He stared at her, the playful smirk on his face slowly fading into an expression of raw, unguarded wonder.

He was used to people dissecting him. Critics, fans, managers—they all had an opinion on who Ben Wilder was, what he represented, and how much he was worth. But Cleo just stripped all of that away with a few sentences. She didn't just tolerate the dust and the sweat; she preferred it. She looked past the costume and fell in love with the guy underneath, the one who was just trying to figure it all out.

It hit him in the chest like a physical weight, but a good one. Like a weighted blanket.
"You really know how to wreck a guy's ego, don't you?" he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. He leaned in, pressing a hard, lingering kiss to her forehead. "I spend a lot of money on that costume, Cleo. But... I’m glad you saw through it. I’m glad it was you."

He let the silence stretch for a moment, just breathing her in, feeling the absolute certainty of her claim on him. I'm keeping all of it.

Then, she whispered the logistical issue.

Ben felt the rumble of laughter start deep in his chest before it even reached his throat. He looked down at her, seeing the mischief dancing in her eyes and the genuine exhaustion in her body, and a wave of dark, masculine satisfaction washed over him.

He had rendered her legs useless. He had done that.

"Is that a complaint, or a performance review?" he teased, a wicked glint entering his eyes. "Because from where I’m sitting, that sounds like a job well done. I take my work very seriously."

He didn't hesitate. He shifted his grip, securing one arm under her knees and the other around her back, keeping the knit blanket wrapped tight around her like a cocoon.
"Logistics handled," he announced.

With a grunt of effort that was mostly for show—she felt light in his arms, precious and substantial all at once—he stood up. The sudden altitude change made her cling to him tighter, her arms locked around his neck, and he loved it. He loved the dependence. He loved that she wasn't even trying to walk.

"Hold on," he instructed, turning away from the dying fire.

He carried her through the dim cabin, his boots thudding softly against the floorboards. The air was colder away from the hearth, a reminder that they were in the middle of the woods in winter, but he kept her pressed close to his body heat.

He kicked the bedroom door open with his foot, revealing the sanctuary they had claimed. The bed was a mess of unmade flannel sheets and down comforters, a glorious, inviting nest.

He walked over to the side of the bed and lowered her down slowly, treating her like something breakable, despite the fact that they both knew she was tough as nails. He settled her against the pillows, the mattress dipping under her weight.

He didn't pull away immediately. He hovered over her, his hands braced on the mattress on either side of her head, trapping her one last time.

"You stay right there," he murmured, looking down at her with a crooked, affectionate grin. "Rest the legs. You’re gonna need them tomorrow if you plan on keeping up with me."
He leaned down, stealing one last, soft kiss from her swollen lips.

"I’ll go double-check the lock on the door and dampen the fire," he promised, straightening up and running a hand through his messy hair. "Then I’m coming back to cash in on that cuddling clause. Don't go falling asleep before I get back."

Cleo wrapped her arms tighter around his neck as he scooped her up, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder to hide the absolute, dopey grin spreading across her face.

"It’s definitely a commendation," she murmured against his shirt, her voice muffled but teasing. "Five stars for the structural damage. You really committed to the role."

She let him carry her, loving the feeling of being small in his arms. When he lowered her onto the bed, she sank into the mattress, looking up at him as he hovered over her. The way he looked at her—like he’d just discovered fire—made her breath hitch.

"I’m not going anywhere," she promised, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair from his forehead. Her eyes were soft, unguarded, and shining in the dim light. "I'll be right here, waiting for the cuddle clause. Hurry back, Benjamin ."

She watched him walk to the door, her gaze tracing the broad line of his shoulders until he disappeared into the hallway.

Cleo bit her lip, but she couldn't stop the soft, high-pitched squeal that escaped her throat. She kicked her feet beneath the heavy duvet, giggling into the empty room like a teenager who had just been asked to prom by the captain of the football team. It was ridiculous. It was cliché. And she didn't care.

She raised her hand to her mouth, her fingertips tracing the swollen curve of her lips. They felt tender, sensitive. She could still taste the weed on him; she could still feel the phantom pressure of his mouth claiming hers.

With a contented sigh, she rolled onto her side, reaching out for the other pillow—his pillow. She tugged it underneath her head, angling her body so she was curled around it. She buried her nose into the cotton case and inhaled deeply.

It smelled like cedar, woodsmoke, and him.
It was intoxicating. She closed her eyes, hugging the pillow against her chest. She loved everything about this man. She loved the man who had wrecked her on the floor with his intensity, and she loved the man who had just tucked her in like she was made of precious glass. He had taken her apart and put her back together in the span of an hour.

Suddenly, the weight of it hit her. The sheer magnitude of how much she had to lose.

The thought of the scary parts—the tours, the distance, the press, the inevitable complications of dating a man the world thought they owned—prickled hot behind her eyelids. A single tear leaked out, tracking a warm line down her temple and soaking into his pillowcase. It was terrifying to love someone this much. It was terrifying to think it might not work.

She quickly wiped the tear away with the back of her hand, sniffing once.
No, she told herself firmly.

A small, brave smile touched her lips, chasing the fear away. She snuggled deeper into his scent, letting the warmth of the bed envelop her. They could figure out the complicated stuff later. They could fight the world tomorrow.

For right now, she was here. She was safe. And he was coming back.

The hallway air bit at his bare skin, a sharp, icy contrast to the steam oven of the bedroom, but Ben didn't mind. In fact, he kind of liked it. It felt sobering. It felt real.

He padded silently into the main room, his naked feet gripping the cool wood floor. He went straight to the heavy front door, twisting the deadbolt with a loud, definitive click. Then he checked the window latches. He wasn’t paranoid; he was possessive. He wanted to make sure the world outside—the snow, the wind, the noise—stayed exactly where it belonged.

He moved to the hearth, grabbing the iron poker to nudge the dying logs apart, banking the fire for the night. As the flames settled into a low, pulsing glow, his eyes drifted to the rug.
He stopped, a slow, crooked grin spreading across his face.

It was a disaster zone. The wool was rumpled and shoved askew, a testament to the absolute chaos they had just unleashed. He could almost still see the ghost of her there, pressed into the floor, screaming his name. A crime scene of the very best kind.

He ran a hand through his hair, the messy strands falling back into his eyes, and let out a short, satisfied exhale. Yeah, he thought. Structural damage confirmed.

He turned back toward the bedroom, his stride loose and easy.

When he stepped through the doorway, the sight of her stopped him cold again.

She was curled on her side, facing away from the door, her small frame swallowed by the heavy duvet. But it was what she was holding that made his chest tighten. She had bypassed her own pillow entirely and was wrapped around his, burying her nose in the cotton like it was oxygen.

She wasn't clutching a platinum record. She wasn't holding a magazine with his face on it. She was clinging to a pillowcase that smelled like his drool, his cedar shampoo, and the sweat of a man who slept too hard.

It was the most intimate thing he’d ever seen.

He moved quietly, navigating the room by the faint moonlight filtering through the window. He reached the side of the bed and lifted the edge of the duvet, sliding his naked body into the warmth she had created.

The mattress dipped, and he settled in immediately behind her, fitting his body to the curve of hers like a spoon returning to its drawer. He pressed his chest against her back, the friction of skin-on-skin sending a fresh, low-level hum of electricity through him, even though he was thoroughly spent.

He draped his arm over her waist, his heavy hand finding her stomach, pulling her flush against him.

That’s when he saw it.

In the dim light, a small, dark damp spot bloomed on the pillowcase right near her eye. A tear track.

He frowned, his heart giving a painful little kick. He knew that tear. It wasn't sadness. It was the overflow. It was the scary part of loving someone so much it felt like free-falling without a chute.

He didn't wake her to ask about it. He just tightened his hold, his chin resting on top of her head, surrounding her completely.

"I caught you," he whispered into the dark, his voice barely a breath of sound against her hair. "Sniffing my pillow. That’s bordering on obsessive behavior, babe."

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, lingering there, breathing in the scent of her.
"Don't worry," he murmured, answering the fear he knew was lingering behind that tear. "I'm back and not going anywhere else. You’re stuck with the real thing now."

He closed his eyes, his hand splayed wide and protective over her belly, letting the darkness and the silence of the cabin wash over them. For the first time in his life, the silence wasn't waiting to be filled with noise. It was already full.

The vibration of his voice against her hair pulled her up from the heavy, dreamless depth she’d fallen into. She hadn't realized she was crying until she felt the cool track of the tear drying on her cheek, contrasting sharply with the overwhelming heat radiating from him.

She didn't want to hide it. She didn't want to hide anything.

She shifted, the movement fluid and instinctual, the heavy duvet twisting around her legs as she rolled onto her back within the circle of his arms. He moved with her, shifting his weight until he was hovering over her, his broad shoulders blocking out the moonlight, caging her in against the mattress. He was a dark, solid silhouette against the pale gray of the room, and looking up at him felt like looking at the only thing that mattered in the entire world.

Her arms lifted, heavy and languid, to wind around his neck. Her fingers tangled into the hair at the nape of his neck, anchoring him there, refusing to let the distance grow even an inch.

"Call me obsessive then," she murmured, her voice thick with sleep and a raw, terrifying honesty. Her thumb brushed the pulse point below his ear. "I don't care."

She didn't wait for a rebuttal. She pulled him down, closing the small gap between them to press her lips to his. It wasn't a hungry kiss, or a desperate one—it was a seal. It was slow and deep, tasting of the woodsmoke on his skin and the quiet intimacy of the cabin. It was a thank you for coming back from the hallway.

When she finally pulled back, just enough to catch her breath, she looked up into his shadowed eyes, searching for the glint of him in the dark.

"I love you, Benjamin," she whispered, the words tumbling out with a weight that felt like it might crush her if she didn't say them. Her hands tightened in his hair, pulling him closer again. "So much. It’s... God, it’s so much."

She didn’t let him pull back to look at her, didn’t let him try to diffuse the weight of her words with a joke or a deflection. Instead, she tightened her grip in his hair, guiding his head down until her forehead pressed hard against his.

It was a grounding force. Bone against bone. A point of contact that felt steadier than the floor beneath the bed. She closed her eyes, shutting out the dim room so the only world that existed was the heat of him hovering over her and the rough, rapid cadence of his breathing mixing with hers.

She kept them pressed together, tight, as if trying to physically transfer the thoughts in her head directly into his. She needed him to feel the truth of it, the absolute certainty that scared her and thrilled her all at once.

"I mean it," she breathed into the tiny space between their lips, her eyelashes brushing against his cheekbone. "I’m not scared of the overflow. I want to drown in it."

She held him there, her forehead locked against his, refusing to break the connection, letting the heavy, solid weight of his skull against hers act as the only anchor keeping her from floating away entirely.

The silence settled around them like a second blanket, heavy and warm. The burst of adrenaline that had come with the confession—the raw, terrifying act of saying the words out loud—began to ebb, replaced by a thick, syrupy wave of exhaustion. It was the kind of tired that went down to her bones, a complete and total surrender.

She tried to keep her focus on the pressure of his forehead against hers, on the solid reality of him hovering there, but the pull of sleep was becoming impossible to resist. It tugged at her limbs, making her arms feel pleasantly heavy around his neck, her fingers relaxing their grip in his hair just a fraction.

Her lashes fluttered, fighting a losing battle against gravity. The darkness of the room started to blur together with the darkness behind her eyelids.

"Don't move," she mumbled, the words barely forming, slurring into the small space between them. She wasn't asking him to stay forever—though that was implied—she just meant for right now. She needed him to stay exactly here, hovering in this space where she ended and he began.

Her eyes drifted shut completely, sealing out the moonlight. The last thing she felt before the drift took her was the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart against her chest, a lullaby louder than the wind outside.

Cleo had been awake for hours.

Ben had been sprawled across the bed, hair everywhere, face soft in sleep like none of the world’s weight could reach him there. Peaceful in a way that felt unfair after how intense everything had been between them hours earlier. The kind of peaceful that made her chest ache.

