The plate was empty. The wine had been half-gone for a while now, the glass sweating a ring into the butcher block. Mara was still talking—about the letter, about her brother, about every reason she should hate him—but her voice had gone thin, fraying at the edges, and her knuckles were white where she gripped the counter's lip.
He didn't answer.
She heard him set down his glass. The sound was deliberate—glass on wood, a small ceremony. Then footsteps. Slow. Each one landing like a question she didn't know how to answer.
His body hit her first. The heat of him, close enough to feel through her flannel. His hands landed flat on either side of her hips, palms against the butcher block, and the cage of his arms closed around her. She could smell him—cedar and soap and the faint salt of skin. Her breath caught. Held.
"You're shaking." His voice was low. Not a question.
"I'm not—" She stopped. She was. Her hands trembled against the wood. She couldn't remember when that had started.
He didn't move. Just stood there, his body a wall at her back, his breath warm against the crown of her head. She should push him away. She should say something sharp, something that rebuilt the distance between them. Instead, her thighs parted. A small shift. Barely an inch. She felt it happen before she decided it—an unconscious hinging, a space opening.
He stepped into it.
The denim of his jeans pressed against the denim of hers. She felt the heat of him through both layers, a line of warmth running from his thigh to hers. Her chest was tight. Her hands were still gripping the counter. She wasn't pushing him away.
"Mara." His voice near her ear now, rough at the edges. His hands hadn't moved from the counter. He hadn't touched her. He was just there, caging her, his breath slow and steady against her hair. She could feel his heartbeat. Or maybe that was hers. She couldn't tell anymore.
She closed her eyes. The silence between them was full of everything they hadn't said. Her thighs stayed parted. She didn't close them. And she knew—with a certainty that settled in her chest like a stone dropped into deep water—that she was already lost.
His hand found her waist.
Not a grab—a slide. Palm flat, fingers splaying across the curve of her hip through the flannel. The heat of his palm burned through the fabric, a brand settling into her skin. She felt it in her chest first, a tightness that spread down through her stomach, pooling low. Her breath came out in a shudder she couldn't hide.
He didn't move his hand. Just held it there, heavy and warm, his thumb tracing a slow arc along the ridge of her hip bone. The movement was small, almost absent, like he was memorizing the shape of her through the cloth. She felt the press of his fingers, the way they curled slightly, gripping without force.
Her eyes were still closed. She didn't open them. Didn't dare.
"Mara." His voice was lower now, rougher, a scrape against the quiet of the kitchen. "Look at me."
She shook her head. A tiny motion, barely visible. Her hands were still gripping the counter, knuckles white, and she couldn't seem to let go. If she let go, she'd fall. Or she'd turn. Or she'd do something she couldn't take back.
His hand moved. Slid from her waist around her stomach, palm flat against her belly, pulling her back against him. The length of his body pressed against hers—chest to her spine, hips to her ass, thighs against the back of her thighs. She felt every inch of him through the layers of denim and flannel. Felt the solid weight of him, the way his breath hitched when she didn't pull away.
His mouth found the shell of her ear.
"I can feel your heart." His whisper was a vibration against her skin. "Through your back. Like a bird in a cage."
Her throat tightened. She couldn't speak. His arm was a band across her stomach, holding her against him, and his other hand was still on the counter beside hers. She could see his fingers—long, elegant, tan against the dark wood. She imagined them elsewhere. The image flared hot and sudden, and her thighs clenched around the empty space between them.
He felt it. She knew he felt it, because his hand on her stomach pressed harder, and the sound he made was low and rough, barely a breath against her ear.
"Tell me to stop." His voice cracked on the last word, like it cost him something to say it. "Tell me, Mara. And I will."
She didn't. She couldn't. Her hands released the counter—slow, deliberate, a surrender she hadn't chosen—and fell to her sides. His hand caught her wrist before it dropped, turning her palm up, his thumb pressing into the center of it like he was reading her pulse there.
The silence was the loudest thing she'd ever heard.
His hands found her shoulders—not rough, but firm, a decision made. He turned her. The counter edge bit into her hip as she rotated, and then she was facing him, chest to chest, the heat of him a wall she couldn't step back from. Her hands came up, palms flat against his chest, not pushing. Just feeling the rapid drum of his heart through the crisp cotton of his shirt.
His gray eyes were dark, the composure she'd spent all night hating cracked at the edges. His jaw was tight, a muscle jumping there. He looked at her like she was a question he was terrified to answer. Her own breath was shallow, pushing her chest against his with each quick inhale. The scar above her brow—she felt it tingle, knew he was looking at it, at her, seeing through her.
He didn't ask. His hand slid up her neck, fingers twisting into the wild curls at her nape, anchoring her. He pulled her forward. His mouth met hers—not gentle, not tentative. It was hard and hungry and tasted like the wine they'd been drinking and something darker, something that had been coiling in the silence between them all night.
Her lips parted on a gasp, and his tongue found hers, hot and demanding. The sound she made was small, foreign, neither protest nor pleasure but something caught between. Her hands fisted in his shirt, twisting the fabric, pulling him closer. The tremor that ran through him when she did—she felt it in her own chest, a vibration that traveled down through her stomach, settling low and heavy.
He lifted her. His hands found her thighs, gripping hard, and she wrapped her legs around his waist without deciding to. The cabinet door met her back, the wood cool through her flannel, and he pressed into her—the thick, insistent line of him hard against her center through the layers of denim. She bucked against him, a reflex, a plea. A throaty sound caught in his throat, a rumble she felt against her lips.
He tore his mouth from hers. His forehead pressed to hers, breath ragged and hot against her cheek. His hips pinned her against the cabinet, grinding slow, a pressure that made her thighs clench around him. "Tell me to stop." The words were cracked, desperate, ripped from somewhere deep. His hand was still in her hair, gripping. His other hand was splayed across her ass, holding her against the roll of his hips. "Mara. Tell me."
She answered by fisting her hand in his collar and pulling his mouth back to hers. A kiss that said everything she couldn't—that she was angry, that she was confused, that she wanted him so badly it terrified her. Her tongue swept into his mouth, and he groaned, the sound vibrating through her, his hips pressing harder, a rhythm building against the cabinet door.
His mouth broke from hers, trailing down her jaw, her throat, teeth scraping against the skin where her pulse hammered. She arched into him, her head falling back, the wood cool against her exposed neck. His hand found the hem of her flannel, fingers sliding beneath, the heat of his palm flat against the bare skin of her stomach. She gasped—a sharp, hungry sound—and her hips rolled against him in answer.
The fire crackled in the other room. The snow kept falling, silent and relentless. Inside the kitchen, there was only the sound of their breathing, the wet slide of his mouth on her neck, the creak of the cabinet under their weight.
She had come here to destroy him. She had come here with righteous fury and a dead brother's ghost. But now his hand was warm on her stomach, his mouth was pressed to the hollow of her throat, and the only thing she wanted to destroy was the distance between them. She tightened her legs around him, pulling him closer, and let the fall begin.