↪ 𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒 & 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋 ! 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒌𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓.
The horse’s steady rhythm had softened from a pounding drum against the inside of Kira’s skull to a faint, intermittent knocking—something she only noticed in quiet moments, like a distant heartbeat beneath the weight of the day. The sun hung low, stubborn and relentless, bleeding molten gold across everything it touched. Time was slipping away; the budget for their journey was all but spent, and dusk would arrive before long. Only weeks ago, the road had been a mess of mud and shifting earth, but the unyielding heat of the last month had baked the land into dry, brittle clay that cracked beneath the horse’s careful steps.
Kira, once sitting upright behind Nolan that morning, was now slumped against him, her cheek resting against the ridge of his spine. The coarse fabric of his shirt was rough beneath her skin, but far preferable to the biting sun that burned at her exposed arms and neck.
The air was thick with heat, heavy with the scent of sunbaked grass and faint traces of dust stirred by the horse’s slow steps. Above them, the sky stretched wide, the faintest beginning of bruised purples and curling up at the edges, the horizon blurring where earth met air. Silence lay between Nolan and Kira, but it wasn’t the cold absence of words; it was a tentative peace, a quiet acknowledgment of the things too heavy to say aloud. This was not a joyride or a pleasant little romp away.
Tonight might bring relief or deepen a wound that would never fully heal.
Kira’s mind drifted back—the night they’d both stood on the same dark edge, shadows pressing in, the world so unbelievably close to falling away. Their eyes had met, each reflecting someone who had abandoned all hope, all reason, all life. Someone yearning for the worst to be over. Someone ready to take the chance that either their person would embrace them when they crossed over, or at least that the dirt might, when it was finally done.
It might have been a fleeting connection, a miserable premise, a pact that should never have worked—not to give in, not yet. To keep breathing, keep fighting, as long as the other did the same. But that unspoken promise still held tight between them now, a lifeline in the silence. No matter how much this hurts, you’re not alone.
The ranch seemed to resist being taken in all at once. It emerged in slow, stubborn fragments—the angled roof of the barn, the sun-bleached fencing, the lonely silhouettes of a few skeletal trees—until the full shape of it settled into view. It didn’t look abandoned, not exactly, but it bore the weary look of something that had been left to fend for itself too long.
Kira had braced for desolation, the kind of place that collapses under its own neglect, but this was more complicated. Here, the bones still stood, but the skin had worn thin. The barn’s faded crimson paint clung stubbornly to its boards like an old man cloying desperately to his ragged toupee. The fences leaned as if whispering secrets to the dirt, their warped rails refusing to fall entirely. Along the paths, wiry stalks of grass pried up between broken stones—hardy survivors of a drought that had stripped the land bare.
What had once been fields of green now lay in crisp heaps, crops curled and sunburned to ash, each plant’s collapse a quiet surrender. The corral sat intact but eerily empty, its shadowed corners alive only with the imagined shuffle of cattle long gone. Even the wind here seemed tired, its movements muted, stirring only the dry weeds as if unwilling to touch more.
Beneath her, Nolan’s body had gone stiff, the loose, rolling rhythm of the ride replaced by something rigid and unyielding. His shoulders squared, each breath drawn slow and deep—not with the ease of calm, but with the deliberate control of someone bracing for a blow. The change in him seeped through his skin, bleeding into her until she felt it in her own chest. She didn’t speak. The silence between them was taut, and she understood enough not to tug at it. Instead, she let her hands tighten slightly at his waist, her thumbs tracing slow, grounding patterns against his side.
The horse eased its pace as they crossed into the main yard. Dust rose in thin spirals from its hooves, the particles catching fire in the golden light before drifting away like smoke. The ranch house stood ahead, its broad face cast in shadow watching them approach—its sun-flashed windows like old mirrors, reflecting only the glare and none of what lay inside.
Nolan brought the animal to a halt. Kira swung her leg over and landed with a soft muted thud. His gaze stayed locked ahead, unblinking, his jaw clenched tight enough to strain the muscles along his neck. He dismounted from the saddle in a single, fluid motion, but the grace was deceiving—each step was weighted, deliberate, like a man walking through ground that might swallow him.
Kira lingered at the horse’s side, her palm resting against its warm flank, eyes following the invisible thread of Nolan’s attention. A lone tree stood out in the expanse ahead, its leaves a stubborn, vibrant green against the tired wash of gold and brown. Beneath it, the grass stood unmoving, stiff as bristles. The stillness here was not emptiness—it was something present, settled deep in the soil, watchful. It did not feel hostile, but there was no sense of invitation either.
The sky had begun its slow unravel, tangerine bleeding into mottled fuchsia and pale lilac, the first blue-grey tendrils of night creeping in. Kira could almost feel him measuring the light, marking how little of the day was left. His boots shifted, the small restless movement of someone bracing for what was ahead, then he set off with a determined stride. She followed a beat behind, her skirt whispering through the grass, each step a soft apology for the trampled blades. The air cooled as they approached the tree, as though its leaves were drinking the last of the day’s warmth.
The grave revealed itself beneath that green canopy—an upright wooden cross, its beams fashioned from old fence posts, weather-softened and warped. The horizontal slat sagged in the middle, but still held fast. It wasn’t in ruin—someone had cared for it in his absence. The grass was shorter atop where she slept than anywhere else, though it was hard to spot. Still, thin runners of green had begun to climb, working their way up to the sunlight, curling against the lettering as though trying to claim it back.
Nolan stopped at the foot of the grave. For a long moment he only looked at it, his hand hanging loose at his side, the knuckles ghost-pale where they brushed his thigh. Then he crouched, fingers sweeping gently at the overgrowth. The small stems gave way easily, and for a moment he worked in heavy silence, pushing weeds aside, pinching off dead stalks. His movements slowed, stilled, until his hand simply rested against the dirt.
Kira could feel it before he moved—how the air around him shifted, how the effort in his breathing caught in his chest. His head bowed, his jaw slackening before he straightened abruptly, scanning the grass as if searching for something else to do.
“I’ll… get her something,” he muttered, voice hoarse, already stepping away toward a patch of wildflowers at the tree line. His shoulders were tight, his stride quick—as if distance could make room for air.
Kira let him go, followed only with her eyes before she moved into his place, crouching tentatively where he had been. She ran her hand over the rough grain of the cross, sweeping away the last of the loose foliage. A hint of color caught her eye—pink, yellow—half-hidden in the grass. She plucked it free, turning it over in her palm.
A bead. Then another. Threadbare string clung to them, the letters faded but still there: L. P. U. E. Others scattered nearby, too few to form any word of meaning to her. She gathered them gently, lining them up as best she could, her mouth curved into something caught between a smile and a frown.
“He’ll be back, don’t you worry,” she murmured, patting the earth with a gentle hand. The words felt like a promise she had no authority to give, yet couldn’t help but reassure. Mourning a child she’d never met was a strange, knotted thing—half grief, half borrowed sorrow. Her own brother, Mikael, had been reunited with his wife not long after the outbreak began, but his son Louie had stayed behind, tethered to the living through her care.
A childless father. A fatherless child.
The pairing haunted her for a moment—two halves of a bond that would never meet. She found herself wondering if heaven, or whatever lay beyond, was immune to such absences. Could someone miss what they no longer carried? And if Nolan’s little girl felt that same ache, that hollow that never closed… she hoped Mikael might find her. That they might find a reprieve in one another until their family was whole again someday.
Kira heard him before she saw him—the measured thud of boots, the faint, dry rustle of stalks caught between his fingers. She stepped back from the grave, her shadow retreating from the last patch of sunlight that lay across the plot. Nolan emerged beneath the tree’s canopy, the green leaves casting dappled shadows over his face, over the small bundle in his hands.
When he finally bent to the earth, it was with the care of a man testing the limits of his own body, each movement deliberate, as if one wrong shift might make his knees give out. The flowers trembled slightly as he placed them at the base of the wooden cross, arranging them not for beauty, but for precision—petals angled just so, stems aligned in quiet order. His hands lingered, flattening the soil around them with a slow, smoothing pass, as though tucking a child in for the night.
A breeze stirred the leaves overhead, but here at the grave it felt still, as if the air itself paused to watch. Nolan’s fingers traced the ground again, gentle, deliberate, his thumb brushing over the earth like it was skin. Kira felt something hot and tight gather in her chest, a knot rising in her throat that threatened to choke her. She turned her eyes away for a moment, sucking in a clean long breath until the stinging in her eyes waned.
“Hey, baby girl…” The words came low, ragged—more exhaled than spoken—pulled from a place so deep it seemed to scrape the bottom of him. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. I wanted to…”
Kira watched him grope for the rest, for something that might bridge the impossible gap between here and wherever she was. As if, against all reason, Amelia might still be close enough to hear him. The sight twisted something sharp in her gut—grief so fierce it made her ill from proximity.
“Amelia… I’m so sorry… I’m so sor—”
The second syllable dissolved. His lips kept moving, but no sound carried—like the words themselves had broken apart in his mouth. It wasn’t time or distance he was apologizing for, not really. It was the one mistake that lived at the root of it all, the one he’d never be able to scrub clean. Too late by seconds, too far by feet.
A flicker moved through him—a minute shiver at first, just enough to stir the air. Then came a fractured breath, uneven and shallow, like his lungs had forgotten how to take their fill. He folded forward, pressing his forehead against the weathered cross. The tremor built, his shoulders rising and falling in jerks, the sound that followed cracked open from somewhere raw. It wasn’t a cry as much as a shuddering rip of something internal.
His fingers dug deep into the grass at the grave’s base, nails scraping soil, ripping up thin roots and clinging to them like they were handholds. As if he could tunnel down to her, drag her back through sheer will. As if holding the earth tightly enough might force time to give her back.
Kira’s chest ached at the sight of him like that—shoulders hunched, back bowed, the silhouette of a man being crushed from the inside out. He strangled out a few more words she couldn’t make out, the syllables warped by the rawness in his throat. She bit hard on her tongue, planting it against her teeth until the muscle cramped, her knee bouncing against the grass in a useless attempt to shake the tension out of her body. Every nerve in her screamed to move, to reach for him, but she held herself back with effort that felt like tearing.
She wanted to run to him, to throw herself around him as if he were aflame and she could smother the burn with her body. But there was no rushing this. Pain demands to be felt, and these cries would only rot him from the inside if he tried to swallow them.
When his fingers curled so hard into the dirt that his knuckles whitened, when his breath broke into a choking gasp, her restraint snapped. She was already moving before she knew she’d decided. Dropping to her knees behind him, she felt the grass bite through the mesh of her skirt as she wrapped her arms tight around his middle. Nolan didn’t startle—didn’t even lift his head—but she felt the smallest shift in him, a stutter in the trembling, like some instinct deep inside recognized her and clung to the anchor she offered.
Her cheek pressed between his shoulder blades, the heat of him damp with sweat, his shirt clinging where it stuck to his skin. She tightened her hold until her own muscles ached.
“It’s alright,” she murmured, again and again, the lie barely more than a thread of sound. They both knew it wasn’t. And never would be again. Her palms spread flat against his ribs, feeling the uneven, broken rhythm of his breathing. Each shudder dragged through him like it was hollowing him out from the inside.
He bent lower over the cross, one hand still buried shallow in the dirt, the other gripping the weathered wood so hard it groaned under his grip. The sounds coming out of him now were low and guttural—grief stripped of language, stripped of shape—nothing but the raw current of it spilling into the cooling air.