She’d leaned down and kissed his cheek, slow and gentle, and watched him stir just slightly—just enough to remind her he was still there, still real—before she finally pulled away. It felt strange, leaving him like that, so open and unguarded, when the night before had been anything but soft.

The cabin was still dark when she finally gave up on sleep—just a faint blue edge of morning beginning to bleed through the frost on the windows. She padded across the wooden floor barefoot, wrapped herself in the thick knit blanket from the couch, and carried her paints to the window like it was instinct instead of intention.

She was still naked underneath it, skin warm from the bed and the night before, the blanket slipping low on her shoulders as she settled onto the floor with her back against the wall. There was something grounding about it—being bare, unhidden, but alone. No audience. No expectations. Just her and the quiet.

It hadn’t been tender at first. It had been messy. Urgent. Two people crashing back into each other after too much time apart. But afterward… that’s what stayed with her now.

The way he’d slowed everything down.
The way his hands had changed.
The way he’d held her like he was trying to put her back together piece by piece.

She could still feel it in her body—how quickly he’d shifted from fire to care, from want to protection. Like he’d scared himself for a second. Like he’d hated the idea of being anything but safe with her. There was something beautiful in how fast he’d caught it.

He’d stayed close.
Touched her like she was fragile.
Made sure she was okay before he even let himself breathe again.

That part sat heavy in her chest now.

Outside, snow blanketed everything. Pines stood tall and dark against the pale sky, their branches heavy, untouched. The world looked paused. Like it was holding its breath. And judging by how far the light had climbed since she first sat down, she’d been here longer than she realized.

Her canvas was already half-finished.

Soft blues layered into gray. White dragged thin across the surface for the way the snow looked when the light finally hit it. She’d started with the trees, because they felt steady. Because she wanted something solid to look at when her thoughts wouldn’t sit still.

Her brush moved slow, careful. She wasn’t rushing. She didn’t want to finish it yet.

Sleep hadn’t come because her brain wouldn’t stop replaying everything—his laugh in the store, the way their hands fit together, the way quiet didn’t feel empty anymore. Anxiety and happiness tangled so tightly she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. It felt like standing at the edge of something beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

She kept painting because it helped her breathe.

The window was cold against her shoulder when she leaned closer, studying the way the light filtered through the trees. She added another soft stroke, then another, chasing the exact shade of morning.

She wasn’t sad.

She wasn’t scared.

She was just… awake.

Wide open to it all.

Wrapped in a blanket. Surrounded by snow. Painting the proof of how long she’d been sitting there, letting the quiet hold her while her heart ran circles around the future.

Consciousness returned to him like a bad fade-in on an old cassette tape—warped, slow, and heavy with static.

Ben groaned, the sound vibrating in his chest, and threw a heavy arm across the mattress, expecting to hit the warm, solid curve of Cleo’s waist. He was ready to pull her back into him, to bury his face in her hair and refuse to acknowledge that the sun existed.

His hand hit cold, flat cotton.

His eyes snapped open.

For a terrifying, heart-stopping second, he didn't know where he was. The wood beams on the ceiling were unfamiliar. The silence was too loud. The smell of cedar and stale woodsmoke wasn't the sterile, air-conditioned scent of a tour bus or the generic floral cleaner of a hotel room.

He sat up, the duvet pooling at his waist, his hair a chaotic, gravity-defying mess sticking up in every direction. He blinked rapidly against the harsh winter light streaming through the uncurtained window, his heart hammering a frantic, double-time rhythm against his ribs.

Empty.

The other side of the bed was made—or rather, the pillow was untouched, the sheets cool.
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through his veins, instantly vaporizing the sleep fog. For a irrational, sickening moment, his brain supplied the worst possible narrative: It was a dream. You’re still on the road. You’re in Omaha, or maybe Detroit, and you dreamt her up because you’re lonely and losing your mind.

"Cleo?"

His voice came out wrecked, a panicked croak that scraped against his dry throat.
He scrambled out of bed, not bothering with clothes. He stumbled into the hallway, his bare feet slapping against the cold floorboards, his breath hitching in his chest. The cabin felt too big. Too quiet. If she had left—if the intensity of last night had scared her off, or if she had decided the "mess" wasn't worth the contract—he was going to burn the place down. He couldn't handle the silence without her anymore.

He rounded the corner into the main living space, his heart in his throat, ready to tear the front door open and run into the snow.

And then he stopped.

The air left his lungs in a long, shuddering exhale, his shoulders dropping two inches as the world tilted back onto its axis.

She was there.

She was sitting on the floor by the massive picture window, bathed in a pool of pale, winter-morning light that made her look like a hallucination. She was wrapped in the chunky knit blanket from the couch, the one they’d huddled under last night, but it had slipped low, exposing the smooth curve of one shoulder and the delicate line of her neck.

She was painting.

Ben leaned against the doorframe, his pulse slowing from a gallop to a steady, heavy thud. He didn't say anything. He couldn't. He just watched her.

There was paint on her fingers—smudges of titanium white and cerulean blue. Her focus was absolute, her hand moving with a gentle, rhythmic grace across the canvas propped against her knees. She looked ethereal, like something sacred he had stumbled upon in the woods.

But it was the contrast that wrecked him.

Hours ago, he had pinned that body to the floor. He had marked that skin, wrung cries from that throat, and driven her to a place of pure, unadulterated chaos. He had been a storm, and she had been the landscape he battered.

Now? Now she was the picture of stillness.

She was creating something beautiful out of the silence he usually feared.

He ran a hand through his hair, pushing the wild curls out of his eyes, and felt a surge of affection so strong it almost knocked him over. This was it. This was the thing he missed when he was standing in front of fifty thousand people. Not the noise. Not the applause. This. The quiet moments in between, where she sat on the floor with paint on her hands and looked like the only thing in the universe that made sense.

He moved then, crossing the room with silent, predatory steps. He didn't want to startle her, but he needed to touch her. He needed to verify, physically, that she wasn't going to dissolve into smoke.

He came up behind her and sank to his knees on the hard floor.

He didn't speak. He just wrapped his arms around her from behind, locking his hands over her stomach, pulling her back until her spine was pressed flush against his bare chest. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply.

She smelled like oil paint, sleep, and her.

"You scared the hell out of me," he mumbled into her skin, his voice thick with sleep and lingering relief. He pressed a kiss to the bare curve of her shoulder, his stubble grazing her skin. "Woke up and the bed was cold. Thought I hallucinated you."

He tightened his hold, anchoring her, looking over her shoulder at the canvas where soft blues and grays were taking the shape of the snowy trees outside.

"Morning, Van Gogh," he whispered, resting his chin on her shoulder, his eyes half-lidded and adoring. "You realize it's illegal to look this good before coffee, right? I'm pretty sure that violates the contract."

Cleo startled just a little when his arms came around her—not from fear, but from surprise—her brush pausing mid-stroke as she felt his warmth press into her back. The blanket slipped lower on her shoulder, and she let it, instinctively leaning into him, the solid comfort of his chest grounding her in a way nothing else quite did.

She let out a soft laugh when he spoke, breath puffing against the window glass. His voice still sounded sleep-thick, rough around the edges in that way she loved most. She tilted her head back against his collarbone, eyes closing for a second as she soaked in him—his warmth, his scent, the weight of his arms like an anchor.

“Morning, rockstar,” she murmured, smiling into his shoulder.

Her free hand came up to rest over his forearm, fingers absentmindedly tracing the faint lines of his veins. She could feel his heart there, steady now, no longer panicked. It made something warm unfurl in her chest.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said gently. “You looked so peaceful… I didn’t have the heart to wake you. Thought I’d let you have one quiet morning without the world yelling your name.”

She glanced back at him, eyes soft, then gestured toward the canvas with her brush. “My brain wouldn’t shut up, so… this is how I cope.” A small, almost sheepish smile. “Sunrise therapy.”

She shifted slightly so he could see the painting better—snow-dusted trees, pale light creeping in, everything calm and untouched. “I’ve been at it a while. Lost track of time.”

His kiss on her shoulder made her shiver, not from cold. She tucked her chin briefly, laughing under her breath. “And hey—don’t act like you don’t look unfairly good right now. Hair everywhere, zero shame. Very on brand.”

Cleo settled more fully back against him, adjusting just enough so her spine fit comfortably to his chest, the blanket bunching at her waist. She set the brush down carefully on the edge of the easel, not wanting to rush the moment, not wanting to break whatever quiet spell had wrapped around them.

Her hand slid over his forearm again, slow and grounding, thumb tracing a lazy line like she was reassuring herself he was really here.

She tilted her head slightly, cheek brushing his collarbone, voice soft and unguarded.

“How’d you sleep?”

He felt the tension finally drain out of his shoulders as she leaned back, her weight settling against his chest like she belonged there. The cold floor was biting into his knees, and the draft from the window was definitely illegal in several states, but with her warm skin pressed against his bare chest and her hair tickling his nose, he couldn't bring himself to care.

He watched her hand trace the veins in his forearm, the smudge of cerulean blue on her thumb moving in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. It was grounding. It was real.

"Sunrise therapy," he repeated, his voice a low rumble against the shell of her ear. He looked at the canvas—really looked at it. It was quiet. It was cold. It was exactly what the world looked like outside, but filtered through the way she saw things: softer, brighter, more hopeful.

"It’s beautiful, babe," he murmured, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. "You realize that, right? You see things better than anyone else does."

He huffed a soft laugh when she teased him about his hair, rubbing his cheek against hers to intentionally scratch her with his morning stubble.

"Hey, the hair is a calculated aesthetic," he drawled, the vibration of his humor running through them both. "It takes hours to look this accidentally disastrous. You should be honored to witness the process."

But when she asked how he slept, his smile faded just a fraction, replaced by something heavier, something more honest.

He tightened his arms around her waist, his hands splaying flat over her stomach—right where he had kept them all night until she slipped away.

"I slept like the dead," he admitted, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "Best sleep I’ve had in months. Maybe years. No noise, no itinerary. Just you."

He paused, resting his chin on her shoulder again, his eyes drifting half-shut as he watched the dust motes dancing in the shaft of sunlight.

"But the waking up part? Zero stars," he murmured, echoing her joke from the night before. "Waking up alone in a cold bed after... that?"

He kissed her shoulder again, lingering there, his lips brushing the strap of the blanket.
"Don't do that again," he said, and though his tone was light, the underlying request was serious. "I don't need the quiet, Cleo. I get enough quiet in hotel rooms. Next time your brain won't shut up, you wake me. I make excellent distraction material."

He shifted his legs, sliding one knee forward so he could pull her even closer, effectively trapping her between his body and the view she was painting.

"Besides," he added, a wicked, sleepy glint entering his voice. "I have a donut run to make. And I’m gonna need some serious motivation to put pants on and face that snow."

The silence in the room seemed to deepen after his request, heavy with the dust motes and the winter light. Cleo leaned her head back against his shoulder, letting his warmth seep into the chill that had settled in her bones while she painted. She listened to the rumble of his voice, but she shook her head slightly against his chest.

"I didn't wake you because I didn't want to talk, Ben," she admitted softly, her voice barely rising above a whisper. She kept her gaze fixed on the smudge of blue paint on her thumb, tracing the ridges of her own skin. "When my brain gets like that... loud and messy... words just make it worse. Especially when the noise is about you. About us."

She turned her hand over, staring at her empty palm as if the solution might be written there.

"It's the question mark," she said, her honesty raw. "The future hanging over us. Last night... this last month... it’s been the happiest I’ve been in a long time. So happy that at 4:00 AM, I almost wanted to throw in the towel. I almost convinced myself to wake you and tell you, that when you leave again next week on the tour bus, I wanted to be with you. Just get on the bus with you. Go back on tour. Like before."

She let out a shaky breath, wishing she had an answer, an easier answer than the impossible choice between her stability and her heart. She turned her face into the crook of his neck, her hand coming up to cup his jaw. Her thumb brushed over the rough terrain of his morning shadow.

"I like the stubble, though," she murmured, a small, teasing smile finally breaking through her melancholy. "It scratches, but... it just turns me on."

