Chapter Twenty: No Stopping Now

His mouth found mine like we'd both been holding our breath for years. The kiss was rough and sure, then softer, then rough again—like neither of us could decide whether to savor or devour. I let go first, only to pull him back by the collar, smiling against his lips when he huffed a laugh that vibrated through my chest.

"Careful," he murmured, breath ghosting my skin. "You start something, Trouble—you finish it."

"I plan to," I said, and there wasn't a tremor in it.

He bracketed me with one hand on the cushion beside my hip, the other sliding up my spine with the drag of rings against thin fabric. The shiver it pulled from me made him smile—a small, wicked thing that didn't quite hide how wrecked he already sounded.

"Teller," I warned, because it felt good to pretend I had any control over this at all.

"Yeah?" His mouth was at the hinge of my jaw now, stubble like static.

"Less talking."

He obliged. The kiss deepened. The room tilted. When he lifted his head, our foreheads touched, breath tangled, his eyes searching mine like he was memorizing something he couldn't risk forgetting.

"You sure?" he asked, quiet and firm, that little leader voice he used when the choice mattered.

"I'm here," I said, palms flat to his chest, feeling the steady hammer of his heart. "I'm not running."

Something in him eased and sharpened at the same time. My fingers hooked in his shirt; his slid under the hem of mine, warm, slow, asking without words. I answered by arching to him, and the soft sound he made landed low in my stomach.

He sat back and tugged me with him; I straddled his lap because there wasn't a world where I wouldn't, hands braced to his shoulders, hair tumbling around us like a curtain. He looked up at me—blue eyes blown wide, mouth swollen—and whatever joke I had lined up dissolved under the weight of it.

"God, Rae," he said, and my name in that voice was a prayer and a promise.

I kissed him to answer. He kissed back like he'd decided not to be careful anymore.

His hands found the hem of my shirt, tugging slowly, giving me every chance to stop him. When I lifted my arms, the fabric slid up, soft against my skin before it was gone. The cool air rushed over me and his rings brushed lightly against my stomach as he tossed the shirt aside. He swore under his breath, not like he meant to say it out loud, and pressed his mouth to my shoulder as though the sight of me was too much to look at straight on.He traced the line of my back, fingers splayed, anchoring me, grounding me. Every pass of his hands wrote a new map; every small intake of breath from me told him where to go next. I found my own routes: the slope of his shoulders, the muscle under cotton, the warm hollow beneath his throat where his pulse jumped when I grazed it with my mouth.

"Trouble," he breathed, and there was nothing teasing left in it.

"You like it," I said, voice wrecked and sure.

"Yeah," he admitted, a laugh breaking on the word. "Too much."

"Good."

We shifted, the couch complaining quietly, the room narrowing to heat and breath and the soft, ridiculous sounds two people make when they finally stop pretending they don't want this. His hands framed my face like I was something he didn't mind breaking for and would still try his best not to. I slid my fingers into his hair and tugged; he swore softly, then answered with a slow trail of his mouth along my throat that made my knees go unreliable.

"Tell me if you want to slow down," he said against my skin.

"I'll tell you if I want to stop." I tipped his chin up with my thumb and kissed him again so there'd be no mistake about what I meant.

His fingers hooked into my waistband, the rasp of denim loud in the quiet room as he tugged just enough to feel the give. My pulse jumped under his hand. I shifted to help, the sound of a zipper easing down catching between us like a secret. He paused, forehead pressed to mine, eyes searching. I answered by pulling him back to me, mouth hungry and certain.

We tilted and turned until I was on my back and he was over me, braced on his forearms so I could feel his weight without being crushed by it. The years between us felt like dust we'd just blown off something we should've opened a long time ago. He kept pausing to look at me—checking, always checking—and I kept pulling him back because I didn't want the pauses anymore.

"Tell me what you need," he said, the words so gentle it made something fierce kick under my ribs.

"You," I said. "Here. Now."

He didn't smile at that. He nodded, like an order had been given and accepted.

We found a rhythm, clumsy at first, then seamless, our bodies learning each other's pace like it had been waiting to happen. Every exhale carried a new sound—his name from my lips, a low groan from his throat, the sharp catch of breath when my nails skimmed his back. The couch creaked under us, keeping time with the uneven cadence we finally gave into.

We found a cadence that made the rest of the house disappear—the half-packed boxes, the old mug, the photograph waiting for new dust. His forehead dropped to mine; I pressed a palm to his jaw, feeling the work of it, the bite of control he tried and failed to keep. We kept breaking into small, breathless laughs that crashed back into rougher sounds neither of us was trying to hide.

"Rae," he said again, raw now.

"I'm here," I promised, holding his gaze when it tried to get away. "I'm right here."

The promise did something to him. He breathed out like the last of his good intentions had finally left, then kissed me the way people kiss when there's nothing else to say that matters.

The cushions shifted beneath us, fabric bunched tight in my fists. His rings traced lines against my hip, cool metal clashing with the heat of his skin. Every movement dragged a new sound out of me, and every sound out of me pulled a harsher one from him, until it all blurred into rhythm and fire. The world outside the walls didn't exist anymore—just this, just us.

Time turned elastic, then useless. The room narrowed until it was just the taste of whiskey on his tongue and the way my name sounded when he forgot to swallow it. We moved through it together, adjusting, learning, relearning. When it crested—sharp, unstoppable—I clutched at his shoulders and he caught my wrist, lacing our fingers, holding, staying. He didn't look away. He wanted to see me. I let him.

Everything went bright and then very, very quiet.

For a long moment we simply breathed, sharing the same thin strip of air like it belonged to us. He folded down carefully, not crushing, not letting go either, his mouth brushing my temple like an apology for every second we'd wasted not doing this. I curled into him because there was nowhere else to go that made sense.

"Didn't want to screw it up," he said after a while, voice rough at the edges.

"You didn't," I said, because truth doesn't need poetry. "You won't."

His hand smoothed along my arm, slow passes that told my pulse to calm down. Outside, a late car whispered by. Inside, the record player's dust halo caught the lamp glow the way fireflies do when they forget to blink. The house, for once, felt like it had more of me in it than grief.

"Stay," I said, surprising myself with how easy it came out.

He huffed a soft laugh. "That part's easy." He pressed a kiss into my hair, then another. "The hard part's gonna be wanting to leave."

"Then don't," I said, simple as a door closing.

He went quiet again, the good kind. His fingers found mine where they'd slid to the cushion and threaded through, rings cool and familiar against my skin. We lay there listening to the small noises a settling night makes, the ones you only hear when you're not planning your next exit.

"Trouble," he murmured, like a benediction.

"What?"

His breath moved my hair. "I'm glad you came home."

I didn't trust my voice, so I showed him I'd heard: a squeeze of his hand; a smile pressed to his shoulder; the way my body didn't tense when the house shifted, because for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel the need to run.

We drifted. Not the lonely, restless kind of drift I'd done for two years, but the warm slide toward sleep you earn when your heartbeat finally matches somebody else's. Before I let go, I felt him move—just enough to pull a throw from the back of the couch over both of us, just enough to make sure I was covered, warm, kept.

"Jax?" I said, already halfway under.

"Mm?"

"There's no stopping now," I said again, softer, because it was bigger than heat—because it felt like a decision.

He made a sound that could've been a laugh or a promise. "No, there isn't."

And the night, at last, closed around us like it was on our side.