Kira curled herself closer, her legs bracketing his hips, her arms sealing around his torso as though she could keep him from coming apart entirely. She rested her forehead to his spine, breathing with him, for him, trying to match his inhales so he might find one steady beat to follow. Her hand moved and pressed heavy on his chest, feeling the frantic, fractured pounding against her palm. After a long moment, his own hand came down over hers, calloused fingers locking tight between her own.
They stayed like that until the sky above blinked out, the last threads of daylight swallowed whole, leaving them steeped in a soft wash of shadows. Only then did his grip on the earth ease, his shoulders folding against her—not in relief, but weary; that bone-deep collapse that comes when a man’s been carrying something far too heavy for far too long. Their chests rose and fell in stubborn unison. Every time his breath started to stray, climbing toward that ragged edge, her hand shifted like a watchful cattle dog, herding it back into line with light, gentle brushes over his heart. It was the only thing she could control, and she clung to it.
Somewhere beyond the tree line, coyotes struck up a chorus—wild, laughing howls that made the night feel bigger, sharper. The sound broke the illusion that the world had narrowed to just the two of them. She felt him stir at last, the smallest ripple of movement against her. Kira let her hands slip down the front of his chest, lingering for a heartbeat before falling away. She pried herself free little by little until she was standing. Moonlight caught along the curve of her arm as she reached down for him.
He took her hand without looking at her, his palm rough and hot against hers. She hauled him to his feet, expecting him to let go. When he didn’t, neither did she. She took a single step toward the path, testing the waters with cautious tread. Nolan’s gaze stayed fixed on the grave, the moment stretching thin before he finally tore himself from it, stumbling forward in her wake.
Ahead, the house loomed as a dark silhouette against the sky. Its windows were unlit, its shape swallowed in shadow—only the pale wash of moonlight over its roofline and porch gave it form, a quiet beacon pulling them in from the dark.
The boards of the porch creaked beneath their weight, the sound small but startling in the stillness. She could feel him hesitate, the grip on her hand tightening for a fraction of a second before easing again. Kira pushed open the door; it swung inward with a low groan, spilling them into the warm, stale air of the entry way.
The darkness inside was different from the night they’d left behind—closer, heavier, full of the scent of dust and furniture long untouched. She let their joined hands fall at last, the absence of his palm leaving hers cold. Somewhere deeper in the house, a floorboard popped—not from wind, not from weight she could see—just the old bones of the place shifting in its sleep.
For a moment, they stood in the hush, neither entirely sure what to do with the other. Kira gave a small nod toward the hallway. “Go,” she murmured. “I’ll get some lights going.” His daughter had slept here, night after night, until she hadn’t—it was only natural to want to check what pieces of her life were still left. He lingered a beat before he nodded, just a slight tilt but enough.
“Yeah, okay,” his throat sounded sore when he spoke.
When his footsteps faded, Kira let the pack slip from her shoulder and crouched in the entryway, rifling through its guts until her fingers found the dented cookie tin. Inside, the tea lights and match box rattled together. She lit one, using it to light another, spacing them carefully around the room so the shadows would pull back, the flickering points of light staking a claim against the darkness.
Then she turned to the fireplace. Outside, the temperature was dropping quickly but you wouldn’t know it in here. The thought of the heat made her grimace—stuffy, suffocating—but it would throw more light than the candles, and beans were a little more appetising warm. She knelt on the stone hearth, arranging kindling and tinder, wincing at the spider-webs she pulled turning the pieces to inspect for little strangers before striking a match to coax the first flames. The fire took hold slowly, hissing and spitting at first, then climbing higher, chasing the dark into corners and spilling a golden warmth over the room.
Kira let the fire settle into its own rhythm before pushing herself to her feet. The soft crackling offset the eerie quiet, the unsettling tilt to the air dissipated and gave way to something homely. She took her time moving from room to room with a candle in hand, eyes scanning shelves and corners for whatever had been deemed unworthy of the original exodus but still held some use. A roll and a half of duct tape in the kitchen drawer, some okay scissors to the left of it. A few canned goods—dented, but fine.
Some things she touched and left behind—a stack of sun-faded magazines, a toddler’s rubber boot missing its mate, a chipped mug with a fading horse decal. They weren’t heavy, but they were the kind of weight you carried in your chest, not your pack.
In the meantime, Nolan kept to himself. She could hear his footsteps above her now and then, the creak of old boards under his weight. She occasionally glanced, as though she’d suddenly developed x-ray vision and might make out his shape through the ceiling.
In the bathroom she found bandaids, clippers—with batteries still inside. Kira flicked the switch to test it, sudden and impossibly loud in her ear with the house so still that she almost cut herself rushing to shut it off. She slipped them into the bag, her stomach giving a small, unsettled flutter. Not butterflies—bees. Restless, needling. She remembered what it had been like to watch strange, violent hands sift through her family’s things—herself kneeling and useless, tears slicking her cheeks while they pawed over the last scraps of her life. Even the disturbance of a balled-up receipt had been enough to make her want to cut their hands off for the audacity, their muddy boots sullying her mothers pristine floors. Kira glanced down at her own feet, shame bubbling in the back of her throat as she kicked her feet together until her shoes fell with a muted thud against the tile.
The guilt sharpened, turned to grief—sudden, hot. Not all of them. One—him—had turned his back, spared her the worst of it. Tried to block her view while the others took. Her lip wobbled before she caught it, drawing a hiss of breath between her teeth. She shook her head hard—first left, then right—as though she could fling the memory loose. Like a stubborn burr, it clung.
How long had it been, to still feel that barb between her ribs at the mere sensation of absence?
Kira closed her eyes and swayed until the ache thinned. When she opened them again there was no bloody handprint on her face—only her own tired reflection in the bathroom mirror and—
“Jesus!” She yelped, spinning so fast her bag clattered to the floor.
Nolan stood in the doorway, hands up, startled into a half-apology, half-surrender. He even took a step back, eyes wide. “No, just me…” he offered, sheepish.
Her pulse still beat like a trapped bird, but the worst of the panic had already started melting into something warmer—relief wrapped in the thin disguise of humor. A shaky laugh slipped out before she could stop it, her shoulders loosening by degrees. She pried her hands open from the claws they’d made at her sides, flexing the stiffness from her fingers.
“When did you get so quiet?” she accused playfully, breath still catching as she crouched to gather the things she’d dropped. She felt wooden and clumsy, her hands knocking more than they assisted.
Nolan’s boot caught the roll of duct tape before it could run away. He bent, scooping it up, and passed it over with a faint smirk.
“You did?” She glanced up at him, brows lifting, the embarrassment curling hot along her neck. They hadn’t come here to face her ghosts. “Sorry. I must’ve spaced out.”
His gaze lingered on her for a moment, as if searching for whatever place she’d gone to. Then, softer than she expected, “Yeah. Looked like it.” He straightened, offering a hand in return. Kira slid her palm into his own, feeling his fingers lock around her knuckles before he hauled her up with an easy steadiness. This time, they lingered only a beat before falling away from one another.
“Hungry?” he asked suddenly, one brow lifting just enough to cut through the last of the awkward atmosphere.
He’d insisted on cooking. Well—cooking was a strong word for it. Beans in a dented pot over the fire hardly counted, but he’d gone all out anyway, triumphant after unearthing salt and pepper from behind the weevil infested flour. She’d let out a lukewarm cheer, hands half-heartedly over her hand as her fingers twinkled victorious, catching the corner of his mouth twitch upwards.
The air inside had finally begun to mimic the outdoors, sloppy and out of time but getting there. The fire no longer felt like a punishing furnace, but more like an old space heater—too warm, a little stifling, yet oddly comforting, the kind of thing you put up with rather than switch off.
She sat cross-legged near the hearth, chin propped on her hand, watching the way Nolan stirred with unnecessary precision. She wasn’t sure it could make a difference, it was a pretty staple dump and heat job, but it made her grin.
“You planning on opening a restaurant after all this?” she teased.
He shot her a look over his shoulder, it hovered somewhere between exasperation and amusement. “Reservation only. Fine dining.”
“Hey,” he countered, scooping up a spoonful ready to defend his honor. He blew on it, took a taste, and his nose wrinkled just enough to betray him. “It’s five-star.”
Her laugh slipped out, softer than she meant, landing somewhere between a huff and a sigh. She leaned back against the wall, her eyes feeling dry and sleepy from the baking heat. The flames painted Nolan’s profile in gold and shadow, smoothing the edges she’d grown used to. Half of him was hidden beneath scruff and beard, but her gaze traced down the clean line of his nose before she realized she was staring.
He must’ve felt it, because he glanced sideways, catching her in the act. She startled, eyes snapping off to the far wall like it had suddenly grown fascinating.
He grasped the pot by its handle, hissed softly through his teeth, then adjusted his grip like nothing had happened. “Hot,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
Kira’s lips twitched. “Real professional.”
“Part of the experience,” he shot back, grabbing the ladle with mock solemnity. He poured a generous heap into a borrowed bowl and held it out toward her like a waiter presenting some delicacy. “Don’t be too impressed now,” he warned.
She arched a brow but accepted it, fingers brushing his as she accepted with a soft thank you. Holding the little bowl of lava caused her to exhale with a sharp puff, she almost echoed his monosyllable sentiment back to him. Hot. He barely bit back a knowing smile, spying the sudden crease on her brow.
She blew on the beans and muttered, “Five-star, huh?”
Nolan smirked, crouching down with his own bowl. “Comes with table service, too. Don’t get used to it.” He was closer than he had been before, shoulder almost brushing hers now that he was finished slaving over the meal. He must’ve cooked for Amelia, she realised all at once. Of course he had, he was a single father. She could picture it all too easily: late-morning pancakes, lunchbox snacks, the endless parade of quick meals you could dump in a crockpot and forget about until dinner. She thought better than to mention it and risk tearing down what little levity they’d built, but something warm twisted inside her chest.
She missed that. Missed the clatter of her nieces’ sneakers barreling into the kitchen, begging their grandmother for more goulash because their mother “didn’t make it right, again.” Missed the pointed glares at family dinners, as if her lack of contribution—food or children—was a personal slight. Turns out she hadn’t been much good at either.
He hadn’t taken a bite from his bowl yet, his brows still raised expectantly.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more pressured to like a meal in my life,” she said, his eyes still stalled on her with playful defiance.
She braved a faux-cautious bite, the beans still steaming. The salt and pepper didn’t exactly elevate them into fine dining, but they weren’t half bad either. Still, her face remained carefully unreadable as she chewed.
“Well?” Nolan asked, watching her too closely.
She swallowed slowly, savoring the opportunity to drag it out whilst trying not to choke under his scrutinizing gaze. “Mm.” She tapped her spoon against the edge of the bowl with great consideration. “Definitely food.”
He groaned, shaking his head with disbelief. “That’s your review? I risk second-degree burns for you, and I get definitely food?”
Kira tried to hold her grin back, “Fine. Two stars.”
His head snapped toward her, feigning outrage. “Out of five?”
That finally pulled a laugh out of him—low, rough-edged, but genuine. It surprised even him, by the way he shook his head as if to brush it off, spoon lifted in mock dismissal. “Ouch. You’re lucky I don’t charge extra for insults.”
Kira took another bite, slower this time, the corners of her mouth refused to behave. The beans were not worth remembering, but the sound of his laugh clung to the air long after it ended. Sweet in a silly way, a little too boyish for the stern set of his face. He looked ten years younger without sadness weighing on his brow. She wished she could hold onto it, keep it bottled somewhere safe for the nights when silence pressed too heavy.