When he mentioned the donut run, her eyebrows shot up, and the hazy, romantic fog cleared instantly. Reality crashed back in.

"Donuts," she repeated, her tone turning dry. "And Plan B."
She felt him tense slightly as the realization hit him, too. It hadn't gone unnoticed that in the heat of the moment, surrounded by the quiet and the dark, they had completely forgotten to be careful.

But then his voice dropped, asking for motivation, and the dynamic shifted again. The worry about the pills and the future could wait five minutes.

"Motivation, huh?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow.
She pulled away from his chest, shifting her weight. With a fluid, deliberate movement, she rose onto her knees and turned to face him fully. The heavy blanket she had been clutching lost its purchase and pooled around her hips before sliding completely to the floor. The cold air hit her skin, but she didn't flinch; she was bare from the waist up, her breasts just inches from his face, offering him a view far better than the snowy window.

She leaned in, capturing his lips in a slow, deep kiss that tasted of morning and intent. She didn't linger there long. She trailed her mouth down his jawline, over the strong column of his throat, and down the center of his chest, her hair creating a curtain around them.

Her hands smoothed over his ribs and down his stomach. She moved lower, her lips grazing his skin until she was face-to-face with his arousal. She touched his bare cock softly, her finger tracing around the head with a delicate, maddening slowness.

She looked up at him through her lashes, her eyes dark.
"I can give you the motivation," she whispered, her breath hot against him. "And I can also show you where your cum is supposed to go when you're not protected."

Her confession about the tour bus hit him like a physical blow to the chest.
I wanted to be with you. Just get on the bus with you.

For a split second, the air left the room. His heart hammered a violent rhythm against his ribs, and the impulse to grab her shoulders and say “Yes. Do it. Pack a bag right now” was so strong it nearly choked him. The idea of her in his bunk, her painting in the back lounge while the world rushed by outside the window—it was the dream he didn't let himself dwell on because he knew how much she loved her life here. He knew how hard she worked for her stability.

He opened his mouth to tell her that, to tell her he would give anything to have her on that bus, but then the blanket pooled.

The words died in his throat.

The shift was instantaneous. One second they were having a heavy, heart-wringing conversation about their future, and the next, she was on her knees, bare-chested in the winter sunlight, looking like a goddess of chaos.

"Jesus," he breathed, the word punching out of him as his eyes dragged over the sudden expanse of creamy skin, the soft curve of her breasts, and the curtain of her hair falling forward.

His brain short-circuited. The whiplash was severe. He went from wanting to comfort her to wanting to ruin her in the span of a heartbeat.

He watched, paralyzed, as she kissed her way down his chest. Her mouth was hot, wet, and deliberate. When her hands found the waistband of his boxers, his hips bucked involuntarily, a reflex he couldn't control.

Then she said it.

I can also show you where your cum is supposed to go.

The sheer, filthy practicality of it—combined with the sight of her looking up at him through her lashes, her hand already wrapped around him—snapped the last of his restraint.

He let out a low, ragged groan, his head falling back against the wall behind him. His hands, which had been hovering uncertainly, flew to her hair. He threaded his fingers deep into the strands, gripping her scalp not to pull, but to anchor himself.

"Yeah?" he choked out, his voice a wrecked, guttural growl. "You think that's the solution, do you? Because that sounds like a very... very convincing argument."

He looked down at her, his eyes dark and blown wide with need. The "Plan B" panic was still there in the back of his mind, but this? This was the loophole. This was safe. And god, it was the hottest thing he had ever heard.

"Show me," he commanded, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. He tightened his grip in her hair, guiding her the last inch. "Show me exactly where you want it, baby. Be a good girl and take care of this for me."

He watched her mouth open, watched her tongue come out to taste him, and for a second, he forgot about the snow, the donuts, and the tour bus. The only thing that existed was the wet heat of her mouth and the absolute, devastating fact that he was never, ever going to get enough of her.

The command in his voice, that rough, wrecked growl, sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the drafty window. When his fingers threaded into her hair, anchoring her, Cleo didn't pull away; she leaned into the grip, surrendering to the sudden shift in gravity between them. The heavy conversation about the future dissolved, replaced by the immediate, thrumming reality of his skin against hers.

"I can be your good girl," she purred against his skin, the vibration of her voice humming against his erection.

She didn't rush. Despite the urgency in his hips, she took her time, treating this with the same meticulous attention she gave her canvas. She hovered just millimeters away, letting her breath ghost over the sensitive skin before she finally made contact. Extending the very tip of her tongue, she found the prominent vein running along the underside of his shaft. She traced the length of it slowly, a feather-light, wet stroke that dragged from the base up toward the ridge, savoring the way he twitched in response.

Her hand wrapped around him, her grip firm but gentle, shielding the sensitive head as she swiped her tongue in a languid, deliberate circle around the very end. She tasted the salt and the pre-cum, glazing him slowly as her hand began a rhythmic, velvet stroke up and down the length of him.

Sensing the angle wasn't quite right for what she wanted to do next, she pulled back just an inch, her eyes heavy-lidded and dark as she looked up at him.
"Lean back a little more," she whispered, her voice husky. She tapped his thigh lightly. "And lift your hips... yeah, buck out for me. Just like that."

She waited until he adjusted, watching him slide down the wall slightly and arch his pelvis forward, offering himself up to her completely. Satisfied, she moved her free hand underneath him. She cupped his balls, the weight of them heavy and warm in her palm. She was careful not to squeeze, simply holding them, letting her fingers roll them gently within her grasp to ground him.

With him positioned perfectly, she locked eyes with him one last time, letting him see the intent in her gaze. Then, she lowered her head. She parted her lips and slid down, taking the head of his penis into the wet heat of her mouth, her cheeks hollowing slightly as she sealed her lips around him, silencing the room with the wet, intimate sound of her devotion.

She worshipped him with a devout, agonizing slowness, making good on her promise to be his distraction. She didn't just use her mouth; she used everything—the suction of her cheeks, the swirl of her tongue, the tight, wet heat of her throat as she bobbed her head in a steady, maddening rhythm.

She kept her eyes open, looking up at him through her lashes, watching his face contort with pleasure as she worked. She loved the power shift, the way this strong, composed man who held her together was now unraveling completely at her mercy. She hummed against his skin, the vibration traveling straight down his shaft, enjoying the way his hips jerked and his hands tightened painfully in her hair.

She pulled back just enough to take a breath, the cold air hitting her wet lips, before she decided she wanted more. She wanted all of him.

She relaxed her jaw, opening her throat as she let go of the control she’d been holding onto. With a sudden, fluid determination, she slid down the length of him. She didn't stop at the head this time. She pushed forward, forcing him past her tongue, past her soft palate, taking him deep until her nose brushed against the coarse hair at the base of his stomach.

She gagged slightly, a reflexive, wet sound that vibrated against him, but she didn't pull back. Instead, she held him there, her throat clamping tight around his thickness, engulfing him completely. She squeezed his balls gently with one hand while the other stroked the very base of his shaft, keeping him buried deep inside her warmth, letting him feel the absolute, suffocating pleasure of being completely taken.

She kept him there for a long, breath-stealing moment, letting the sheer size of him stretch her throat until her eyes watered. It was an overwhelming fullness, a complete invasion that she welcomed, letting the reflex of her throat squeeze around him in tight, rhythmic spasms that she knew felt incredible.

When she finally pulled back, she didn't let go of the suction. She dragged her lips slowly up the length of his shaft, creating a vacuum so tight it hollowed her cheeks. The sound was wet and obscene in the quiet room—a slick, slurping noise that seemed to amplify the harsh rasp of his breathing.

She didn't give him a second to recover. Just as the head popped past her lips, leaving him glistening and exposed to the cool air for a fraction of a second, she dove back down.

This time, she established a rhythm—brutal and beautiful. She bobbed her head with a dedicated fervor, her hair messy and wild around her face, moving back and forth like a curtain with every thrust. She took him deep, pulled back, and slammed down again, her nose burying into his pubic hair every time she bottomed out on him.

She used her hand in tandem with her mouth, twisting her grip at the base to work the skin he loved, milking him while her throat took the rest. She could feel his hips snapping forward to meet her, his control shattering as his fingers tightened bruisingly in her hair, but she didn't stop. She swallowed him whole, over and over, determined to drain every drop of tension out of his body and replace it with this.

His head fell back against the wall with a dull thud, his eyes rolling back in his head as the first wet, hot slide of her tongue hit the vein on the underside of his cock.
He was a dead man. He knew it instantly.

The visual alone was enough to end him—Cleo, his brilliant, stubborn artist, on her knees in a pool of winter sunlight, her hair a wild curtain around her face, treating him like he was the only thing that mattered in the world. But the feeling… the feeling was dismantling his nervous system wire by wire.

"Fuck," he hissed, the word fracturing on a sharp intake of breath as she obeyed his body’s involuntary twitch, her hand soothing him while her mouth tormented him.

He did exactly what she asked. He slid down the wall, his legs spreading wider, his hips bucking forward to meet her. It was instinct. It was surrender. When she cupped him, holding the weight of him in her palm, he felt a guttural groan tear out of his chest.

Then she took him.

The sensation of her hot, wet mouth sealing around the head was electric, but when she relaxed her throat and swallowed him whole, Ben’s vision actually whited out for a second.
The shock of the depth—the feeling of sliding past her tongue, past her soft palate, and burying himself in the tight, convulsing heat of her throat—made his entire body jerk. His hands, which had been gripping her scalp, tightened instinctively, his fingers tangling violently in the thick strands of her hair.

She’s taking all of it.

The realization roared through his blood, hotter than the fire they’d built last night. He could feel the vibration of her gag reflex against the head of his cock, a tight, fluttering squeeze that felt so good it bordered on pain.

"Jesus Christ, Cleo," he choked out, his voice a jagged, unrecognizable ruin. "You're—fuck, you're so deep."

He looked down, forcing his eyes open through the haze of pleasure because he needed to see this. He needed the image burned into his brain forever. The sight of her nose buried in his hair, her cheeks hollowed, her eyes watering but locked on his… it was the most obscene, beautiful thing he had ever seen.

When she began to move, pulling back only to slam down on him again, creating that wet, suctioned vacuum, Ben lost the ability to stand still.

He couldn't just let her do the work. The primitive need to claim that mouth took over.
He kept his hands fisted in her hair, using the grip to guide her, to anchor her. He began to snap his hips forward, meeting her rhythm, fucking into the wet heat of her mouth with a desperate, jerky cadence.

"That's it," he growled, looking down at her with a dark, possessive fervor. "Take it. Be a greedy girl for me. Show me you can handle the mess."

The sound of it—the wet, slurping noise of her loving him, the soft gag when he hit bottom, the slap of his skin against her lips—filled the quiet cabin. It drowned out the wind. It drowned out his panic.

She was right. He wasn't thinking about the tour bus. He wasn't thinking about the future. He was only thinking about how tight her throat was, and how badly he wanted to flood it.

"Don't stop," he warned, his voice straining, his legs shaking as the pressure built to a terrifying peak. "Don't you dare stop. You said you wanted to show me? Then show me."

The praise was a drug, breathless and rough, and Cleo drank it down just as eagerly as she took him. Hearing Ben—usually so composed, so charmingly articulate—reduced to jagged curses and guttural demands ignited a fierce sense of power in her chest. She had done this. She was unraveling him.

His fingers were tangled tight in her hair, a heavy, grounding weight that steered her, and she leaned into the command. She wanted him to use her. She wanted to be the only thing in his world that made sense.

When he hissed for her to be greedy, she didn't hesitate. She relaxed her jaw, ignoring the ache in the hinges, and dragged her lips all the way down the length of him. It was a tight, overwhelming fullness that stretched her to her limit. She forced her throat open, swallowing him down until her nose brushed against his pelvis, her body convulsing in a sharp, wet gag that clamped around him like a fist. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision, but she didn't pull back. Instead, she hummed against the intrusion, letting the vibration shudder through both of them.

