clarity:
This moment is going to change me. And I’m not ready for how much.
His mouth finds mine again—slow at first, warm and exploring, like he’s relearning the shape of me in this new, quiet world carved out by falling water and rising breath.
The cold air sharpens everything—the warmth of his hands, the softness of his mouth, the press of his body as he lowers himself carefully over mine. My coat rustles beneath us, the waterfall a steady hum behind the sound of our tangled breaths.
“Kendrick…” I whisper, fingers sliding up the strong line of his back.
He pauses, just for a heartbeat, searching my gaze like he wants to be absolutely certain. When I cup his jaw in both hands and pull him down to me, something in him gives—softens, deepens, opens.
His kiss changes.
It’s still slow, but not hesitant. Intentional. Thorough. Like he’s memorizing me from the inside out.
His hands move with gentle certainty—one brushing along my ribs, the other sliding under my sweater, mapping skin and warmth and reaction. I arch into him, a soft sound slipping from my throat before I can hold it back.
He swears under his breath, low and rough, and lowers his mouth to my throat. My fingers tighten in his shirt as his lips trail heat along my skin, lingering at the hollow beneath my jaw like it’s a place he’s been needing to find.
“Tell me what you need,” he murmurs against my skin, voice thick.
“You,” I breathe. “Just you.”
His breath catches, and he kisses me again—deeper, hungrier, but still with that same careful reverence that makes everything inside me clench with want.
Clothing becomes a slow unraveling—layers peeling away in the cold air, only to be replaced by the heat of his hands, his body, his mouth. He moves deliberately, savoring every inch like he has all the time in the world. Like he’s not rushing through a moment — he’s honoring it.
By the time he settles over me again, skin against skin, my heartbeat is in my throat, my pulse everywhere. He braces on one elbow, his other hand tracing a slow line along my waist.
“You sure?” he asks again, softer now, roughened with restraint.
“Yes,” I whisper, pulling him down. “I want this. I want you.”
The last thread of hesitation unspools from him.
The moment he eases us together, my breath stutters. His forehead drops to mine, his fingers finding my hand and threading through it as we start to move—slow, controlled, a rhythm that builds and deepens and finds us both at the same time.
Heat unfurls low and sharp in my belly, spreading with every rise of his hips, every soft, unguarded sound he makes against my mouth. His other hand drags gently down my side, anchoring me, grounding me, pulling me closer with a tenderness that throbs through every nerve.
“Emma…” He says my name like it’s pulled from the center of him. “You feel—God.”
I kiss him, swallowing the sound, tugging him closer until there’s no space left at all, until the world narrows to breath and warmth and motion.
And then it hits—bright, consuming, curling inward and outward all at once.
I gasp, clutching him, my whole body tightening around the pleasure that breaks over me like a wave.
He follows a heartbeat later, burying his face in my neck, breath trembling as he grips my hip, holding us together through the last, slow pulses of release.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
The world softens again—the waterfall hums, the air cools, our hearts slow in quiet sync.
Kendrick shifts just enough to brush his thumb over my cheek, his expression dazed and gentle and almost disbelieving.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low.
I nod. “Yeah.”
His mouth curves in a soft smile — the kind that feels like it’s for me and only me.
He leans down and kisses me once more, slow and tender, before pulling the blanket around us and settling at my side. My head rests against his shoulder, our legs tangled, the cold kept at bay by warmth and closeness and something deeper I’m not ready to name.
For a long time, we just breathe.
Eventually, I lift my camera—almost without thinking—and snap a photo of him. Not posed, not prepared. Just Kendrick looking at me like he’s seeing something he never expected.
When I check the screen… my chest tightens hard.
It’s the best photo I’ve ever taken.
And I know — painfully, clearly — that it’s also the one I’ll never be able to show.
Not without telling the whole truth.