They ate without hurry, their rhythm meandering. Sometimes it was just the scrape of a spoon or the pop of the fire cracking a little too loud, scattering sparks into the dark. Other times it was a thread of small talk—casual, unimportant, words that drifted and dissolved as easily as smoke. Nothing they’d have to carry, nothing heavy enough to bruise. Just enough to remind them they were not alone.
Eventually Nolan pushed his bowl aside, leaning back on his palms. His gaze snagged on the glass pane by his head, where the firelight caught the dim outline of his reflection. All he saw was shadow and scruff, edges blurred and wild. His beard had gone feral, his hair overgrown to the point it curled stubbornly against his collar. The sight tugged a scoff out of him before he could choke it down.
“Amelia wouldn’t even recognize me looking like this.” His tone was flat, a simple truth laid bare, neither good nor bad. His fingers scratched at his jaw, rasping against the wiry growth, unconvinced. He tore his eyes away from the silvery ghost in the glass, added quietly, “She hated beards when she was little.”
“She might’ve had a point,” Kira murmured, teasing just enough to soften the weight of his words.
He turned, brow arched, the barest flicker of dry humor on his lips. “That bad, huh?”
“You’re not denying it either.”
Her mouth curved, fighting back a small grin. “It’s a little caveman chic. Maybe that’s what you’re going for.”
That earned her another laugh—low, rough, but true. He tipped his head back slightly, the sound vibrating in his chest. “You think this is cultivated?”
Kira shook her head and wrinkled her nose at him, cheerful in a way that surprised even her. No, there was nothing intentional about the scruff or the hair—it was survival, plain and simple, and it showed. He was a man who had no use to care about his hair until it was in his eyes. “I could tidy you up a little,” she offered at last, voice quiet, almost tentative. The words slipped out like she was afraid to spook him.
He squinted at her, suspicion masking the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “I thought you were a nurse, not a hairdresser.”
“I used to cut my brothers’ hair when money was tight.” She shrugged.
Nolan’s hand went still at his jaw. His fingers curled inward, like he couldn’t decide whether to shield the beard or surrender. For a moment he only looked at her, something unreadable tightening behind his gaze. Then, with a faint tug of his mouth, he let the tension slip away.
“So what you’re saying is, I’d better lower my expectations.”
Kira snorted, rolling her eyes, though her smile broke freer this time. “You’d look less like you were raised by wolves. That’s all I’m promising.”
“Mm.” He scratched once more at the scruff, the sound sharp in the quiet, bidding it a reluctant farewell. His gaze dropped to the fire. “Guess even that’s an improvement.”
Kira pushed herself upright from the floor, bowl near empty and forgotten. The decision was made before she had time to second-guess it, his eyes followed her, alarmed.
“Wait!” Nolan backfired, trying to slam the brakes but caught on black ice, hands useless at the wheel to stop her. “You meant now?”
She glanced back at him, amused at the uncertainty carved into his face. If she stayed curled in front of the fire much longer, warm and fed, she’d slip under and certainly be dozing within the hour. Better to keep her hands busy. “What are you waiting for, Cheers to come on?” She asked, sweeping a hand towards the TV’ dust settled so thick across the glass you couldn’t make out the sheen of reflection beneath.
That earned her a furrowed brow, confusion quick as a flash before it broke into a scoff. “Cheers? How old are you again?”
“Says you,” she volleyed back, already dragging one of the sturdier chairs from the table and turning it toward the firelight. It gave a soft groan, legs reluctant across the floor as she set it down. She gave the backrest a little pat, coaxing him the way one might lure a skittish dog. “Come on. I’ll be gentle.”
Suspicion narrowed his gaze, written sharp into the cut of his brow. And yet—there it was again, that flicker. The twitch at his mouth he tried to bury before it could give him away. “I’m not convinced this isn’t a setup,” he muttered, but his gaze tracked her as she bent to rummage through her bag.
“I’d never do that to you.” Her grin was sly, but her voice betrayed her. The words landed softer than she meant, warm and sincere. She couldn’t summon malice for him, playful or otherwise.
Something crossed his face—something she tried not to read too deeply into. A breath caught. His eyes lingered half a second longer than they should have, and the air between them tightened. Then it slipped loose in a laugh, low and chesty, warmer than she was prepared for. The sound brushed against her skin like heat from the fire, and she hated how much it affected her; like she was two moments from slipping on a banana peel if she might stir it.
Kira ducked her head quickly, shaking it off as she crouched by her bag. Scissors, clippers, set down one by one with careful precision, as though the ritual steadied her own pulse. Straightening, she pushed a stray curl from her forehead and gestured toward the waiting chair.
“Five stars,” she coaxed, softer now, because she couldn’t quite summon the edge back. “Or your money back.”
He conceded with a nod, eyes dropping to the floor. Kira lingered a moment longer than she meant to, then blurted, “You should probably take your shirt off, by the way. Unless you want to be itching all night. Hair gets everywhere without a cape.”
It was meant as nothing but practical, the way you’d advise anyone in a chair—but the words tumbled out lighter, more suggestive than she intended. Heat climbed her cheeks almost immediately. She tried to laugh it off, flapping one hand as though shooing her own words away. “I swear I’m not trying to… objectify you. Just—experience talking.”
Something flickered across his face at that—half amusement, half hesitation, like he wasn’t sure which way to lean. He didn’t move right away, only held her in that steady, unreadable look until goosebumps rose along the back of her arms. Then he gave a low hum of acknowledgment, another nod, and leaned forward as though deciding not to overthink it.
Before he could commit, she slipped past him—retreat disguised as efficiency. Down the short hall, the air cooler still, moonlight and the stray flare of a candle guiding her to the bathroom. The towels on the rack smelled faintly of mildew, but there were no stains; she grabbed three, clutching them to her chest. A steadying breath—deep and slow—before she turned back.
When she came back into the firelight, he was already on his feet. The shirt hung loose in his fisted hand, torso bare. The sight stalled her for a fraction of a second. He wasn’t posturing, wasn’t offering himself up to be looked at—if anything, he seemed caught in his own skin, standing stiff and out of place, unsure whether to crack a joke or hold still.
Her gaze snagged on him despite herself, that treacherous hitch in her chest before she could smooth it away. Up close, he seemed even taller than usual, the firelight climbing his frame and catching in the shadows of his jaw. He stood there a beat longer than he needed to, not quite looking at her, not quite looking away, as if bracing himself for a blow that would never come. Her eyes traced the hard lines of his body, long and lean from work. It took several blinks to regain composition before she managed, “Good. That’ll make it easier.”
When he looked down at her through his lashes, her stomach tensed. “Don’t make me regret this,” he murmured. The warning was softened at the edges, threaded with wryness, and it tempted an answering smile to her lips before she could think better of it.
Nolan eased himself into the chair, the loose shirt draped carelessly across his lap—though not so carelessly, she noticed, when his fingers began to fidget with it. He pulled the fabric taut, then let it slacken, again and again, a nervous rhythm he might not have even been aware of.
Kira stepped close, one towel folded neat and square in her hands, the other draped over her arm. The air shifted with her nearness, thick in her lungs, as if every other time they’d stood this close didn’t really count.
“Lean forward a second,” she instructed, quieter than before. He obeyed, shoulders hunching slightly as he brought his face closer, and she draped the cloth around his neck with deliberate care. Her knuckles brushed against him once, then again as she fussed with the edge. She told herself not to notice—but the ghost of the contact lingered.
“You’ll thank me later,” she murmured, fastening the second towel at his collar, tucking them around one another to make a fuzzy ouroboros.
For a moment, she lingered behind him, comb in hand, letting her eyes trace the shape of his head. She touched lightly, fingers fluffing through, separating strands to get the lay of them. Each movement was small, ordinary—yet something about it felt fragile, daunting, as though she were reading him by touch alone.
Where she found knots, she teased them apart with her nails, patient and precise, until nothing snagged under touch. Then, almost without thinking, she let her fingertips trail slow along his scalp, testing where his natural part wanted to fall when freed of so much weight.
She checked the guard on the clippers twice to ensure it wouldn’t be too short. His head jerked at the first buzz by his ear. She couldn’t help it—a quick chuckle tumbling from her tight lips. “Relax. I’m not shaving you bald… Unless you start mouthing off.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” He answered unconvincingly, now steady under her grip as she ran the trimmer along the side of his skull. Her fingers splayed behind his ear, tilting him ever so slightly.
The first clump of hair fell heavy, curling against the towel. Then another, and another. She watched them gather, a small drift of dark-blonde strands sliding into the folds of white.
Each pass of the clippers carved him clearer, revealing the shape of the man beneath that had been blurred beneath neglect.
Kira worked slowly, almost ceremonially, the steady hum filling the space between them. Her free hand guided, smoothed, lingered. When her fingertips brushed across the buzzed edges, she paused to test the texture—downy-soft, untouched by months of weather and dirt. The sensation caught her off guard, addictively clean against her skin. She told herself it was only part of the task, but her fingers moved again, tracing the newly shorn patches with a reverence she hadn’t meant to bleed.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even tense. If anything, his stillness seemed deliberate, an unspoken permission that unsettled her more than resistance ever could. It was as though he’d given himself over to her hands, trusting them to do as they pleased. The quiet weight of it pressed against her chest, something tender stirring where she didn’t want it to.
She guided the clippers lower, hair tumbling in thick spirals that piled into the towel until its pale surface was stippled with his shedding. With each lock that fell, he seemed lighter, younger, his features surfacing. She realized she was studying him as much as she was cutting—mapping the curve of his crown, the slope of his temple, the faint ridge of an old scar half-hidden beneath the growth. Her hand lingered there a beat too long, thumb sweeping across smooth skin as though she might memorize the shape of it. The contact was nothing, and yet everything—an indulgence disguised as practicality.
When she finally set the clippers aside, the sudden absence of their hum felt startling, the room collapsing into a quiet that made the sound of her own breath almost indecently loud. She reached for the scissors, no steady vibration now to disguise her nearness—only the crisp, intimate snip as steel met hair.
She pinched and lifted each section between her fingers, trimming with care, shaping what had been left rough. Her eyes followed the angles, sharp with concentration, but her thoughts kept slipping elsewhere, carried on the hush that pressed in around them.
It felt obscene, the way she leaned around him—close enough to ruffle his hair with her breath, enough that she could feel the rise and fall of his shoulders beneath her. The hair fell lighter now, soft fragments instead of clumps, dusting his forehead, catching against the line of his cheekbone. She brushed them away with the flat of her palm, like he suddenly lacked the hands to do it of his own accord.
He bore it quietly, unmoving yet never rigid. There was something almost disarming in his composure, a kind of yielding she hadn’t expected. And then—when she steadied him again, her palm cupped against the side of his head—his weight shifted. Barely. Just the smallest tilt into her hand. The gesture rattled through her, a quiet tremor of recognition she couldn’t name. She told herself it was nothing. Yet the imprint of it remained, heavier than it should have been, her fingers reluctant to leave their place against his skin.
When the comb at last slipped through without catching, she lifted the back towel, cradling the mess she’d made as best she could while her free hand brushed the loose strays from his nape and shoulders. The touch was light, almost sweeping, yet she felt the heat of his skin beneath every pass of her knuckles. She folded the towel carefully, tucking the drift of hair into its center, and set the bundle by her feet.