She felt his hips snap forward, fucking into her face with that desperate, jerky cadence, and she met him halfway. She began to move faster, creating a maddening suction as she swirled her tongue around the sensitive ridge of the head before sliding down to engulf him again.

While one hand stayed wrapped around the base of him, keeping him steady, her other hand wandered. She needed to feel the havoc she was wreaking on the rest of him. Her palm slid up over the rigid, sweating planes of his abs, tracing the line of hair until she splayed her fingers wide over his chest.

His heart was hammering against her palm—a frantic, erratic bird trying to beat its way out of a cage. The feeling of that wild, thundering pulse egged her on more than his words ever could. It was the physical proof that he was on the edge, that he was losing the battle for control.

"I’ve got you," she thought, the words lost in the wet, slurping sound of her mouth working him.

She bobbed her head faster, the rhythm sloppy and eager. Every time she bottomed out, taking him deep enough to trigger that reflex, her throat squeezed him in a spasm that made his thighs tremble against her shoulders. She choked around him, a guttural, wet sound, but she kept going, driven by the way his back arched against the wall and the way his grip in her hair tightened to the point of pain. She wanted to ruin him. She wanted to take everything he had to give.

The friction was blinding.

Every time she bobbed her head, dragging that wet, hot suction down the length of him, Ben felt another wire in his brain snap. The sensation of her throat—tight, slick, and convulsing around him—was dismantling him cell by cell. He was dangerously close to the edge, his hips betraying him as they snapped forward to meet her rhythm, chasing the release that was coiling, white-hot and painful, in his groin.

He could feel the vibration of her humming against his skin, a sonic plea that traveled straight to his marrow. It would be so easy to just let go. To tangle his fingers in her hair, hold her there, and pour himself down her throat like she was begging him to.

But as he looked down at her—at the chaotic curtain of her hair, the hollow of her cheek, the absolute devotion in her movement—something darker than simple lust clawed its way up his chest.

It wasn't enough.

He didn't just want to be serviced. He didn't want to just finish and be done. He wanted to consume her. He wanted to wreck her just as thoroughly as she was wrecking him. He wanted to taste his own release on her tongue, but he wanted to taste her more.
"Fuck," he gritted out, the word tearing through his clenched teeth.

With a growl that rumbled deep in his chest, Ben tightened his fist in her hair. He didn't use the grip to anchor her this time; he used it to take control.

"Stop," he commanded, his voice a jagged ruin.

He yanked her back—not gently, but with a firm, undeniable authority. The sound of the disconnect was obscene, a wet, suctioned pop that echoed loudly in the quiet cabin as he dragged himself from the tight, wet heat of her mouth.

Cleo let out a small, protest noise, a whimper of confusion, but Ben didn't let up. He kept his fist wound in her hair, keeping her head tipped back, exposing her face to the unforgiving winter light.

He needed to see this.

She looked devastated in the most beautiful way possible. Her lips were swollen, cherry-red and slick with his saliva. Her eyes were glazed, heavy-lidded and blown wide with a hazy, drugged lust. A single, thin strand of spit connected her bottom lip to her chin, a shimmering testament to how deep she’d taken him.

The sight of her, on her knees and marked by him, sent a fresh wave of adrenaline crashing through his system that nearly buckled his legs.

"Jesus, look at you," he rasped, his chest heaving as he stared down at her with a dark, predatory hunger.

He reached down with his free hand, his thumb pressing hard against her wet lower lip. He swiped roughly, smearing the moisture, pressing into the plush flesh until she gasped.

"You think you’re done?" he whispered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low-frequency vibration. "You think you get to just kneel there and look pretty while I lose my damn mind?"
He didn't give her a second to answer. The primitive need to taste her, to bury his face in her heat and drown there, overtook him completely.

He released her hair and immediately grabbed her by the hips, his fingers digging into her soft skin.
"Nuh-uh, baby," he growled, his eyes flashing. "My turn."

He moved with a sudden, fluid power that brooked no argument. He didn't care about the painting, the easel, or the expensive knit blanket; he kicked the fabric aside with his foot as he pressed her backward.

"Down," he ordered, following her as she sank to the floorboards.

He loomed over her, blotting out the sun, his body a heavy, heat-radiating presence. He didn't wait for her to settle. He caught her legs, hooking his hands firmly under her knees and spreading them wide apart, forcing her open to him.

He settled heavily between her thighs, the muscles in his arms cording as he braced himself on the floor on either side of her hips. He lowered his head until his nose brushed against hers, letting her feel the harsh, ragged cadence of his breathing.

"You wanted to start this?" he murmured against her mouth, his voice dripping with a filthy, possessive promise. "Then you better be ready to finish it. Because I’m not stopping until I taste every single inch of you."

The sudden absence of him left her mouth feeling shockingly empty and cold, the cool cabin air hitting her wet lips and cheeks. She was dazed, her head swimming from the lack of oxygen and the sheer intensity of the last few minutes. When he wiped her lip with his thumb, pressing into the swollen flesh, a shiver rattled through her that had nothing to do with the winter draft.

She didn't fight him as he pressed her backward. She felt boneless, her limbs heavy and pliable under his hands. As her back hit the floorboards, she looked up at him—he was a silhouette against the window now, blocking out the sun, nothing but broad shoulders and tension.

When he hooked her knees and spread her wide, she let her legs fall open, abandoning all modesty. She was completely exposed to him, panting softly, her chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.

She reached up, her hands resting tentatively on his biceps, feeling the iron-hard tension in his arms as he hovered over her.

"I wasn't..." she whispered, her voice breathless and threading with honesty as she stared up into his dark eyes. "I wasn't looking for a trade, Ben. I didn't do it to get something back."

She licked her lips, tasting the salt and the lingering taste of him, her gaze dropping to his mouth before flickering back up to his eyes.

"I just wanted to make you feel good," she confessed, her voice dropping to a hush. "I just wanted to taste you. That was enough."

Her fingers tightened on his arms, her hips shifting slightly against the floorboards as the heat of his body radiated over her sensitive skin.

"But..." She let out a shaky exhale, her eyes fluttering half-shut as she surrendered to the look on his face. "If you're willing... if you want to... I'll take it. God, I'll take anything you give me."

Her words—soft, honest, and utterly selfless—were the final nail in the coffin of his restraint.

I didn't do it to get something back.

It hit him in the chest, a sweet, heavy ache that instantly soured into a dark, ravenous hunger. She was so willing to give everything and ask for nothing, and that just made him want to force everything on her. He didn't want her to just "take" it; he wanted her to drown in it.

"Too bad, baby," he growled, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. "Because you're getting it anyway. You don't get to be this wet and expect me to walk away."

He didn't waste another second. He dragged his hands down her sides, his palms rough against her soft skin, until he gripped her thighs. He shoved her legs further apart, widening her stance until she was completely open to him, a banquet laid out in the winter sun.

He lowered his head, not to her center yet, but to the soft, pale skin of her inner thigh. He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss there, biting lightly, inhaling the scent of her—musk, arousal, and the faint, lingering oil paint. It was intoxicating.

"Fuck, you smell good," he murmured into her skin, his breath hot and damp.
He moved inward, his nose brushing against her curls, until he was face-to-face with her heat. She was glistening, swollen, and unmistakably ready for him. The sight of her pink, slick flesh waiting for him made his mouth water.

He didn't tease. He didn't start slow.

He buried his face in her pussy with a guttural groan, his tongue sweeping out in a long, broad stroke from bottom to top. He tasted her instantly—salt and sweet and unmistakably her.

She tasted like home. She tasted like trouble.

"Mmm," he hummed against her, the vibration buzzing directly against her sensitive flesh.
He latched onto her clit, sucking it into his mouth with a greedy, rhythmic suction that matched the way she had just treated him. He worked her with his tongue, flicking hard and fast, determined to make her hips buck off the floor. He wanted to hear the wet, sloppy sounds of his own hunger echoing in the room.

He felt her thighs tremble against his ears, felt her hands finding his hair again, and it fueled him.

He slid one hand down, his fingers slick with her juices, and pushed two fingers deep inside her. She was tight, hot, and clamped down around him instantly.
"So wet," he mumbled against her clit, not stopping the relentless flick of his tongue. "You taste so fucking good, babe. Like sugar and sin."

He began to pump his fingers in a curling, "come-hither" motion, hitting her g-spot with brutal precision while his mouth continued its assault on her clit. He was eating her like a starving man, slurping and licking, catching every drop she gave him. He wanted to drink her. He wanted to stain his chin with her.

He pulled his face back just an inch, a string of saliva and slick connecting his lips to her folds, his eyes wild and dark as he looked up at her over her own mound.

"Open up," he commanded, his voice thick and filthy. "Wider. I want to get all the way in there."

He dove back down, burying his nose deep, his tongue fucking into her as he groaned, losing himself completely in the taste of the woman who owned him.

The shock of his mouth claiming her drew a sharp, shattered cry from her throat, her head falling back against the floor as her hips instinctively bucked up to meet his hunger.

Her fingers instantly found the crown of his head, weaving through the thick strands to find purchase against his scalp. She needed an anchor, something to hold onto as he began to dismantle her, and he was the only solid thing in a world that was suddenly spinning out of control. With every heavy, sweeping lick of his tongue, her nails dug in, scratching dragging lines against his skin, a sharp counterpoint to the wet heat he was lavishing on her.

"Ben," she choked out, her voice barely recognizable to her own ears.

It was different than the fever pitch of last night. Yes, he was still ravenous, his beard still burned pleasantly against her thighs, and his fingers were still curling inside her with possessive, brutal intent—but beneath the growls and the filth, there was a worshipful adoration today. Last night felt like he needed to survive her; today felt like he wanted to live inside her. It was a softer, deeper kind of devastation.

When he looked up, eyes wild and demanding she open wider, she didn't hesitate. She couldn't have denied him if she tried. She spread her legs further, her heels digging into the floorboards, offering him everything she had.

"Please," she whimpered, her nails flexing and contracting in his hair, scratching rhythmically as he dove back in. "Don't stop... God, Ben, don't stop."

The sensation was a tidal wave, drowning out every thought in her head until only the feeling of him remained. The relentless, curling motion of his fingers inside her, hitting that sweet spot with punishing accuracy, combined with the broad, starving strokes of his tongue was too much, and yet, nowhere near enough.

Her whimpers spilled out in a broken, steady stream, a helpless soundtrack to his feast. "Mmn... oh, god... Ben..."

She couldn't stay still. Her hips rolled instinctively, trying to grind down against his mouth, chasing the pressure, needing to be closer than physically possible. Her fingers tightened in his hair, nails scraping against his scalp as she pulled him harder against her, silently begging him to devour her whole. Every time he sucked hard against her clit, a sharp, high-pitched noise tore from her throat, her head tossing restlessly against the floorboards.

"It feels... so much," she breathed, her voice cracking, trembling just like her thighs. She was completely at his mercy, unraveling with every lap of his tongue, her entire body arching like a bow string pulled tight.

Her head thrashed from side to side, her hair fanning out like a dark halo on the floorboards as the pleasure mounted, becoming sharp, bright, and almost unbearable.

"I love it," she moaned, the words ragged and breathless, falling from her lips in a chaotic tumble. "God, Benjiman, I love the way you taste me... I love how hungry you are for me."

She dragged her nails down his scalp, shuddering violently as his fingers curled deeper, stretching her, claiming her. She was sobbing with the intensity of it, completely undone by the wet, hot friction of his mouth.

"I love it... I love you," she cried out, her voice breaking as her hips ground down hard against his face. "Don't stop, baby, please... I love feeling you everywhere."

The sound of his full name falling from her lips, broken and desperate, snapped something vital in Ben’s chest. Benjiman. She only used it when she was completely unraveled, when the walls were down and she was stripping him to his core.

The sting of her nails dragging against his scalp was a sharp, grounding pain that only fueled the fire in his blood. He didn't want gentle. He wanted this—Cleo, wild and vocal, writhing on the floorboards, begging him not to stop.

"I’m not stopping," he growled against the wet heat of her center, the vibration of his voice humming directly against her sensitive skin. "I’m never stopping."

