Page 86 of Through the Storm

Steam fills the bathroom fast. He steps under the water first, bracing his hands on the tile as it hits his shoulders. I try not to stare and fail immediately.

I join him a second later, warmth wrapping around us, familiar and new all at once. For a long second, neither of us moves. The water slides over his body. The space between us feels deliberate.

Then I close it.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

His arms come around me immediately. “For what?”

“For today,” I say. “For trying so hard. For caring more about doing it right than looking cool.”

“I’d do anything for you,” he says without thinking. The words land low and heavy.

I tip my face up. “You already are.”

His hands move, slow at first, reverent. Like he’s memorizing me.

I brush my thumb along his jaw. “You’re pretty perfect.”

He exhales a soft laugh. “I’m really not. But I try my best. You deserve that.”

“You make me feel confident, and you make me feel… wanted.”

Something in his expression breaks open. The way he looks at me after that is dark and intent and unmistakably sure.

Then he kisses me. And there is nothing gentle about it.

The water keeps running, and I drop to my knees.

“Teach me something new,” I whisper.

His eyes darken. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

When he finally stills, breath ragged, his hands tangled in my hair, his head tipped up, I know there’s no pretending this didn’t change something.

He helps me stand and wraps me in a towel and dries me carefully, the tenderness instinctive to him.

He kisses my shoulder first. Then lower. Then lower still, patient enough to undo me.

And after I come back to myself, my lovable man is still there. Careful and in control at the same time. As if what just happened didn’t make him pull away, but closer.

We end up tangled in bed, damp and spent and laughing quietly at nothing.

The house is still.

My heart isn’t.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ben

MY IMPRESSIVE GIRL

Declan doesn’t flinchwhen he sees me come down the stairs in the morning.

That’s new.