The last towel unfurled with a muted whoosh as she shook it loose, the sound startling in the hush between them. She draped it across his chest, smoothing it into place as she tucked the corners behind him. The hair was neat now—sharp edges restored, the disarray pared away. Yet his beard remained, wild and overgrown, shadowing his mouth in a rough shield. Her gaze caught on it, suddenly uncertain in her position that it was overbearing now that his hair was under control, rugged instead maybe?
“Thank you,” he said, voice rough as it split the quiet open wide.
She blinked, caught off guard, and managed, “We should probably see what you look like in the daylight before you get ahead of yourself.”
His mouth tilted, the ghost of something softer in his reflection. “No—not… not for that. For today. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
She swallowed hard, feeling something catch in her throat. Her fingers tightened around the trimmer she hadn’t yet lifted. “You never have to.”
The words hung between them, heavier than she intended, heavier than either of them moved to break. She realized only then how near she had drifted—directly in front of him, her thigh brushing the inside of his knee as she steadied herself. The contact was fleeting, accidental, but he shifted in response, a subtle, wordless adjustment that left no doubt: he had made room for her there.
Maybe it was Stellan—and the mess, the wreckage it had left behind—that had taught her how to rewrite the truth in real time. To fold longing into friendship, to let touch pass as accident, to tell herself that closeness was just circumstance. Maybe it was easier to pretend than to admit what she wanted, easier to hide behind words like platonic, as though she wasn’t all but straddling this man, bringing a mockery to the sentiment.
It had emboldened her, in its own strange way, to believe she could outwit the obvious. That she could ignore the way his gaze lingered, or the warmth of his hand skimming by her thigh, or the way the air thickened between them as if waiting for a spark. She had told herself before that she could mistake anything for nothing, if she just closed her eyes hard enough. But here—now—the lie wavered.
She felt it clawing at her again—urging her to stay vague, to protect herself, to pretend she hadn’t already given herself away. Kira’s delusions had spared her no heartache. Just because she had never found the courage to say the words hadn’t made them any less true. She had lost him all the same. Their eyes met and she felt her chest twist, nervous and defensive like he might somehow read her mind. She didn’t want to lose Nolan too, not ever.
Her thumb flicked the switch, and the trimmer came alive in her hand. The low buzz vibrated up her wrist, a current that sparked sharp awareness in her chest. She pressed her palm lightly to his jaw, tilting his chin upward with the side of her hand. Her fingers traced the rough thicket of his beard, brushing over coarse strands before settling him into place. He let her guide him, unresisting, his head tipped back in a quiet surrender.
She began at his cheek, the blades whispering as they cut through, each slow, precise stroke carving away the wildness. Bit by bit, he was revealed—the clean line of his jaw, the firm edge of his mouth—until what had been hidden was suddenly bare, undeniable. She brushed clinging hairs from his lips with the side of her thumb. The motion was practical, nothing more. But her body tattled on her, nerves pulling tight with the realization of how close she stood, how little space remained between them.
Between passes, she lingered—not long, not deliberate, but just enough. Enough to feel the warmth of his breath feathering against her wrist, enough to sense the unspoken weight in his stillness. The world seemed to narrow into that hush, their arrangement impossibly close: her standing between his legs, his broad frame steady beneath her hands, each touch carrying far more meaning than it should.
She didn’t take the shave all the way to the skin—the thought of stripping him down that starkly, of seeing his face laid utterly bare, felt too jarring. Instead, she left the faintest shadow, a softened outline that suited him. Just enough that his face was his own, familiar even in its unveiling, something she wouldn’t have to double-take to recognize. He was handsome. That much wasn’t some revelation worth presenting to MENSA; she had known it for a long while. But knowing it in the abstract was different than standing here, inches away, eyes on the edge of his jaw just to avoid staring at the silver cast of his eyes in the dim light.
When the trimmer finally fell silent again, the room seemed to echo with its absence. The void was so loud it pressed against her ears, amplifying the small, human sounds—the soft drag of his breath, the muted rustle of cloth when he shifted slightly in the chair. She lowered her hand but didn’t retreat, her palm finding its place beneath his jaw, thumb resting against the softened stubble she had chosen to leave behind.
She tilted his face a little higher still, her gaze traced the new lines she’d revealed, cataloguing them to memory. “Pretty handsome under there after all,” she murmured, the words meant to land like a tease. But the rib didn’t come. Instead it slipped out soft, nearer to a confession than she intended, carried on the faintest exhale.
She could feel his pulse hammering beneath her fingertips, a restless rhythm that seemed to chase her own. He didn’t move away. Instead, he leaned into her touch, the barest press of his jaw against her palm—so slight she might have doubted it had the breath not caught in his chest.
Her fingers curled almost instinctively, a subtle tether, as though by holding she could keep him from bolting. The silence stretched, fragile as spun glass, rigid with the promise of either breaking or binding. Kira had lived inside this kind of silence before—moments suspended on the knife’s edge of maybe, her ribs bruised by hopefilled held breaths, her years weathered by longing that soured when it was left unanswered. Instinct told her to brace for the retreat, to watch his expression shutter, to feel the whole fragile thing collapse back into friendship.
But then his hand rose, steady where hers trembled. His fingers closed around her wrist, warm, encompassing, stilling the small betrayals her body made without her consent. He turned his face fractionally into her hold, and the bare graze of his lips against her palm startled her breath to a halt. The touch was a ghost of a thing, fleeting enough it could be doubted—except for the way it rippled through her, sharp and undeniable, setting every nerve alight.
The world seemed to balance there for a heartbeat, suspended in the stillness of it. And then he moved, slow but certain, closing the distance with a weight that felt less like a choice and more like surrender.
His mouth found hers in the quiet. Not rushed, not ravenous—simply sure. The kiss began careful, almost tentative at its edges, as though the slightest misstep might unravel it. But when her lips parted beneath his, something in him gave way, and the restraint loosened.
When he finally drew back, it was only by the smallest measure. He sucked in a harsh breath like a drowning man desperate for air, his forehead leaning to rest against hers, unwilling—or perhaps unable—to let the closeness slip away entirely.
She almost didn’t dare move. Almost.
But his lips twitched again, brushing hers in the barest suggestion of another kiss, and that was enough. Kira’s chest ached as she leaned forward, closing the distance herself this time. Their mouths met again, fuller, slower, her breath catching at the way he answered her so willingly. He wasn’t hesitant anymore—he was careful, yes, but with a steadiness that felt like permission not fear.
She slid her fingers up into his hair, feeling the unfamiliar neatness where only hours ago there had been wild tangles. His hand came to her waist, tentative at first, then firmer when she didn’t flinch. The heat of it bled through her shirt, drawing her forward until she was half-straddling him, the chair scuffling under their shifting weight.
Her laugh slipped free against his mouth—small, startled, almost embarrassed at her own boldness. But he caught it with a low, answering hum, his lips curving into hers. The sound curled through her, heat pooling low in her stomach. God, she had missed this. Not only the kiss, not only the weight of someone’s hand on her body, but the relief of being wanted. Of being seen, held, recognized for all the ways she was still human. Something she never expected to be so easy to forget.
Her mouth pressed harder against his, testing, deepening, daring. Nolan met her there, his other hand rising to the small of her back, guiding her closer until her thighs brushed the chair’s arms. She shifted instinctively, climbing into his lap fully in a clumsy tangle, the clippers clattering against the table when her hip nudged it aside. Neither of them so much as glanced at it.
When her weight settled across him, his breath faltered against her lips. He caught her tighter, a soft blasphemy muffled into her mouth, as though the shock of her body pressed fully against his had been too much all at once. She kissed him again before doubt could catch either of them.
The fire popped and crackled beside them, shadows jittering along the walls were the only witness as Kira pressed herself closer still. The hunger startled her—not a shallow craving but something sharpened by months, years, of emptiness. Loneliness had turned itself into ache, ache into need, and now that it had found a place to land, she could hardly stop herself. She dragged her mouth down his jaw, scattering soft, desperate kisses into the warm hollow beneath his ear. His hands answered, one sliding up into her dark curls, the other steady at her hip as if he could hold her in place forever.
“Kira…” he murmured, her name breaking rough from his throat.
She froze for half a heartbeat, bracing for him to stop, to retreat, to remember some rule he thought he still had to follow. But his grip didn’t loosen. And when she pulled back just enough to search his face, she didn’t find rejection there. What she found was raw and unguarded—a hunger that mirrored her own so perfectly her chest tightened.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. The plea came out shakier than she intended.
His eyes shut briefly, the expression on his face like surrender and revelation all at once, before he surged up to claim her mouth again. This time there was no caution, no restraint. The kiss was deeper, surer, almost clumsy with urgency, as if everything he’d kept caged had broken loose all at once. His tongue brushed against hers, heat sparking everywhere their bodies met.
Her hips shifted on instinct, pressing down against him through the thin barrier of their clothes. The sudden friction jolted them both—his breath ripped uneven from his chest, hers spilling out in an electrified gasp against his lips. The sound seemed to undo him; he groaned softly, head tipping back a fraction, enough that she chased after him with another kiss. She barely recognized herself, greedy for every point of contact, her fingers finding purchase on him wherever they could.
He let her. More than that—he leaned into her need, his hands steadying her at the curve of her waist, guiding without forcing. Their mouths broke apart only to come together again, over and over. The kisses fell varied, some soft, deep then chaste then deep again, as though they couldn’t quite drink enough of each other. When she rocked against him again, deliberately this time, a sharp shiver ran through him.
They moved together clumsily at first, all fumbling friction and sharp, uneven breaths, until some unspoken understanding began to take hold. Her thighs cinched tighter around his hips, pressing down, grinding against him in a syncopated rhythm that matched the ragged pull of his breath as they kissed. The chair beneath them complained with a low creak, but she barely heard it—every nerve in her body tuned instead to him. To his heat. To the solidity of him, the tension humming in every muscle beneath her hands. She let her fingers wander, tracing along the planes of his abdomen, shivering at the way each subtle shift in his body seemed to light a fuse beneath her skin, chasing sparks up her spine.
A laugh broke from her, startled and breathless, when the angle shifted and the sensation sharpened—delicious and sudden. His answering grunt reverberated low in his chest and with that Kira found another sound she wouldn’t mind bottling for gloomy days. His grip on her hips tightened, his hands commanding but uncertain, as though he couldn’t decide whether to hold her still or drag her closer. Her mouth wandered—his cheek, his jaw, the warm corner of his throat. She murmured soft nonsense against his skin, words without shape, only sound and heat, only his. Each breath, each roll of her hips, dragged another sound from him, low and wrecked. She was no better, a litany of needy noises falling from her lips.
For one awful, heart-stopping moment, Kira thought they’d finally managed to tip the seat in their clumsy pawing, her arms cinched around his neck in a sudden attempt to erase the space between them when suddenly gravity didn’t feel right. She braced for a crash that didn’t come, a nervous yelp in the back of her throat. Her stomach lurched as the ground dipped away beneath her, and she realized with a panicked gasp that she was higher, not lower.
Nolan’s resolve had apparently broken. His hands clamped firm around the backs of her thighs, hauling her up and against him, her legs curled instinctively around his hips while her brain played catch up, her skirt rucked high in the process. The certainty in him stole the air from her lungs—he hadn’t lurched recklessly to his feet; he had risen with intent, with conviction. He held her because he could. She clung tighter, dizzy with the rush of it, her forehead pressed to his temple, their laughter and ragged breaths tangling in the small space between.