He needed to taste her more deeply. He needed to consume the very reaction he had wrung out of her.

Slowly, deliberately, he withdrew his fingers. The friction of the exit drew a long, shaky whine from her, but he didn't leave her empty for even a second. Before the air could cool her skin, he sealed his mouth over her, his tongue diving in to replace his fingers with a broad, flat stroke that mimicked the thrust she was craving.

He lifted his hand, his eyes dark and blown wide as he looked at his own fingers. They were glistening, coated in the slick, heavy proof of her desire. The sight alone nearly sent him over the edge.

He didn't wipe it away. He wanted to be covered in her.

With a rough, needy noise, Ben reached down and wrapped that same hand around his own hardening length. The sensation of her slickness against his skin was electric—hot, velvety, and maddeningly perfect. It was the most intimate lubrication he could imagine, a physical manifestation of her want wrapping around him.

He began to stroke himself, his grip tight, his rhythm matching the frantic, hungry pace of his tongue.

"Fuck, baby..." he murmured against her, the words lost in the wet sounds of his worship.
He wasn't done with her yet. His other hand moved up, thumb and forefinger finding the swollen pearl of her clitoris. He didn't tease. He dominated it. He circled and pressed with a firm, relentless pressure, trapping her between the invasion of his tongue and the external torment of his hand.

He heard her cry out, heard the way her breath hitched into those jagged, sobbing moans that were his favorite song in the world. She was saying she loved him, saying she loved his hunger, and every word was like gasoline.

He licked deeper, tasting his own work, his tongue swirling and stabbing while his hand worked faster on his own cock. He was jerking off to the taste of her, to the sound of her falling apart, using her own body’s reaction to drive himself toward the precipice.

"I love you," he gritted out against her slick flesh, unable to keep the words inside. He looked up through his lashes, watching her face contort in pleasure, watching her head thrash. "I love how wet you get for me. I love tasting you."

He pumped his hand faster, the drag of her fluids making it agonizingly good, while he sucked harder at her center, determined to drag that climax out of her one more time before he let himself go. He wanted to feel her shudder against his mouth while he spilled into his own hand, completely surrounded by her.

The sensation of his tongue combined with the relentless, circling pressure of his hand was a sensory overload that shattered her ability to think. His words—gritty, raw, and vibrating against her skin—were the final undoing. Hearing him claim her, hearing him say he loved the taste of her while he pleasured himself to the very thought of it, made her back arch violently off the floorboards.

She was crying out, incoherent sounds of affirmation and need that tore from her throat as she thrashed against his mouth. It was agonizingly good, but the sight of his hand moving on himself, coated in her, ignited a different kind of desperation. It wasn't enough. She didn't just want his mouth; she needed the fullness of him. She needed to be completely filled, to have him occupy the space he was currently worshiping.

The earlier hesitation, the logic, the careful planning—it all incinerated in the heat of the moment. The Plan B was there. It was a safety net, a contingency they had discussed, and right now, it felt less like a backup plan and more like a permission slip.

"Baby, please," she gasped, her hands leaving his hair to blindly claw at his shoulders, trying to drag him up, trying to bring that friction she saw him giving himself to where she needed it most. "I can't... I need you inside. Please."

She looked down at him through a haze of tears and lust, her chest heaving as she begged him, her voice cracking with the sheer force of her want.

"The Plan B... we can get the Plan B," she sobbed out, frantic to dismantle whatever resolve he had left. “I don’t care about anything else. Just put it in. I need to feel you inside me, Benjamin. Don't make me wait."

The permission seemed to snap the last tether holding him back. He didn't waste a second, didn't offer a single word of argument or hesitation. The only sound from him was a harsh, guttural intake of air that sounded painfully like relief.

He scrambled up her body, the movement frantic and uncoordinated, his skin slick with sweat as he dragged himself over her. The "Plan B" they had spoken of felt less like a contingency now and more like a necessary indulgence, a silent agreement that hung heavy and electric between them. It was a risk, but looking at the raw, starving hunger in his eyes, it was one she was desperate to take.

He braced himself over her, his arms trembling from the strain of holding back. He looked wrecked, his hair falling into his eyes, his gaze locked on hers with a silent, agonizing plea that burned hotter than any touch. He was asking without speaking, his hips pressing forward, testing the entrance, seeking the heat she had promised him.

Cleo met that silent beg with a arch of her back, lifting herself to meet him.

The moment she said it—Plan B—the last remaining barrier in his mind disintegrated. It wasn't just permission; it was a demand, and god help him, he was only too happy to obey.

He didn't speak. He couldn't. The blood roaring in his ears drowned out everything but the sound of her wet, broken breathing and his own heart hammering against his ribs. He scrambled up her body, a frantic tangle of limbs and sweat, until he was hovering over her, bracing his weight on his forearms.

He looked down at her—flushed, desperate, her lips still slick from his cock—and felt a surge of possessiveness so violent it nearly blurred his vision.

"You want it?" he rasped, his voice a jagged shard of sound. "Then take it, baby."

He didn't wait. He lined himself up, the head of his cock brushing against her wet heat, and with one heavy, fluid motion, he sank into her.

"Fuck," he groaned, his head dropping forward as the tight, hot velvet of her walls clamped around him. She was so slick, so ready, that he slid all the way home in a single stroke, burying himself to the hilt. The sensation was blinding—a total, encompassing warmth that felt like coming home and burning alive at the same time.

For a second, he just held there, vibrating with the effort of not moving, letting the feeling of being inside her recalibrate his entire world.

Then, the animal took over.

He pulled back and snapped his hips forward, driving into her with a brutal, punishing speed. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. The sound of his pelvis slamming against hers filled the cabin, wet and obscene. He fucked her hard, his hands gripping her shoulders to anchor her as he drove deep, chasing the friction, chasing the madness. He wanted to pound the desperation out of her, to replace every thought in her head with the feeling of him filling her up.

"Yeah, take it," he growled, watching her head thrash against the floorboards. "You feel that? That’s mine."

But just as the rhythm threatened to drag him over the edge, Ben forced himself to stop.
He clamped his hands on the floor beside her head, his triceps trembling with the strain, and withdrew slowly. Agonizingly slowly. He dragged himself out inch by inch, letting her feel the friction of the ridges, letting her feel the emptiness return.

He stopped just at the entrance, the tip of his cock teasing the swollen opening, hovering there.

He looked down at her, sweat dripping from his nose onto her chest. He saw her hips buck up, silently begging him to come back, and a dark, sadistic smirk curled his lip.

"Impatient," he whispered, his voice a low, teasing vibration. "You gotta wait for it, baby."

He began to move again, but this time it was a torture. He rolled his hips in a slow, grinding circle, rubbing the head of his cock against her sensitive interior without giving her the depth she wanted. He watched her face contort, watched her mouth open in a silent plea, and he reveled in it.

He pushed in an inch. Pulled back. Ground down.

"Look at you," he murmured, watching her squirm beneath him. "So empty. You want me back in there? You want me to fill you up again?"

He let the tension build, let the air in the room get thick and suffocating with her silent need, until he couldn't stand it either.

With a sudden, guttural roar, he abandoned the game. He slammed back into her, bottoming out with a force that knocked the breath out of both of them. He returned to the violence, his hips a blur of motion, fucking her with a hard, relentless cadence that promised he wasn't going to stop until he had poured every single drop of himself into her.

The brutality of it was intoxicating, a storm she was willing to drown in, but as his pace turned frantic, she needed to ground him. She needed to see him.

Her hands flew up, palms slamming against his cheeks, fingers digging into the rough stubble of his jaw to hold him fast. She didn't say a word, but the force of her grip dragged his gaze down, locking his wild, dilated eyes onto hers.

The effect was instantaneous. The frenetic blurring of his hips slowed, shifting into a heavy, rolling grind that was infinitely more intense.

Keep it like that, she pleaded silently, her mouth falling open in a broken, silent gasp.

She let her legs fall wider, her heels digging into the floorboards to pull him deeper, trying to eliminate even the concept of space between them. The change in rhythm let her feel everything—the terrifying size of him stretching her, the distinct, hard ridges, the thrum of blood in his veins pulsing against her own enraged interior.

Staring up at him, seeing the raw worship and hunger mirrored in his face, was the final straw. The tension that had been coiling in her belly snapped violently.

Her back arched off the floor, a high, keen sound tearing from her throat as the orgasm crashed through her, shattering her composure. She rode the waves of it, her vision blurring, but she refused to let go of his face.

Trembling, she engaged her core and lifted her head, meeting him halfway. She pressed a desperate, open-mouthed kiss to his lips, tasting the salt and heat of him, before pulling back just enough to speak against his mouth.

The slowness was a different kind of torment, a heavy, dragging friction that made her toes curl even as the aftershocks of her own release continued to flutter through her. She didn't want him to speed up. Not yet. She needed to feel the weight of him, the sheer reality of him occupying space inside her.

She kept her hands framed on his face, her thumbs brushing the sweat from his cheekbones, anchoring him in this agonizingly perfect rhythm. Every time he withdrew, she whimpered, and every time he sank back in—deep, deliberate, unhurried—she met him, canting her hips to take him even further.

She tightened her internal muscles around him, squeezing him with a possessive, rhythmic pulse, trying to milk a groan from his throat.

"That's it," she breathed, her voice a broken, wet whisper against his mouth. "Just like that. Don't you dare speed up."

She looked deep into his eyes, letting him see exactly what he was doing to her, how completely he owned her in this moment. She dragged her nails lightly down the back of his neck, shivering as he bottomed out and held there, throbbing inside her.

"Feel me, baby," she pleaded, lifting her hips to grind against him, forcing him to endure the friction of her tightening walls. "Feel how much I need you."

Her internal muscles clamped down on him, a rhythmic, milking squeeze that nearly blackened his vision.

"Fuck," he groaned, the sound tearing out of his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to empty himself right then and there. She was commanding him to stay slow, but her body was begging him to finish it.

He opened his eyes, staring down at her. She was flushed, wrecked, and beautiful, but the angle wasn't enough. He wanted more. He wanted to be so deep inside her that he touched her soul.

He broke her hold on his face, his hand shooting out to grab the thick down pillow she had been clinging to earlier.

"Lift up," he ordered, his voice a strained grit.

He didn't wait for her to comply; he grabbed her hip with his free hand and hoisted her lower body off the floor. She gasped as he shoved the pillow underneath her ass, elevating her pelvis, tilting her hips up to offer him a devastating new angle.

He didn't hesitate. He dropped his weight back down, driving his hips forward.

The shift changed everything.

He slid past the point of friction he’d been hitting before, sinking into a depth that made her eyes roll back. He was hitting her cervix now, a deep, dull thud of connection with every stroke.

"There," he hissed, sweat dripping from his nose onto her chest. "That's it. Now I can feel all of you."

He abandoned the slow grind. He couldn't sustain it, not with her opened up like this. He began to thrust with a long, deliberate power. He pulled almost all the way out, letting the cool air hit the slick head of his cock, before slamming back in—thwack—burying himself to the root.

He watched the way her body absorbed the impact, the way her breasts swayed with the force of his possession. He couldn't keep his hands off her. He reached down, his large hand engulfing her left breast, kneading the soft flesh roughly. His thumb found her nipple, already hard, and flicked it, enjoying the sharp intake of breath that followed.

"You like that?" he murmured, leaning down.

He replaced his hand with his mouth, latching onto her breast through the curtain of her hair. He sucked hard, his tongue swirling against the sensitive nub, while his hand moved down to grip her hip bone, pinning her to the pillow so she couldn't retreat from him.

He established a punishing rhythm—mouth sucking, hand holding, hips driving. He was a machine fueled by lust, piston-firing into her wet heat. He felt the suction of her walls dragging at him, the wet, squelching noise of their coupling filling the room.

He pulled back, sliding out slowly, feeling every ridge of her interior clinging to him, before snapping his hips forward to impale her again.

"You're so tight," he groaned against her skin, the vibration traveling through her chest. "Clamp down on me again, baby. Do it. Squeeze me while I fill you up."