“Don’t drop me,” she managed, the plea breathless and playful, muffled against his face.
“I’d never do that to you,” Nolan echoed her words back to her, steady as stone.
Her gaze softened, struck dumb by the tenderness. Now surer in his hold, her hand slipped free from around his neck to cradle his cheek. She pulled him closer, needing him nearer, and pressed a scatter of kisses against his skin—his temple, the corner of his mouth, the strong line of his jaw. One of them must have distracted him; his step faltered, shoulder bumping the doorframe with a grunt that made her laugh spill out bright and sudden.
She clutched him tighter, nose brushing his cheek as she tried to hide the grin that kept breaking through. “You alright?” she teased against his skin, the amusement bubbling too thick to swallow down.
“I said I wouldn’t drop you,” he muttered, a little laugh rumbling low against her as he adjusted his hold, “didn’t promise anything about a door.”
Her laughter rose again, softer now, slipping into the warm crook of his neck. The sound seemed to unlock something inside him—she felt it in the way his arms cinched tighter, in the sudden, fierce grip that drew her closer, as though he were afraid she might vanish if he let go. She felt a similar delusion, anxiety thrumming through her veins that this might be an overzealous dream someone might soon interrupt. He shouldered the door open, carrying her across the threshold with ease.
The bedroom opened around them—dark, cooler, the faint outline of furniture carved in silver-blue moonlight spilling through the window. He kicked the door shut with a muted thud, the sound small but final. Nolan’s hands shifted, changing his hold to drop her lower until Kira felt a stiff mattress suddenly flush beneath her. His weight followed immediately, bracing above her, caging her in without crowding.
She sank back against the sheets, chest rising sharp and uneven, pupils wide as she looked up at him in the dim light. His hair was disheveled from her fingers, his lips swollen and parted from her kisses, his chest heaving with slow breaths. He hovered there a moment, gaze drinking her in as if he needed to memorize every detail too. Then his hand brushed a loose curl from her forehead, the tender sweep of his knuckles making her whole body ache with a longing too long starved.His mouth found hers again—slower this time, reverent, almost trembling with restraint. His hands mapped the familiar terrain of her body as though relearning touch from the beginning, rediscovering closeness after years of absence. When his palm slid between her thighs, pressing gently, rubbing through the fabric, she gasped at the jolt it sent up her spine. The shiver it pulled from her seemed to please him, his lips curving faintly against hers, savouring.
Her hips arched instinctively, meeting the pressure. A moan caught in her throat, small and raw, as her fingers tangled in his hair, tugging him closer, wordless and urgent. He broke the kiss just enough to breathe against her lips, voice low in a way that made her limbs turn to jello.
“Tell me if it’s too much.”
Her answer came out overeager, beyond sure. “It’s not. Don’t stop.”
His hand pressed firmer, the rough heel of his palm catching at the seam of her skirt. Even through the layers of fabric the pressure made her twitch, parting her legs further for him. She ground against his touch, desperate for more.
Nolan’s mouth claimed hers again—hotter, hungrier—his tongue sweeping deep as his fingers fisted in the skirts bunched high at her hips. He tugged hard, trying to drag her closer, but the sheer volume of fabric resisted him, defying every impatient grasp. The absurdity of it tugged a startled laugh from her chest, cutting through the heat for only a moment before his mouth swallowed it whole, her laughter dissolving into a needy hum against his lips.
“Too many damn layers,” he muttered against her mouth, voice rough, amused and impatient.
“Then take them off,” she breathed.
He didn’t hesitate. His hands found the hem and tugged, dragging the weight of her floor-length skirt down the long line of her legs. She arched her hips, lifting just enough to help, and the fabric slipped free in one sudden sweeping pull, collapsing somewhere forgotten on the floor. But the shirt—that was another battle. A lace-up corset, knotted so tightly down the front it might as well have been designed to withstand a hurricane. She hadn’t thought about this when she’d battened down the hatches this morning, that was for sure.
His fingers fumbled, tugging at the stubborn ties, muttering under his breath when they refused to budge. Heat bloomed in her throat, equal parts mortification and amusement, she bit down on a nervous giggle. Kira would have put the boy scouts to shame with these knots. When she reached to help, he caught her hand instead, pressing a fleeting kiss against her fingertips before casting them aside.
“I’ve got it,” he promised, jaw set with determination.
And he did—slowly, infuriatingly so. Each knot surrendered under his persistence, one by one, the laces loosening with a pace that thinned the air between them, heavy with anticipation. Her pulse thrummed louder with every inch of slack cord until laughter completely slipped away, replaced by a weightier kind of silence.
When at last the final tie came undone and the corset peeled open, his breath stalled. For a beat he just stared, looking as unravelled as her laces. Moonlight spilled silver over her skin, soft shadows feathering across her collarbone, the rise of her chest. His eyes darkened, softened, some wordless awe moving through them that made her squirm, flush climbing from sternum to cheeks.
Then his hands were on her again—reverent now, almost trembling—skimming up her ribs as the fabric slid away entirely. His palms curved along her sides before brushing over the swell of her breast, featherlight, tentative, like he wasn’t sure he had the right.
“You’re staring,” she accused with a soft smile, it spilled out of her in a trembling exhale and a laugh she couldn’t fully muster.
“Yeah,” he admitted, unashamed.
The sound of it—unapologetic, undone—sent her pulse into a gallop, her heart hammering wild like a thoroughbred loosed from the gate. It was almost too much to look at him, to be seen by him like this, but she couldn’t turn away either, just held the shape of him with flustered blinks. She committed the moment to memory, just in case tomorrow never came, in case no one ever looked at her like this again.
And when his mouth lowered to hers once more, it wasn’t frantic or consuming. It was unhurried, lingering at the edges of her lips, savoring. The weight of him anchored her to the mattress, every inch of her acutely aware of every inch of him. His hand resumed its slow pilgrimage, skimming down over the shallow dip of her stomach, across the delicate line of her hip, pausing briefly at the faint bullet torn scar there before moving on with a soft brush. For that she was grateful.
At the edge of her underwear, he stopped again, his breath halting, lifting his head just enough to search her face.
Kira nodded—jerky, nervous, but sure. Her legs shifted apart before she had even thought to move them, her body answering for her, a silent plea. His palm curved instinctively to fit against her.
The first touch through the thin cotton stole the air from her lungs. He pressed gently at first, testing, curious. The friction sparked something sharp and electric that burned straight through her core, pulling a gasp from her chest before she could bite it back. A slow swipe had her hips rising helplessly, seeking more friction, more pressure. He gave it, circling with the flat of his hand, then dragging higher, coaxing her until she was trembling beneath him. Every little noise that escaped her he kissed away, swallowing her gasps against his mouth.
When he finally hooked his fingers beneath the waistband and pushed the fabric aside, the shock of bare skin against his touch nearly undid her. Her hands scrabbled over his shoulders, restless, before sinking into his hair. His fingertips slipped through slick warmth, finding her clit, circling with disarming precision.
She moaned into his mouth, broke the kiss only to breathe his name against his ear, begging now without shame.
He groaned low in his chest—a sound raw with both ruin and restraint. His forehead pressed to hers like he needed her as much as she needed him. His fingers worked her with exquisite patience: slow, circling sweeps that drew her tight, then easing, coaxing her higher without hurrying. Every motion matched her breath, like he was listening for her rhythm and folding himself into it.
Her hips rolled helplessly into his touch, legs trembling with the effort of trying to keep still when all she wanted was more. The tension in her belly pulled taut, strung tight like a wire, each pass of his thumb edging her closer. She clutched at him, dragging his mouth back to hers, needing the steadiness of his kiss while her body unraveled beneath his hand.
“Nolan—” It broke out of her again, half-whisper, half-plea, her voice unsteady, spilling over with need.
“That’s it,” he murmured against her lips, soft but certain.
And then she was gone. Release crashed through her in a slow-burning wave, sudden and inexorable. His words, his voice, his hand—all of it wrapped around her until she was drunk on him. Her body clenched around his fingers, her back arched, soft cries spilling unbidden from her throat. He swallowed them like sacraments, kissing her through every shudder, his hand never faltering until the tremors ebbed and she sagged boneless into the mattress, dazed, undone, and held.
When her lashes fluttered open, he was already watching her. For a long moment she only looked at him, unguarded, unable to school her features. She’d carried this looming feeling in silence for some time—that terrible unspoken truth that threatened to ruin everything and pressed in on her more than desire ever had. She didn’t know when it happened exactly, couldn’t mark the day his smiles struck sweeter or when she’d really started to keep score on the things that made him smile; and the things that did not. She’d desperately ignored the elephant steadily growing in the corner, but now it was stamping on her toes, shrieking in her ear, undeniable in presence. Love. The kind she had no business showing, yet here it was, spilling out of her gaze before she could rein it back. She prayed he wouldn’t notice, that he wouldn’t name it, that she didn’t spook him.
If there was a god, he’d put her out of her misery. Last time she’d lain down with a man she’d come apart in all the wrong ways—ugly, tearful, embarrassed—and now she was seconds from ruining this, too, staring at him like he hung the stars in the ceiling beams. She leaned up quickly, desperate to cover the truth with a kiss, to distract him—or herself, she wasn’t sure which.
He hovered there for a long moment, braced above her with his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. The only barrier left between them was the rough line of his pants and the weight of thoughtless boots dirtying abandoned sheets. She felt the hard press of him, insistent through the fabric, and her body answered without thought, hips tilting, legs shifting to coax him closer.
Her hands mapped their way down his chest, slow and deliberate, fingertips skating over muscle, tracing the firm ridges of his abdomen until they snagged against the leather strap cinched low on his waist. She faltered for only a moment—clumsy, breath uneven—but pressed on, tugging at the buckle with stubborn insistence. He didn’t stop her, didn’t even move to help at first, only watched her with that unblinking intensity that made her stomach flip.
His eyes tracked the line of her arms, the concentration in her fingers. Emboldened, she gave the belt a sharper tug, dragging him closer by the buckle itself. The startled flicker in his expression nearly made her laugh—his gaze shooting back to hers, caught off guard—so much so that she couldn’t hide the quick curve of amusement tugging at her lips.
“Je—” he started, but the word died on his tongue when the buckle finally slipped free. The leather slid loose through the loops and dropped with a muted thud against the floorboards.
Her hands went straight to the fabric beneath, braced and impatient now, shoving against the starchy weight of his pants. They resisted, stubborn and stiff, until he finally relented, his own hands coming down to help. Together they wrestled them down his hips, the motions jerky, inelegant—kicks of his boots following in uneven thuds as if he were too undone to manage them cleanly.
Kira seized the chance to rid herself of her own final barrier, wriggling out of her underwear with a quick lift of her hips. She cast them aside carelessly, the small scrap joining the pile of discarded leather and denim at the bedside.
He returned to her, bare skin to bare skin, and the sudden heat of him against her made her breath catch in her throat. Every nerve felt alive, sparking in recognition, in disbelief, in wanting. His mouth found hers again, this time slower, deeper, deliberate—not the hungry desperation of before, but something steadier, grounding. He kissed her like he needed to tether himself, and she clung back just as fiercely, her legs curling tight around his hips, drawing him nearer until there was no space left between them.
When he finally settled fully over her, the sheer reality of him pressed into her made her lungs stutter. This was it… Their last barrier stripped away. No fabric, no excuses, nothing left but this choice laid bare between them. And for one harrowing heartbeat she thought he might falter, pull back, retreat into the safety of guilt and denial he so often clung to. The fear of it clawed up her chest—that he’d rob himself of this, rob her of him.
But he didn’t. He stayed, forehead pressed to hers, their noses brushing with each shaky breath. His weight was carefully braced on his elbows so she never felt the burden of him, only the strength of his arms surrounding her. One broad hand cradled her cheek, thumb stroking over her skin with a tenderness that unraveled her completely. All she could do was stare back up at him, doe-eyed and unguarded, unable to disguise the way she was drowning in him.
“You’re sure?” he whispered, voice frayed at the edges, barely holding steady. His eyes searched hers with a desperation that made her throat ache. She knew, without question, that if she said no—if she so much as flinched—he would stop instantly. There was no demand in him, no pressure. His restraint wasn’t the absence of want but the abundance of it, too much to ever push.
And that was what undid her.
Her answer came without hesitation. She lifted her hand, guiding his face down to hers, pressing a kiss against his mouth that was steady and sure. Her legs tightened around his hips, her body tilting to meet him in a wordless yes.
The first slow push stole the air from her lungs, a sharp gasp swallowed into his kiss before it could leave her mouth. Her nails bit lightly into his shoulders, not in protest but in sheer reaction, her body trembling around the sudden intrusion. He pressed deeper by degrees, careful and deliberate, each inch a test of her body and his own restraint. Her chest heaved beneath him, lips parted on a soundless plea, and still he took his time, easing forward until at last he was fully sheathed within her.
For a suspended heartbeat, the world seemed to still. Neither of them moved. His breath came ragged against her throat, hot and unsteady, his muscles straining with the effort it took to hold himself still. His hands clamped at her sides, fingers flexing like he was anchoring himself, as though even the smallest shift might undo him entirely. She clung to him in return, smoothing her palms over the taut line of his shoulders, focusing in equal measure to stay still despite every instinct driving her to drag him deeper.
When he finally began to move, it was with excruciating care. He drew back only a fraction, the absence already a hollow ache, before sinking into her again with a precision that made her toes curl. The sensation overwhelmed her—so much that she thought she might shatter then and there. Her body responded instinctively, clenching around him in a desperate rhythm, her breath breaking in staggered gasps. But he never hurried. His every thrust was patient, deliberate, paced to her rather than himself, as though he wanted her body to greet him, to welcome him in its own time. The steadiness of it unraveled her more thoroughly than frenzy ever could. His hips pressed slow and deep, each push carving through her with aching sweetness, every withdrawal only making her bite back a beg for the next.
Her legs shifted, curling tighter, and her hands slid higher, tangling into his hair to draw him closer still. His mouth brushed hers between movements, his lips trailing across her jaw, soothed her frantic heart as it leapt against the skin of her throat. The warmth of his breath there made her shiver, every nerve in her body alive to him, her pulse thrumming so hard it seemed to echo in her bones.
She shifted beneath him, unable to keep still, and his hand slid instinctively down the length of her thigh. Fingers curved behind her knee, he lifted and hitched her leg higher against his hip, pulling her open to him. The new angle made her gasp aloud, the sound tearing from her before she could catch it. His answering groan spilled straight into her mouth, the kiss breaking apart on a ragged shiver of breath. His hips drove deeper now, the change striking a place inside her that pitched up her quiet whines to soft cries of pleasure every time their skin met.
Her hands wandered restlessly over him—mapping the ridges of his back, the play of muscle shifting in his shoulders, the damp heat gathered at the nape of his neck. Every part of him felt searing and unrelenting, his chest flush to hers, his abdomen brushing against her belly with each driving stroke. The contact was relentless, overwhelming, but she wanted more—welcomed it—arching up into him to chase the friction at every turn.
The rhythm between them settled into something instinctive, unspoken, bodies finding the cadence without words. His hips pressed slow but insistent, her own tilting to meet and match him, a steady back-and-forth that wound the tension higher with every pass. Each time he sank into her fully he lingered a breath too long, as though he couldn’t bear to leave her, and every time he pulled back she clenched around him like her body was begging him to stay.
His pace thickened before she realized it, every thrust a shade less in control, every withdrawal carving a hollow that left her clutching for him. Her orgasm was building tighter with every deliberate stroke, low in her belly, sharp and unbearable in its promise, until it was all she could feel. The push and pull of him was maddening—urgency and restraint locked in constant war, his body betraying a hunger he fought to rein in. She could feel the tremor gathering in his muscles, the fine tension threaded through his shoulders and back, the way he slowed precisely when instinct begged him to surge forward, choosing to savor instead of surrender. Each careful, controlled movement left her trembling, strung tight with want, desperate for the breaking point he seemed determined to keep just out of reach.
The sounds of them filled the silence between kisses— the broken cries she couldn’t hold back, the muffled grunts spilling from his throat, the obscene slap of skin meeting skin and the faint, rhythmic creak of the mattress under their joint weight. Every sense felt sharpened, heightened, until she could no longer separate one sensation from the next. The scrape of his stubble might have itched at any other moment, but she nuzzled against the sensation affectionately. The firm clutch of his fingers biting into her thigh, holding her open with commanding steadiness, contrasting so achingly with the tenderness of his mouth as it traced her throat.
Kira knew she wouldn’t last. The build was already coiling hard and fast, addictive in its insistence, pulling her under in a way that made her restless against him. She ground herself closer, helpless in her need, chasing the sensation like oxygen. Her hands clutched at him—hips, back, hair—anything she could hold onto as she whispered his name and a collection of other unintelligible words between ragged breaths, not caring how desperate it sounded, not caring if she shattered on the sound. He murmured low reassurances against her skin that only made her ache more, as though he could steady her through the unraveling he was causing.
Her thighs quivered around his hips, muscles trembling with every steady plunge. He moved with more intent now, each stroke sinking deeper, his pace measured but undeniable, driving her higher and higher. “I have—” Kira tried, the words fraying into a moan when his hand slid down, thumb circling her clit in counterpoint to the rhythm of his hips. “I…” The pleasure spiked too sharply, scrambling her thoughts, and she nearly sobbed from the effort of trying to speak. “I—uhm—”
“Mhm?” His voice was low, amused, syrup-thick with mock patience. He slowed his hips deliberately, thumb pausing just shy of where she needed him most. Her body arched in protest, a sound of frustration spilling from her throat, the thought that had spurred her words already crumbling beneath the ache for him to keep going.
“Kira,” he coaxed again, more earnest this time, checking her, his restraint sharp in the tremor of his body above hers. “What is it?”
Reality returned to her a little. “Birth control—” she managed finally, her hand fluttering in a vague gesture between their bodies. “I’m on—my IUD’s still in. You’re good.”
For a heartbeat he just looked at her, chest heaving, as if the words had taken him by surprise. Then a crooked, breathless grin tugged at his mouth. “Glad you got that out,” he muttered, voice hoarse with something caught between humor and want. “Would’ve been a hell of a time to hesitate.”
“Shut up,” she shot back, playful even through the pant of her breaths. She lifted just enough to nip her smiling teeth along the edge of his jaw, then caught his mouth in a kiss that left no room for argument. “And keep going.”
He answered her with a low hum, then his hips snapped forward in a hard, unrestrained thrust. She couldn’t tell if it was payback for her cheek or sheer excitement at the freedom she’d just handed him—but it stole a gasp from her all the same. The rhythm that followed was nothing like before—no more hesitation, no careful edge. He moved with intent now, each roll of his hips deep and forceful, driving her into the mattress, claiming her with a steady intensity that made her cling tighter. Her nails raked over his back, desperate for purchase, while the sound of her tattered breathing tangled with the rough groans spilling from his throat.
His hand found its way between them once more, thumb pressing against her clit with wrecking precision. The sensation jolted through her, every thrust forcing her hips up to meet the unyielding pressure. The two currents collided inside her, cresting higher and higher until she was helpless against it—reduced to little more than sound and movement, clutching at him like he was the only solid thing in a world coming apart.
Her orgasm hit hard, tearing through her in a rush that left her breathless, spine arching from the bed to ensure he was as close as she could get him. Her thighs locked tight around his hips, heels digging into him, pulling him deeper as her nails raked helpless trails down his back. From the moment he’d touched her, Kira had been nothing but a cascade of sound—moans spilling, pleas tumbling, gasps breaking free—but when release seized her, it ripped the noise away. Her voice abandoned her entirely, the pleasure so consuming it stole every cry from her throat. The silence was almost obscene, her parted lips pressed to his without a sound, her body saying everything in the way it shook and clung to him.
She gasped against his mouth, the breath stuttering out of her in sharp bursts. Her body convulsed around him, clutching tight, every tremor wrung from her by his unrelenting rhythm. The aftershocks came in waves, rolling through her again and again, leaving her shivering, bound to him as he drove her through each crest without mercy.
Her release pulled him under with her, every pulse of her body threatening to tear away the last of his control. He buried his face against her throat, groaning raggedly as her convulsions clenched around him, as her thighs caged him in and refused to let him go.
He fought to steady himself, to hold the line, but the effort shook visibly through his body—his arms trembling where they held him braced, shoulders too. Every pulsing squeeze of her around him stole another fraction of his control, made his hips stutter in uneven jolts, his breath breaking hot and ragged against her ear. His forehead pressed to hers, slick with sweat, his thrusts growing shorter, rougher, every stroke betraying how close he was to unraveling.
Her arms felt heavy, dreamlike, but she still lifted them, hands finding his jaw with slow, awed strokes. Even in the haze of her own release, her hips chased him, sloppy and out of rhythm but eager for every last push of him. She felt his pace falter, hovering on the edge—then he drove into her deep, wringing a sharp, overstimulated moan from her that she smothered against his mouth.
She felt his last reserve snap—his body surging into hers with a shudder, his gasp spilling into her mouth as release tore through him. His hips jerked through the aftershocks in an irregular, desperate pace. Every pulse of his release stammered into her, dragged out by the way she clenched and held him tight. He groaned into her mouth, caught between surrender and relief, every drop of him wrung from his body against hers.
He lingered inside her long after the last shudder had drained from his body, his forehead pressed to hers, breaths coming rough and uneven against her cheek. For a time he didn’t move at all, as though his weight belonged there, pinning her safely to the earth, anchoring her in the aftermath. His shoulders still quivered faintly with the effort of coming down, and the short damp strands of his hair clung to her temple where sweat had gathered. She lay beneath him, caught in the haze of release, chest rising hard against his with every shallow breath, until at last the rhythm of his lungs began to slow and steady. Only then did he shift.
He eased out with deliberate care, the absence leaving her tender, and rolled to the side—but not far. Never far. His arm curled around her and pulled her along with him, unwilling to let space settle between them. The room stayed dim, lit only by the wan silver spilling through the window, moonlight that strained against the suffocating dark of the sky outside. Still, it reached them, softening the hard lines of their bodies into a tangle of limbs washed in grey. Beyond the walls, the wind dragged its restless fingers across the siding, a faint reminder of the world waiting with its endless demands. But here, in this pocket of stillness, there was only his warmth, his solidity, the rare silence they had managed to carve out for themselves.