He lifted his head, needing to see her face as he approached the edge. He drove into her, harder, faster, his control snapping like a twig. He wasn't thinking about the snow or the donuts or the pill. He was thinking about the fact that she was his, and he was about to leave the undeniable proof of it deep inside her.

The shift in angle was devastating. With her hips elevated on the pillow, she felt completely laid bare, opened up in a way that left her nowhere to hide. Every thrust hit a spot deep inside her that teetered on the edge of pleasure and pain, stealing the breath from her lungs before she could even gasp.

When he groaned for her to clamp down, her body obeyed before her mind could process the command. She squeezed him, her inner muscles rippling around his length, milking him as he drove into her with that frantic, final desperation. She threw her head back, her fingers digging into the carpet as the tension coiled tight in her belly and then shattered. She felt him stiffen, his groan vibrating against her chest as he poured himself into her, the warmth flooding her deep inside.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, a tangle of limbs and heavy breathing, the room slowly settling around them. Cleo lay still, her chest rising and falling rapidly, feeling the weight of him and the sticky, undeniable evidence of what they’d just done.

Slowly, the fog of lust began to lift, replaced by the practicalities of the morning.

She shifted, gently nudging his shoulder until he pulled back, the loss of his warmth making her shiver slightly. She sat up, pushing her hair back from her face, feeling the soreness in her muscles—a good kind of ache.

"I'm going to go take a shower," she announced, her voice a little raspy. She stood up, her legs slightly shaky, and looked down at him. He looked wrecked in the best possible way, but she couldn't let them stay in this cocoon forever.

"And you," she said, nudging his leg with her foot, "need to go to the store. *Especially* now." She gave him a pointed look, her eyebrows raised. "Go get the supplies. When you get back, you can take a shower while I make breakfast. God knows we need to eat considering we completely abandoned dinner last night."

She leaned down, ignoring her own disheveled state to press a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. When she pulled back, her expression was tender but firm.

"And then, Ben, you have to work on your music. And I’m going to paint." She brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. "We came here for that, too. As much as I love... *this*," she gestured vaguely to the pillow on the floor and their naked bodies, "I don't want to be the reason you don't get any work done. I want to be the muse, baby, not the distraction."

She cupped his cheek, her thumb stroking his cheekbone, her eyes glinting with a mix of affection and promise.

"But..." she murmured, leaning in close to his ear. "If you're a good boy and get your work done... we can get in the hot tub later. How does that sound?"

He watched her stand up, his eyes tracing the line of her spine and the faint, red marks his hands had left on her hips. A lazy, satisfied smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. She looked wrecked, tousled, and absolutely incredible.

When she nudged his leg with her foot, ordering him to the store, he let out a groan that was fifty percent exhaustion and fifty percent theatrics. He reached out, wrapping his hand around her ankle for a brief second, his thumb brushing the bone.

"Aye aye, Captain," he drawled, releasing her with a reluctant sigh. "Plan B, donuts, shower. In that order. Though..."

He sat up, the air hitting his damp skin, and ran a hand through his chaotic hair, sniffing his own shoulder with an exaggerated grimace.

"You sure you don't want a second pair of hands in that shower? I’m pretty sure I smell like sex, woodsmoke, and questionable life choices. I might need to be hosed down before I traumatize the bait shop owner."

He flashed her a grin—all teeth and boyish charm—but didn't make a move toward the bathroom. instead, he pushed himself off the floor, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. His back cracked audibly, a sound that made him wince and laugh at the same time.

"Old man back," he muttered, wandering over to the dresser. He opened the top drawer, rummaging around for a fresh pair of boxers. "That floor is unforgiving. Worth it, but unforgiving."

He pulled on the boxers, shimmying them up his legs, then grabbed a pair of jeans from the chair where he’d discarded them yesterday. He hopped on one foot to get them on, almost tripping over his own boots in the process, but recovered with a stumbling grace that suggested he meant to do it.

"And hey," he said, buttoning his fly as he turned back to look at her, his expression softening. "I hear you on the work stuff. You’re right. I’ve got melodies in my head that are starting to annoy me, so they need to get out."

He grabbed a thick flannel shirt from the dresser, shoving his arms into the sleeves but leaving it unbuttoned for a second, revealing the scratches she’d left on his chest.

"I can handle you being the muse," he teased, walking over to where she stood. He leaned down, bracing a hand on the wall beside her head, trapping her there for a second. "Even if you are a very, very distracting muse. I’ll try to keep my focus on the guitar strings and not... other things."

He winked, reaching out to tap the tip of her nose.

"But that hot tub offer?" He grinned, shaking his head. "That is dirty pool, baby. Manipulation at its finest. And it worked completely. I will be the best boy you’ve ever seen. I’ll write a whole damn symphony if it gets me in that water with you later."

He grabbed his keys from the nightstand, tossing them in the air and catching them with a snap.
"Alright. I’m braving the elements. Save me some hot water."

Cleo leaned back against the doorframe of the bathroom, pulling the lapels of her robe tighter across her chest. She watched him with a soft, tired smile, unable to deny how good he looked—disheveled, flannel unbuttoned, standing in the middle of the cabin.

"As tempting as that sounds," she said, her voice raspy from sleep and overuse, "if you get in that shower with me, we both know absolutely no 'hosing down' is going to happen. We’ll just end up slipping on the tile and missing the donut window. And I need the caffeine and sugar more than I need the company right now."

She kept her tone light, teasing, but the truth was heavier. She didn't have the energy to resist him again, and she needed a moment of solitude to scrub her skin and clear her head.

As he grabbed his keys and winked, flashing that grin that had been plastered on billboards, her smile faltered just a fraction. She watched him move—the easy confidence, the way the world seemed to bend around him—and felt a sudden, sharp pang in her chest.

He was right; she was exhausted. But it wasn't just the physical exertion. She hadn’t slept well even after he’d passed out, her mind buzzing with a static she couldn't tune out. He fogged up her brain. He took up so much space in her thoughts that there was barely room for her own quiet routines anymore.

As the front door clicked shut downstairs, the silence rushed back in, but it didn't bring peace.

She walked to the window, peering through the blinds to watch him jog to his truck. The lines were blurring. She knew that. Last night, tangled in the sheets, it had been easy to forget. It was just Ben and Cleo. But now, with talk of songwriting and "muses," the reality was creeping back in.

She loved him. God, she loved him so much it made her teeth ache. She didn't want anyone else; the thought of another man touching her was laughable. But loving Ben meant loving the storm that came with him. She looked at his truck pulling out of the gravel drive and felt a cold knot of anxiety. She wanted to be with him, desperately, but she didn't know if she could stomach being part of his world. The fame, the noise, the public ownership of his private feelings—it was everything she had built her life to avoid.

"Just donuts," she whispered to the empty room, turning on the shower tap. "Just focus on the donuts."

Cleo had slipped into the hot tub quietly, like she did everything when she was trying not to be noticed.

The water was already steaming, a low fog curling up around her shoulders as she sank down and let the heat loosen muscles that had been tight since dawn. Snow clung to the edges of the deck and the surrounding pines stood still and heavy, like they were keeping a secret. The cabin behind her glowed faintly, warm light spilling through the windows, the sound of nothing louder than wind and the occasional creak of wood.

She’d finished two paintings already.

The first had come easily—morning light, frost on glass, trees standing patient and unmoved. The second had taken longer, more layering, more pauses with the brush hovering while she tried not to think too much about why her chest felt tight even in all that quiet. When she finally set it aside, her hands had been steady, her breathing even. Productive. Grounded. Normal.

Ben had kept his promise.

She could hear him earlier, tucked away with his guitar and notebook, the soft, familiar sounds of him working drifting through the cabin walls. No pressure. No pulling at her attention. Just focus. Discipline. Music. The version of him that had always been both comforting and dangerous in how easily it read her.

That was why she’d put space between them.

Not dramatically. Not coldly. Just… carefully.

She knew him too well. Knew that if she so much as hesitated in a doorway or stared out a window a second too long, he’d clock it. Ask the right question. Tilt his head in that way that meant he already knew the answer. And they still had five days left.

Five days she didn’t want to fracture with a conversation she wasn’t ready to finish.

The getaway had been perfect so far. Quiet mornings. Shared meals. Long stretches of doing their own things without needing to explain it. She didn’t want to be the one who cracked that open too soon. Didn’t want to turn something soft into something sharp just because her thoughts wouldn’t settle.

The water lapped gently against her collarbone as she leaned her head back, eyes closing for a moment. Steam curled into the cold air, disappearing almost as soon as it formed. She focused on that—the way warmth and winter coexisted without fighting. The way things didn’t have to be solved to be real.

She told herself this was enough for today.

That she could sit here, breathe, let the heat hold her, and come back inside when she was ready. That whatever was stirring under her ribs could wait. That five more days was time. That perfection didn’t have to mean permanence.

Snow fell softly around her, the world hushed and patient.

And for now, she stayed exactly where she was.

Operation: Be Boring had actually been a killer success.

For the last six hours, Ben had been a model of artistic discipline. He’d holed up in the corner of the living room with his Gibson, a notepad, and a lukewarm mug of coffee, forcing himself to ignore the fact that Cleo was just a room away.

He’d wrestled with a bridge that had been haunting him for weeks, hummed melodies into his voice memos until his throat felt scratchy, and scribbled down three pages of lyrics that didn't totally suck. It was the most productive he’d been in months, mostly because he wasn't hungover, exhausted from travel, or surrounded by yes-men.

He set the guitar down on its stand, flexing his fingers. His calluses were throbbing—a good ache, a familiar one. He stretched his arms over his head, hearing his spine crack in three different places, and let out a long exhale.

The cabin was quiet. Too quiet.

He stood up, grabbing his empty mug, and padded into the kitchen to get some water. The silence felt heavy, different from the comfortable quiet of the morning. It felt… thoughtful. And Cleo being thoughtful usually meant Cleo was spiraling.

He filled a glass at the tap, drinking it down in one go, and glanced out the sliding glass door that led to the back deck.

Steam was rising in thick, white plumes against the darkening gray sky. And right in the center of it, framed by the snow-heavy pines, was Cleo.

She was leaning back against the edge of the tub, her eyes closed, her dark hair pinned up messily with damp tendrils escaping down her neck. She looked peaceful, but there was a stillness to her posture that Ben recognized. She was retreating. She was doing that thing where she went inside her own head to arrange the furniture because she didn't like how messy the room was getting.

He set the glass down on the counter with a soft clink.

He wasn't going to let her stay in there alone. Not with that much thinking time.

He scanned the counter until he found what he was looking for: a small glass jar and a lighter. He fished out a pre-roll he’d twisted up yesterday—a little indica-heavy blend perfect for doing absolutely nothing.

He didn't bother with a coat. He just shucked off his flannel shirt, leaving it draped over a kitchen chair, and shimmied out of his jeans until he was just in his boxers. He hesitated for a split second, then smirked and ditched the boxers too.

If he was crashing her party, he was committing to the dress code.

He slid the glass door open, bracing himself as the freezing mountain air slapped his bare skin.

"Jesus," he hissed under his breath, stepping out onto the icy deck.

He moved quickly, the snow crunching faintly under his bare feet, closing the distance to the tub in three long strides. Cleo didn't open her eyes immediately, but he saw her shoulders tense just slightly—she knew he was there.

"You know," he called out, his voice cutting through the steam as he climbed the small steps. "I held up my end of the bargain. I wrote the bridge. I ignored the urge to come bug you seventeen times. I think I’ve earned admission."

He swung one leg over the side of the tub, sinking into the scalding water with a low, appreciative groan. The heat enveloped him instantly, melting the chill from the air and the stiffness from his session with the guitar.

He settled onto the bench next to her—close enough that his arm brushed hers underwater, but not crowding her. Not yet.

He leaned his head back against the rim, looking over at her as the water settled around them. He held up the joint between two fingers, flicking the lighter with his thumb. The flame flared orange against the gray dusk.

"Peace offering," he murmured, taking a slow drag and blowing the smoke up toward the pines before offering it to her. "For the muse. You looked like you were thinking too loud over here."