He gathered her close, folding her into the breadth of his chest. His arm hooked heavy around her waist, the other bent behind his head, though it shifted every so often like he couldn’t find the right place to rest it. She tucked herself into the hollow of his shoulder, listening to the rough cadence of his breathing as it evened out, the steady thrum of his heartbeat slowing under her ear. His hand skimmed idly low along her spine, a rhythm without purpose, restless and tender all at once, as though he needed the reminder she was real, that she hadn’t vanished the second his release had left him.
“You okay?” he asked at last, his voice raw, rasped against her temple.
Kira tilted her head up just enough, her lips brushing against the hard plane of his chest as she murmured, “Five stars.”
For a second he was silent, and then his chest shook beneath her ear, a laugh escaping despite how frayed he sounded. He tipped his chin, pressing a brief kiss to her hair, a smile ghosting faintly across her crown. “Guess I’ll take that review.”
She hummed softly, tightening her arm around his middle. Her fingers traced slow, idle patterns across the ridges of his ribs, lingering over each rise and hollow before sweeping back again. The silence that followed was softer now, gentler, but far from empty. It felt purposeful, almost weighted—like neither of them wanted to disturb it too soon.
He didn’t speak again, though his presence filled the quiet as surely as the rhythm of his breath. Instead, his hand drifted into her hair, careful at first, then more certain, curling strands between his fingers as if testing their texture. Again and again he smoothed them down, his thumb dragging in absent strokes along their length.
Kira felt the tranquility in the air sour with time, her stomach knotting as the silence around them seemed to grow teeth. He had gone quiet. Too quiet. She could sense it in the weight of him against her, in the way his breathing had steadied into something deliberate rather than relaxed, in the restless pattern of his hand threading again and again through her hair. When she tilted her chin up, she found his gaze unfocused, caught somewhere distant—like he was both with her and far away at once. The sight struck a chord she didn’t want to recognize. She pressed herself closer, trying to root him back in the present, though the pang of worry still landed sharp against her ribs.
She’d lived this before, this creeping heaviness of someone slipping away while right beside her. With Stellan, she had mostly chosen silence, convinced herself often it was safer not to ask. If she didn’t acknowledge the weight in his eyes, if she pretended not to feel the sharp edges of his quiet, then maybe it wouldn’t splinter what they had. Maybe the shadows wouldn’t swallow them whole. And in some measure, she’d been right. Her silence had kept the peace, had held conflict at bay, had let them cling close until they couldn’t anymore. But it had kept them apart too. The unspoken built its own walls, a threshold neither of them had ever managed to cross. And then he was gone.
Nolan’s hand sifted through her hair again, fingers catching the same strand, looping it, letting it fall, only to start over. Over and over. It wasn’t soothing, not really. It was restless, binding—like he was tethering himself to the motion, not to her. His jaw was drawn tight, his gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the shadowed room, someplace she couldn’t reach.
Her throat tightened. Instinct urged her to stay still, to let the silence hang, to pretend she didn’t feel its sharp edges digging in. She’d learned where that path led. Learned what it cost to let fear of an answer keep her tongue tied. And as Nolan’s silence stretched now—thick with everything unspoken—Kira knew she couldn’t make the same mistake twice.
So she gathered a breath, soft against his skin, and pushed the words past the fear. “You okay?” she asked back. Not casual, not tossed-off like his had been. It came gentler, more deliberate. Was he steady, or was he slipping?
The question hung between them. He didn’t answer at first. His thumb stilled against the strands, the weight of his hand caught at the crown of her head like he’d frozen mid-motion. She felt his chest rise, then hold, the air locked inside him like he was wrestling with whether to let it out at all.
When it finally left him, the breath was uneven, thick with something unshed. His gaze stayed pinned to the ceiling, distant, as if he’d anchored himself to a place far beyond her reach.
“I…” His jaw worked once, twice. For a moment she thought he’d retreat, bury whatever had surfaced, smooth it away with a shrug or a crooked smile. But the silence cracked instead, and the words slipped through quiet, unguarded.
“I wish you could’ve met Amelia.”
The name lingered in the dark between them, tender and raw, the sound of a door half-opened, grief bleeding softly through the gap. Kira felt it hit her chest as if he’d laid the sorrow there, pressed into her sternum. She could hear the strain in his breathing, the way it dragged heavier now, as though saying Amelia’s name had pulled something vital from him. He’d finally whittled out a happy moment for himself, one little reprieve from the misery he raked himself over daily and still loss had found its way in. Of course it had. For him, it always did.
Kira shut her eyes against the sting of it, pressing closer, her fingers slipping up his ribs until they could curl against his shoulder protectively. “Me too,” she murmured. “Everything you’ve ever told me about Amelia… is so you…” Her throat tightened, but she pressed through it, her hand splaying across his chest. The words weren’t a balm, not really—grief never asked for curing. But they bridged the space his silence might have carved, a promise that she wasn’t afraid of the shadows he carried. That she wanted to know the parts of him that still hurt.
For a long, tense moment, he didn’t move. His hand stilled completely in her hair, his jaw flexing against her temple, tight enough to feel the strain through his skin. His gaze stayed locked on the ceiling, far beyond the room, beyond her reach. When he spoke, it was quiet, frayed with sorrow, but a stubborn edge lingered beneath, “No.” He shook his head, sharp, small motions. “She was better. So much better than me.”
The words struck against her, fierce in their certainty, as though any suggestion otherwise was an insult to his daughter’s memory.
The words landed heavy, piercing—not just grief, but guilt, self-loathing shaped around the memory of a daughter he could never forgive himself for losing. Kira pressed her cheek against him, her heart tightening at the weight of it. For a moment, she thought maybe she should leave the silence alone. But she breathed slow, deep, letting the air carry her courage. Her words came quiet, deliberate.
“She was yours,” she uttered in the quiet, tracing a line with her fingertips across his chest. “She was a part of you.”
He made a sound—a half laugh but not amused—that broke jagged in his throat. His eyes stayed fixed above, glassed over with something unshed, his jaw still clenched like he didn’t trust himself to look at her.
Kira shifted just enough to angle up at him, her fingers sliding into the hollow of his throat, brushing over the pulse that beat strong and fast beneath her touch. Her eyes, soft and unwavering, held his as she spoke even though he seemed determined to look anywhere else. “You said she was funny—that’s you. Even when the jokes are awful.” She traced a careful line along his jaw with her thumb. “Fierce? You. Brave? You. A bit of a temper…” Her lips curved just slightly, a tender, coaxing smile, not of joy, but of quiet reassurance.
“Kind. Actually kind. That’s you too.” Her words fell slow. The only part of her father Amelia had unfortunately lacked was his luck. “I don’t care if you disagree—that’s what I see when I look at you.” She leaned just a fraction closer, the warmth of her chest pressing against his, her breath brushing the line of his collarbone. “I’m really lucky to know fragments of her through you… because I would have loved her.”
The confession lingered in the space between them, Kira couldn’t cure his anguish but she yearned desperately to shoulder some of the load. For a long beat, he didn’t respond, just let her words settle over him, letting the weight of her presence press against the hollow ache inside. She felt parts of him ease, just a little. His jaw unclenched slightly, his hand—still resting lightly against her hair, began to stir again, a knuckle grazing her slightly.
When his gaze finally fell, it locked with hers for a heartbeat before flitting back to the rafters, as though looking straight into her eyes was as dangerous as it was comforting. “You really mean that?” His voice was rough, quiet, laced with disbelief, as if her certainty was too gentle and too fierce all at once.
Her chest tightened at the disbelief in his voice, the rough edges of it scraping raw against her ribs. She tipped her chin up, determined to catch his eyes even if he only gave her the briefest glance before trying to slip away again.
Kira nodded—slow, steady, certain. No flinch, no hesitation. Her thumb lingered at the hollow of his throat, pressing lightly against the beat there as though to anchor the truth in his body, a wordless vow that she meant every syllable she’d given him.
Something in him faltered. His jaw worked, his throat shifted beneath her palm, but whatever rebuttal had been on his tongue caught there and dissolved before it could fully form. He looked away instead, gaze dragging back to the ceiling, still swarmed with shadows and words unsaid and she felt the weight of it press into her too.
So she didn’t try to force it. Didn’t chase or prod. Instead she let herself sink, easing down until her cheek rested over the steady drum of his heart. Her hand flattened against his chest, holding him there, not to cage but to remind. His hand resumed its wandering path through her hair in earnest finally—gentler now, each stroke deliberate rather than restless.
Outside, if she focused, she could still hear coyotes braying on and off, whatever had stumbled into their territory still bothering them at the fringes. She tried not to linger on the thought, only the unnatural agitated animals like that. Inside, the hush curled between them, weighted but no longer jagged. She couldn’t pull him free of the hole he was digging into himself, but she could curl down beside him and nestle in. He could dig more if he liked— just not alone.
Kira let her eyes fall shut, exhaustion creeping in at the edges where she could no longer hold it back, weary of forcing them open against the murky dark. Nolan’s touch at her waist moved in an absent rhythm, fingers dragging lazy patterns across her skin as though he wasn’t aware of the comfort he was giving. The steady, unhurried motion seeped into her bloodstream, loosening everything clenched tight, working through her like a slow sedative.
The rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek was another dose, a quiet metronome pulling her into the rhythm of him. His heartbeat thudded steady against her ear, syncing with her breaths until the distinction between his body and hers blurred. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself this kind of rest this near, longer still since another presence had felt safe enough to surrender to. She tucked herself in closer, curling around the heat of him until there was no space left to guard.
Sleep beckoned with gentle insistence, each slow pass of his hand through her locks eroding her resolve to stay awake. The darkness around them no longer felt so sharp, so threatening, when she could feel him anchoring her. For once, she didn’t resist. She let herself tip over that edge, let the weight of him and the warmth of him carry her down, sinking deeper with every breath until the world went soft and still.
Kira surfaced slowly, tugged up out of sleep by nothing in particular—no sound, no touch, only the uneasy insistence of her body knowing before her mind did. For a moment she resisted, burrowing deeper into the mattress, curling instinctively toward the hollow he had left. The sheets there still held a trace of warmth, faint and fading, and she clung to it as though it might coax her back under.
She cracked one eye open, squinting against the spill of light across the bed. Sunlight poured unhindered through the unshuttered window, gilding the tangled sheets. The warmth she felt wasn’t his after all—it was only the morning, stretching itself across the empty space. Her lashes fluttered shut again, unwilling, but the knowledge seeped in all the same, breaking through the haze of half-dream.
It took her longer than it should have to register the truth. He actually wasn’t there. Not gone in the careless way of someone who’d rolled to the far edge of the mattress. Not gone in the temporary sense of a body that had risen for water or the bathroom. Gone.
Her hand slid across the blankets in a slow, aimless search, finding only the cool indentation of where he had been. The ache that answered was small at first, almost ignorable—a hairline crack she tried to plaster over with reason. Maybe he had only gone to make sure the fire was out. Maybe he couldn’t sleep. Maybe hunger or restlessness had driven him from the bed. She whispered the excuses silently to herself, each one a flimsy patch she hoped might hold against the hollow beginning to bloom in her chest.
For a few groggy heartbeats she let herself play along with the ignorance. She curled closer into the vacancy, pressing her face into the pillow, drawing in what faint trace of him still clung there. Her fingers skimmed the linen, dwelling over the creases as though she might stumble across proof he’d only just gone—a wrinkle stubbornly keeping his shape, a hidden pocket of body heat sunk deep in the mattress.
But there was nothing. No lingering. No trace that resisted the morning air. The absence was total. And the sting of it spread slow and deliberate, seeping deeper with each breath until it left no room for pretense at all.
Kira blinked against the brightness, still half peeking as her eyes adjusted. Morning poured in unhindered, the shutters still wide open from the night before, when closing them had been the last thing either of them cared about. The light had been sharp at first, stabbing into the haze of her vision, but as she’d blinked it had steadied, the gold settling soft across the room. The air was already warm, close and insistent, clinging damp against her skin. Sweat had gathered at the backs of her knees where the sheets had bunched, a tacky reminder of summer hadn’t yielded yet. She shifted with a slow, reluctant stretch, her joints creaking as though they, too, wanted to bargain for just a little longer in the rare comfort of a real bed.
When she finally pushed herself upright, the world seemed to tilt slightly with her. Dust rose in faint motes where the sunlight touched, drifting lazily in the still air. The smell of wood warmed by the sun lingered faint but steady, familiar in its simplicity. Her feet found the boards with a muted thud, the heat of them seeping upward into her soles until it felt like the whole room was conspiring to keep her grounded there, halfway between sleep and waking.
The wardrobe sagged in the corner, its crooked door yawning wide as if it had given up holding itself together. Tempting, especially when she glanced at the heap of her own shirt on the floor—strings tangled, laces unthreaded, the fabric stretched thin by whatever they’d managed to do to it last night. She sighed at the thought of wrestling back into it and crossed the room instead, drawn more by instinct than any real hope.
Inside, there was little to be salvaged. A hanger bent into some forgotten shape, a flannel so worn it seemed one wrong move might end it. But wedged into the back corner, hidden from casual notice, her fingers found something: a plain cotton shirt, soft with years of wear, its seams thinned but still holding. She tugged it free and slipped it over her head. The fabric settled heavy against her frame, the hem falling almost to her knees. It clung in the sticky heat, but it was good enough for now.
She smoothed the hem down with both palms, as if that could temper it into belonging to her, then lingered a moment longer in the square of sunlight pooling across the floor. Her reflection caught in the cracked mirror on the wardrobe door—a fractured half-image, her own face broken by spiderwebbed glass. She tried to tame her curls with her fingers, but the more she poked and prodded the more they rebelled, springing up wilder for the effort. With a small, sharp exhale she let her hands fall, curls defiantly unbroken, her eyes still on that split reflection as though it might offer an answer she hadn’t asked aloud.
The hallway met her with a similarly sunny disposition, though here the light fractured, falling in long beams through doorways and skylights and scattering across the floor. She padded into it, wincing as the boards gave their muted protest beneath her weight. The house seemed louder now without him inside it—every creak, every sigh of wood settling, every scrape of wind through a gap in the frame pressed in.
Her first turn, and for one brief, reckless breath her chest rose too fast, too hopeful. Even her pessimism was steeped in wish. She’d braced herself to find nothing, but she’d done so with the secret hope that the universe might grant her the miracle of being wrong and find him over-preparing beans in the kitchen. Even if only to spite her, she would have taken it.
But the chairs stood empty, shadows pooling in their hollows. One still sitting stranded in front of the long dead fire. On the table, a book lay open, its spine loosened, pages splayed as if someone had stepped away mid-thought and never returned. Dust coated the paper in a fine, undisturbed film—proof that it had been laid aside long before their arrival.
She lingered over it, a prickle starting low in her chest, unsettled by its purgatory. There was something in the way it sat—pried apart, exposed, waiting—that made her stomach twist. She crossed the room and shut it gently, palm smoothing to wipe free the dust for probably the last time. Then she set it down again, closed and quiet, before moving on.
Each empty room pressed the ache deeper, but still she pushed forward, the fragile excuses trailing behind her like tattered threads she clutched desperately. Maybe he had gone outside to refill the water bottles. Maybe he’d stepped out to scout the road. Maybe he was here somewhere, just out of sight, and she’d simply missed him. The possibilities were thin, insubstantial, yet she clung to them, as if naming them aloud might anchor the hope that still fluttered dimly in her chest.
She moved back towards the front of the house, each step careful, as though rushing might shatter the fragile tension coiling around her ribs. The light beckoned, but it offered no answers—only the quiet, patient reminder of what wasn’t there.
Kira pushed through the front door, the hinges protesting with a weary groan. The sunlight hit her full in the face, warm and insistent. She blinked against it, lifting one hand to shield her eyes until they adjusted, and the yard came into focus.
It spread open before her, half-swallowed by weeds that clawed up through the dirt, and then she saw him—Nolan—standing by the fence line where the horse waited. Relief pooled low in her chest, tightening and easing all at once. Happy to find she hadn’t been left here to her own devices but she had little else to smile about.
He moved with quiet efficiency, buckling straps, checking the tack, sleeves casually pushed up to reveal forearms that flexed with each motion. The sun caught his freshly trimmed hair, lighter in tone than it had been yesterday, glinting like burnished gold. He looked solid, steady, deliberate—every gesture measured, sure of itself. Exactly the man she had glimpsed yesterday morning. It was an innocuous enough observation, so why did it make her stomach drop?
“Mornin’,” He called, not glancing back over his shoulder.
Not cold. Not cruel. But the softness of last night had evaporated, leaving only the precise, deliberate man before her, as though the other had never existed. His shoulders were drawn tight, his head angled downward, eyes fixed on his hands, focus narrowed so completely that she might have been invisible.
The sting of it was sharp, small, relentless—like pressing on a bruise she had almost forgotten. Her fingers curled lightly against the doorframe, torn between stepping forward and letting the distance preserve itself. She had woken to warmth, to the lingering echo of him pressed close, the quiet weight of his presence in the sheets and in the air around her. And now she found herself staring at the Nolan who existed just beyond reach: close enough to see, close enough to hear, but always, impossibly, out of reach.
“Good morning,” she called back, forcing brightness into her voice, determined not to let the edge wriggle through.
She padded into the yard, bare feet brushing over the rough earth. She ignored the prickle of gravel and dry weeds under her soles, though a part of her still prayed some blister beetle wasn’t waiting to punish her carelessness. He didn’t turn when she came closer. His hands continued, checking and rechecking straps, tugging leather… Kira had ridden her whole life, more comfortable on horseback than foot. He was doing a whole lot of nothing if she was honest, and he knew that too. Determined to focus on menial things that required little more than a passing glance. The horse twitched its ears but stood patient, accustomed to the ritual. Nolan’s focus, however, remained locked tight—every motion neat, purposeful, as though the work itself was all that existed.
“You alright?” she asked lightly, shaping it like casual conversation, as though she hadn’t the foggiest idea what might be weighing on his mind.
“Mhm.” A small sound, little more than breath given shape. He nodded once but didn’t glance her way, didn’t offer anything beyond the barest acknowledgement she’d spoken at all.
Kira bit the inside of her cheek, then tried again. “You need a hand?”
His shoulders shifted just slightly with the next pull of the strap. “If you want.” The words dropped without inflection, neither invitation nor refusal, a door cracked open only because she’d knocked too long to ignore.
Sadness edged back, giving irritation the reins for a while. The sting in her throat burned, but she swallowed it down and tipped her chin just so, feigning interest in the buckle he was tightening rather than the line of his jaw. Kira bent before he could object, catching the corner of a pack and dragging it up against her hip. The weight sank sharp into bone, heavier than she’d judged, but she gritted against the strain and wrestled it to the saddle horn. Her fingers fumbled through the strap, clumsy against the leather, but she forced the buckle through anyway, refusing to yield it back to him.
“Wouldn’t have thought you’d let me sleep in,” she said, aiming for lightness, near enough to teasing. The words caught a little rough in her throat, an edge bleeding through despite her effort. “Seeing as you’re hellbent on being up before the sun.”
He gave a low hum, neither agreement nor denial, his eyes flicking briefly to the knots she’d made before sliding back to his own work. The sound was small, but it settled between them with weight, like a stone dropped in water, ripples stretching outward into silence.
Kira’s jaw tightened. She kept her head bowed, fingers worrying the strap until it bit taut, tugging harder than it needed. Her hands stayed busy, the way soldiers sometimes cleaned rifles long after they gleamed—just something to fill the silence. Pretending this was routine. Pretending nothing had shifted. But the contrast clawed at her, too raw to ignore. She had fallen asleep with his arm heavy across her waist, his breath warm at the crook of her neck, his fingers dawdling on her skin like he hadn’t wanted to pull away. Where did that Nolan go?
“You always this talkative in the mornings?” she asked finally, sharper than she’d intended.
He glanced at her then—a flicker of blue, quick and unreadable. For just a beat his hands went still on the strap, breath caught in the space between them. Then he ducked his head, knuckles tightening once before he moved again, moment gone. “Sometimes.”
Kira let out a small, dry laugh, shaking her head as though that were answer enough. But the sound wasn’t gentle—it rang too thin, laced with a little bitterness she hadn’t intended to show. She’d never been good at poker. The silence it left behind was even worse. Tight and awkward in a way she’d never felt with him before.
Her hand found the horse’s flank, palm flattening against the warm hide. She smoothed her touch down in long, steady strokes, grounding herself in her solid weight. For a moment it stood patient beneath her hand, but when her fingers dragged a little too hard, the horse shifted uneasily, stamping once against the dirt. She softened her touch immediately, murmuring under her breath, ashamed to realize even the animal could feel the static crawling off her.
For the first time since they’d departed, she wished the campus had been able to spare another horse. The thought of hours pressed in against him, breathing in the wall of his silence made her eyes begin to well at the corners.
She didn’t understand what she’d done. Had she missed something? Been so mired in her own feelings that she’d overlooked his? The thought needled sharper with every heartbeat. Heat gathered under her skin—not the punishing blaze of the sun overhead, but a low, crawling embarrassment that prickled over her arms and made her want to shrink out of sight.
Kira would rather have been mauled by a bear in front of him than cry right now, which was a strange, cruel truth to attach to one of the only people she still trusted. But it was there all the same, cold and steady beneath the hot rush of shame. The pressure in her chest forced her hand back from the horse’s flank. She stepped away all at once, as though burned, feet scuffing through the red dirt in her scramble to retreat.
“Kira,” his voice cut across the small yard, not sharp, but steady enough to halt her mid-step. She froze on instinct, though she didn’t turn, her spine stiff with the effort of holding herself still. For a breath, the silence between them stretched taut, and she let herself wonder—hope, maybe—that he would say something else. Something that explained this distance, or pulled her back from it.
Instead, his words came easy, practical, wrapped in the safe cloak of logistics. “I’m pretty much ready to go out here, so when you’re all done in there we’ll get going. Left too late yesterday—I don’t want us riding in the dark.”
The sound of thumping pats against the animals ribs and a clinking of jostled stirrups, blunt and ordinary. It wasn’t mean, not even cold, but the very fact of its ordinariness stung worse. He spoke to her like a traveling companion, no different from any other. As though last night had been nothing more than a shared bed for convenience’s sake, something to fold away with the dawn.
Kira stayed rooted for a beat, jaw locked against the swell in her throat, fighting a battle she already knew she was losing. His voice still clung to the air behind her, but the words—instructions, nothing more—hadn’t reached her where she needed them most.
She forced herself to move, legs carrying her stiffly toward the house, each step heavier than the last. At the threshold she slipped inside, pressing the door shut with the weight of her back as though she could hold it closed against the world outside. The latch clicked, and that was all it took—the tear broke free, hot and traitorous, rolling past her lashes finally.
What had she really expected?