Cleo let out a soft huff of a laugh when he announced his heroic productivity like he’d just returned from war.

“Wow,” she said, finally opening her eyes and turning her head toward him, steam beading on her lashes. “Seventeen times? You’re telling me you restrained yourself and I’m supposed to be impressed?”

She shook her head fondly.
“That’s growth, Benjamin. I’m proud of you.”

But the truth—one she didn’t say out loud—was that the second he slid into the tub, something in her chest loosened. The quiet that had felt heavy before softened. The thoughts she’d been stacking like anxious dominoes scattered. His presence always did that. Like he reached inside her head and turned the volume knob down without even trying.

She’d been spiraling. She knew it. Thinking about time and what-ifs and how easy it was to disappear in this bubble with him and forget the outside world existed. It scared her how good it felt. How safe.

And then he showed up. Half-frozen. Bare. Smirking.

And suddenly she could breathe again.

When he offered the joint, she accepted it with a small smile.
“For the muse, huh?” she murmured. “Is that what we’re calling me now?”

She took a slow drag, eyes fluttering closed for a second as she exhaled.
“I was thinking too loud,” she admitted. “You always catch me when I do that. It’s deeply annoying.”

Her foot brushed his under the water again, this time without thinking about it.
“But… thanks,” she added quietly. “For coming out here. For… interrupting my brain.”

She glanced at him sideways, warmth creeping into her expression.
“Your peace offerings are accepted. Even if you’re aggressively naked.”

And just like that, the anxiety faded into steam.

Cleo shifted closer to the edge of the tub, letting the heat soak into her shoulders as the joint burned low between her fingers. For a few seconds longer, she let herself stay right here—in the steam, in the quiet, in the easy way his presence stitched her back together without asking permission.

Because god, this bubble was intoxicating.

This place where time felt suspended. Where mornings started with paint and evenings ended like this. Where Ben wasn’t a name on a schedule or a face on a screen, but just a warm body next to hers, guitar calluses and all. Where she didn’t have to brace herself for noise or expectations or being seen.

But the thought slid in anyway. Soft. Uninvited.

Five days.

Five days until the snow melted back into roads and calendars and flights. Five days until this cabin stopped being a hiding place and started being a memory. Five days until she went back to Los Angeles—traffic, studios, unfinished canvases—and he went back to wherever his life told him to be next. Cities she didn’t always know. Dates she tried not to memorize.

She stared up at the gray sky, watching the steam disappear into it.

“This is really nice,” she said quietly, almost to herself. Then, softer but steadier, “Like… dangerously nice.”

She nudged his foot again under the water, grounding herself in something real.
“But I keep thinking about how fast five days goes,” she admitted. “And how good we are at pretending the outside world doesn’t exist when we’re like this.”

Her voice wasn’t accusing. It wasn’t even sad. Just honest.

“I don’t want to ruin it,” she added, finally looking at him. “I don’t want to fight or overthink or turn this into something heavy when it’s been… perfect.”

A small breath left her, fogging the air.
“But when we leave here, I’m still in L.A. And you’re still wherever the hell your calendar sends you. And I don’t know how to hold both things at the same time—this and that—without feeling like one of them eventually disappears.”

She leaned her head back against the rim again, eyes closing, letting the water lap quietly around them.

“I just don’t want to wake up one day and realize this was the easy part,” she murmured. “And that I stayed quiet because it felt too good to question.”

Her toes brushed his ankle once more, gentle, seeking reassurance without asking for it outright.

“But right now,” she said, softer again, “I’m really glad we’re here.”

He watched the smoke curl from her lips, the gray tendrils disappearing into the darker gray of the sky. He took the joint back when she offered it, carefully keeping his right hand elevated, resting his wrist on the freezing cold wood of the deck railing to keep the paper dry.

He took a drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs, holding it for a second before exhaling a long, slow stream.

She was right. He knew she was right.

He could feel the countdown, too. It was a ticking clock in the back of his head—five days, four days, three days—until the noise rushed back in. Until he was Ben Wilder, the product, and she was Cleo, the girl waiting for a text back from a different time zone.

It scared the shit out of him, too. But he wasn't going to let her drown in it. Not tonight.
"You're right," he said, his voice low and steady, cutting through the steam. "It is dangerously nice. That’s why we’re here. To remember what it feels like to just be humans, not... schedules."

He kept his dry hand perched on the rim of the tub, the joint smoldering between his fingers, but he used his left hand—the wet one—to reach out under the water. He found her knee, his fingers wrapping around the smooth curve, squeezing gently.

"But hey," he said, waiting until her eyes flickered back to his. "Look at me."

He slid along the bench, cutting through the water until his hip bumped against hers. He was close enough now to see the flecks of gold in her eyes, close enough to smell the chlorine and the lingering scent of her shampoo.

"This part? The cabin? The snow? Yeah, it's the easy part," he admitted, unshrinking in his honesty. "It's easy to be in love when the world is quiet. I get that. And I know L.A. is loud. I know the tour is a beast."

He took another hit, careful to keep his hand away from the splashing water, and then passed it back to her, watching her fingers brush his.

"But you’re looking at it wrong," he murmured. "You think this—us, right here—is separate from that. Like we have to choose between the cabin version of us and the real world version."

He shook his head, water droplets flying from his hair.

"We aren't the location, Cleo. We're the people in it."

He moved his wet hand from her knee up to her neck, his thumb brushing the damp hair at her nape. His touch was firm, grounding.

"When I go back on tour, I’m not leaving this," he gestured between them with his chin. "I'm taking it with me. I'm taking the fact that you know I take my coffee black, and the fact that you know exactly how to calm me down when I’m spiraling. I’m taking the memory of you painting in the morning light."

He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers, ignoring the steam and the cold air biting at his exposed shoulders.

"It’s going to be hard," he whispered, validating her fear without letting it win. "I’m not gonna lie to you. The distance sucks. The schedule is garbage. But don't you dare think that one of them has to disappear. I’m not letting you disappear. And I’m sure as hell not letting us disappear just because I have to get on a bus."

He pulled back just enough to look her in the eye, a crooked, self-deprecating grin tugging at his lips.

"Besides," he teased, his voice lightening, bringing back the charm she needed. "You think I can survive out there without my muse now? You’ve ruined me for anyone else, babe. I need you to keep my ego in check. Without you roasting me, I’ll probably start wearing leather pants and writing terrible synth-pop. You can’t let that happen to the world."

Cleo listened to him without interrupting, her fingers curling loosely around the joint when he passed it back. She watched the smoke drift away, watched the way his face softened when he talked about taking pieces of her with him. It was sweet. It always was. He had a way of making hope sound reasonable.

But something in her stayed still.

Not cold. Not closed. Just… steady.

She took a slow breath before answering, letting it out through her nose. “You always say things like that,” she said quietly, not unkind. “And I believe you. I do. I know you mean it.”

Her foot brushed his again under the water, grounding herself before she kept going.

“I just… I don’t think meaning it is the same as it working,” she admitted. “Not long-term. Not officially. Not in the real world.”

She finally looked at him, really looked. The boyish grin, the tired eyes behind it, the way he tried to wrap everything in humor so it wouldn’t hurt as much.

“This?” she gestured between them, the steam, the snow, the quiet. “This is easy. Not because it’s shallow—because it’s safe. We don’t have deadlines here. No flights. No crowds. No people pulling at you from every direction.”

Her voice stayed soft, but there was a firmness underneath it. “But when you leave… you don’t just go back to a job. You go back to a whole world that doesn’t slow down. And I don’t fit in that world the way you do. I don’t want to either.”

She rested her head back against the tub, eyes on the dark sky. “I think we’re really good at loving each other in moments,” she said. “I don’t know if we’re good at building a life around it anymore.”

A small, sad smile tugged at her mouth. “Not because we don’t care. But because we care in different directions.”

She turned her head toward him again. “So yeah… it’s going to be easy here. And beautiful. And I’m not taking that for granted.”

Her toes nudged his ankle gently. “I just don’t want to pretend it means something it probably can’t be.”

When he joked about leather pants, she huffed a quiet laugh despite herself. “You’d look ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head. “And you know it.”

Then, softer, “I don’t need to be your muse. I just… want to be real with you.”

And in the steam and the cold air, that truth sat between them—tender, heavy, honest.

The laugh he’d been hoping for came, but it was thin. It didn't reach her eyes. And the comment about the leather pants—usually the kind of banter he could volley back and forth for twenty minutes—fell dead in the water between them.

I don’t need to be your muse. I just… want to be real with you.

The word hung there in the steam, heavier than the snow piling up on the railing. Real.
Ben felt the smile slide off his face. It wasn't a gradual fade; it was a sudden, physical drop, like a mask slipping because the string finally snapped. He looked at her—really looked at her—and saw the resignation in the set of her jaw. She wasn't fighting him. She was saying goodbye. She was preemptively mourning them while he was sitting right there next to her.

He reached out and took the joint from her fingers. He didn't take a hit. He leaned over and stubbed it out on the icy wood of the deck railing, twisting it until the ember died, leaving a smear of ash against the frost.

He turned back to her, sinking deeper into the water until the cold air wasn't touching his skin anymore. The playfulness was gone. The charm—the easy, deflection-heavy armor he wore like a second skin—was gone.

"Okay," he said. His voice was lower now, stripped of the cadence he used for interviews and fans. It was just Ben. "You want real? Let's be real."

He moved his hand through the water, finding hers again. He didn't just brush her fingers this time; he interlaced them, gripping her hand tight, palm to palm, refusing to let the water act as a barrier.

"You're right. The 'muse' thing... that's a cop-out. It’s a pretty word I use because it makes the distance sound romantic instead of just lonely. It makes me feel like even when I'm a thousand miles away, you're serving a purpose in the art, so you're still with me."

He squeezed her hand, his eyes locked on hers, intense and unblinking.

"But you're wrong about the directions. We don't care in different directions, Cleo. We just exist in different environments. And yeah, mine is loud. It’s fast. It eats people alive if they let it."

He paused, his jaw working as he searched for the words that wouldn't sound like a song lyric. He needed words that sounded like a blueprint.

"You think I don't know that you don't fit in that world?" he asked, his voice rough. "I know you don't. That’s why I love you. If you fit in that world, you’d be just like everyone else I spend ten months of the year with. You’re the anchor. You’re the stillness."

He let go of her hand only to reach up and cup her face. His wet fingers slid into the hair at her temples, his thumbs brushing the damp skin of her cheekbones. He held her there, forcing her to see the absolute, terrifying seriousness in his eyes.

"I am not asking you to come live on a tour bus and pretend to like the noise. I’m not asking you to give up the quiet you built."

He leaned in closer, until his nose was almost brushing hers, his breath hitching slightly.
"But don't sit here and tell me we can't build a life. Because people build lives in harder places than this every day. You say we’re good at moments? Then we string the moments together. We fight for the time. We bleed for the schedule."

He shook his head slightly, his thumbs pressing into her skin.

"I’m tired of the 'it's too hard' narrative. I’m tired of being scared that you’re going to realize I’m too much work. I am work. But you’re the only thing that makes the work worth it."
His voice dropped to a whisper, raw and fierce.

"So don't resign yourself to this ending in five days. Don't treat me like a vacation fling you have to get over. I’m not going anywhere. If I have to fly back here every single weekend to sit in silence and watch you paint just to keep you... then that’s what I’ll do. That’s the work. And I’m willing to do it."

Cleo didn’t pull away when his hand tightened around hers. She couldn’t. The moment he took the joint and killed it, something in her chest already knew where this was going. Real didn’t scare her because it was harsh—it scared her because it was honest.

She looked up at him when he said her name, really looked, and that was the mistake.

Because the playfulness was gone. The armor was gone. What was left was the man she loved standing there bare in a way that had nothing to do with the fact that he wasn’t wearing clothes. His eyes were steady and terrified and sure all at once, like he was bracing for impact but refusing to step back.

She held herself still while he spoke, jaw tight, lips pressed together hard enough that they ached. Every word landed. Every single one. She hated how deeply she understood him. Hated how easily he could reach the parts of her she tried to keep orderly and calm.

When he talked about the muse thing—about loneliness dressed up as poetry—her throat burned. She swallowed hard, nodding once, because that part was true and she’d known it the whole time. When he talked about environments instead of directions, her eyes stung, but she kept them open, kept looking at him like if she blinked she might miss something important.

His hands on her face undid her.

She didn’t pull away. She leaned into his touch instead, her breath turning shallow as her resolve started to fray. She could feel herself slipping—not into fantasy, not into romance—but into want. Into the dangerous part where loving him felt louder than logic.

“I know,” she whispered, the words barely making it past the knot in her throat. “I know you’re not asking me to give up who I am.”

Her voice wavered despite her effort to keep it steady. “That’s not what I’m afraid of.”

She closed her eyes for half a second when he leaned closer, when he talked about fighting for time and bleeding for the schedule. Because that was the part her brain kept screaming about. The exhaustion. The constant adjustment. The way loving him had always meant living half a step behind a calendar that didn’t care about her feelings.

Then he said he’d fly. Every weekend. Every time. Whatever it took.

And that was it.

The dam broke—not because she was sad, not because she didn’t want him, but because the weight of it all hit at once. The love. The fear. The want. The knowledge that she could choose him and still be right… or choose him and be destroyed by how hard it would be.

A sob tore out of her chest before she could stop it. Her shoulders shook, breath hitching as tears spilled over fast and ungraceful, her face crumpling against his hands.

“I want to,” she choked, the words tangled and raw. “God, I want to. I want to say yes and stop thinking and just—”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

Because her brain was still screaming don’t, and her heart was already running toward him.

Before she could talk herself out of it, before fear could reassemble its arguments, she leaned forward and kissed him.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was desperate and messy and full of everything she couldn’t say out loud. Her hands came up to his shoulders, fingers curling tight like she was afraid he might disappear if she didn’t hold on.

The kiss said what she couldn’t reconcile yet.

That she loved him.
That she was terrified.
That she wanted him anyway.

And for that moment—just that moment—she stopped thinking altogether and let herself choose him with her whole body, even as tears slipped down her cheeks, even as the future loomed loud and impossible just beyond the steam.

Cleo pulled back slowly, her forehead still brushing his, their breaths tangled and uneven. Her hands stayed on his shoulders like she wasn’t ready to let go, even though she’d stopped kissing him. Her eyes were glassy, lashes clumped with tears she hadn’t bothered wiping away.

She gave a shaky little laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all.

“I’m your muse,” she said softly, like she was admitting something she’d been fighting for years. “I know I am.”

Her thumb brushed over his collarbone, grounding herself in him, in the heat of his skin, in the fact that he was still right there.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “For pretending I’m not. For acting like it doesn’t matter, or like it’s some… silly label. It does matter. You matter.”

Her voice cracked again, but she didn’t look away.

“And I love you,” she said, finally. No defenses. No humor. No conditions. Just truth.

She leaned in once more, resting her forehead against his, eyes closing like she needed that contact to stay upright.

“I love you,” she repeated, quieter.

The kiss wasn't a question; it was a collision.

It was salt and desperation and the kind of raw, terrifying honesty that usually only happened after a bottle of whiskey or a car crash. When her mouth crashed against his, Ben felt the impact rattle his teeth, but he didn't pull back. He surged forward to meet it.

He wrapped his arms around her, abandoning the careful, gentle hold he’d had on her face. He locked one arm around her waist and buried the other hand in her wet hair, pulling her into him until there was no daylight left between them. He kissed her back with a fierce, possessive hunger, trying to pour every ounce of reassurance he had down her throat. I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.

When she finally pulled back, gasping and crying, confessing that she was his muse, Ben felt his heart crack open in his chest. It wasn't a clean break; it was a messy, jagged thing that let all the light in.

"I know," he choked out, his voice thick with emotion. He released her hair only to frame her face again, his thumbs frantically wiping away the tears that were mixing with the steam on her cheeks. "I know, baby. I know."

He didn't care about the label. He cared that she wasn't running.

He felt her trembling against him, felt the way she was clinging to his shoulders like he was the only thing keeping her upright. He couldn't stand the distance of the bench anymore.
"Come here," he murmured roughly.

He didn't wait for her to move. He gripped her waist under the water and pulled her bodily toward him. He guided her legs over his hips until she was straddling him, sinking down onto his lap in the hot water. He wrapped his arms around her back, locking his hands together, encasing her completely.

He pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes tight, breathing in her shaky exhales.

"I love you," he said. He said it firmly. Absolute. Irrevocable. "I love you, Cleo. I love you in the quiet, and I love you in the noise. I love you when you're painting, and I love you when you're terrified."

He pulled back just an inch, forcing her to look at him through her tear-clumped lashes. His dark eyes were intense, burning with a seriousness that left no room for jokes or charm.

"And you’re right. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be a logistical nightmare and I’m going to hate every second I’m not with you."

He brought one hand up, tracing the line of her jaw, his thumb resting against the pulse fluttering wildly in her neck.

"But we’re doing it," he vowed, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "We’re doing the hard part. I’m booking the flights. I’m making the time. You don't have to carry the weight of the logistics, okay? That’s on me. You just... you just have to keep loving me. Can you do that?"
He searched her face, looking for the promise behind the fear.

"Just keep loving me," he pleaded softly. "And I’ll handle the rest. I swear to you, I’ll handle the rest."

Cleo stayed straddled over him, her hands shaking where they rested on his shoulders. The heat of the water, the steam, his arms locked around her—it all felt too much and not enough at the same time. She swallowed hard, trying to steady her breathing, trying to get the words out before they drowned in her chest.

“I… I can’t imagine myself with anyone else,” she whispered, voice breaking as soon as she said it out loud. “I really can’t. I’ve tried. I’ve played that game in my head, you know? Different faces, different lives. It never sticks. It’s always you.”

She leaned in, pressing soft kisses to his cheek, his jaw, the corner of his mouth—like she needed to map him, memorize him in case her brain ever tried to lie to her again. Each kiss was slow, reverent, soaked in the kind of love that scared her because it felt permanent.

“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted against his skin. “The big stuff. The stupid stuff. Us older. Kids running around in those tiny ear-muff things because their dad plays too loud.” A shaky laugh escaped her, half-sob, half-smile. “I can see it. I really can.”

She pulled back just enough to look at him, her hands sliding up to cup his face, thumbs brushing under his eyes like she was trying to wipe away futures that hurt.

“But then the voices in my head start screaming,” she confessed. “They tell me I’ll never be able to handle it. The schedules. The noise. The waiting. The missing you when you’re gone. They tell me I’ll drown in it, that I’ll resent it, that I’ll lose myself trying to hold onto you.”

Her chin trembled.

“And I hate that part of me,” she said quietly. “I hate that my brain always thinks it knows better than my heart.”

She pressed her forehead to his, tears slipping free now, unstoppable.

“Because my heart is all in,” she whispered. “With you. It always has been. I just… I’m terrified I won’t be strong enough to live the life that comes with you.”

Her arms tightened around his neck, clinging to him.

“I love you,” she said again, like it hurt to hold it in. “So much it scares me.”

Cleo folded into him then, like her body finally gave up trying to hold itself together. She tucked her face into the warm curve of his neck, right where his skin still smelled faintly like smoke and soap and him. Her breath hitched against his pulse, and she clung there, pressing her forehead into him like she could anchor herself to that steady rhythm.

Her hands slid up his back, gripping him tight, knuckles whitening under the water. She didn’t say anything at first—just breathed him in, letting herself be small for a second, letting the tears soak into his shoulder instead of spilling into the air between them.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t pretty.

It was quiet and raw and real.

Like she finally let herself collapse into the only place that felt safe enough to fall apart.

The image of it—kids with tiny earmuffs, standing side stage while he played—hit him so hard his chest actually ached. It was a vision he hadn’t let himself fully form, a blurry daydream he kept tucked away in the back of his mind because hoping for it felt dangerous. Hearing her say it, hearing her admit she saw it too, broke him open in a way that nothing else could.

He held her tighter, his arms locking around her back like steel bands, pressing her so close he could feel the frantic beat of her heart against his own. He buried his face in her wet hair, closing his eyes as a wave of fierce, protective heat washed over him.
She thought she wasn't strong enough. She thought she would drown.

"You're wrong," he murmured into her hair, his voice rough and vibrating against her skin. "You are so wrong, Cleo."

He moved one hand up to cup the back of her head, holding her there against his neck, refusing to let her hide the tears.

"You think you're weak because you feel things?" he asked, his tone low and intense. "Baby, you are the strongest person I know. You handle me. You handle the noise just by being near it and making it quiet. You think that's easy? You think anyone else can do that?"

He pulled back, forcing her to lift her head, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were dark, searching hers with a desperate, unwavering certainty.

"And listen to me," he said, gripping her face between his wet hands. "You are not doing this alone. You said you’re scared you’ll lose yourself trying to hold onto me? Then don't hold on so tight. Let me hold onto you."

He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb, his touch gentle but his jaw set.
"I will carry the weight, Cleo. When the schedule is too much, I’ll fix it. When the noise is too loud, I’ll shut it off. You don't have to be the one who stays strong all the time. You can fall apart. You can hate the tour. You can scream at me when I’m gone too long."

He leaned in, his forehead pressing against hers, his voice dropping to a fierce, broken whisper.

"Just don't leave. That’s all I ask. Be scared with me. Be angry with me. But stay."

He let out a shaky breath, a small, sad smile touching his lips as he looked into her eyes.
"And the kids with the earmuffs?" he choked out, the emotion thick in his throat. "I want that. God, I want that so bad. And we’re going to get there. We’ll buy the earmuffs. We’ll figure out the logistics. We’ll make it work because the alternative—the alternative is me without you, and that’s not an option anymore."

He kissed her then—not with hunger, but with a deep, sealing promise.

"I’ve got you," he breathed against her lips. "I’m right here. I’m not letting you drown."

Cleo didn’t answer right away.

She stayed tucked against him, breathing him in, letting his words sink through the noise in her head like warm water through frozen ground. Her fingers tightened in the fabric at his back, knuckles pressing there like she was making sure he was real. Still here. Still choosing her.

Hope felt dangerous.

It always had.

She’d spent so many years pretending she didn’t want this—pretending she was above it, stronger than it, immune to the idea of building something that could hurt this badly if it broke. She’d told herself she was fine with moments. With fragments. With love that lived in pockets of time instead of stretching forward into a future.

But sitting here in his arms, steam rising around them, his voice shaking because he meant every word… she couldn’t lie anymore.

She pulled back just enough to look at him, really look at him. His eyes were red-rimmed. Earnest. Terrified and brave at the same time. The man she loved. The man she’d been trying not to hope for.

Her voice came out soft, uneven.

“I’ve been pretending for so long,” she admitted, thumb brushing over his collarbone. “Pretending I didn’t care this much. Pretending I wasn’t picturing all of it… the messy parts, the loud parts, the terrifying parts.”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t look away.

“I told myself wanting this was stupid. That it would hurt too much. That I wasn’t built for your world.”

She shook her head slowly, a watery laugh slipping out.

“But God, Ben… I do want it. I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

She reached up, cupping his face with both hands, pressing her forehead to his.

“I’m scared,” she whispered. “I probably always will be. My brain is never going to stop screaming at me about what could go wrong.”

Then—quietly, bravely—

“But I don’t want to run anymore.”

Her eyes filled again, but this time the tears were different. Softer. Lighter.

“I have hope,” she said. “And I hate how much it scares me… but I’m not pushing it away anymore.”

She leaned in, brushing her lips to his cheek, his jaw, everywhere she could reach like she needed to mark the moment.

“I’m with you,” she said, finally. Steady. Certain. “We’re going to have this. The hard parts. The quiet parts. The loud parts. All of it.”

Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him close.

“I don’t know what it’s going to look like,” she murmured. “But I’m choosing you. I’m choosing us.”

And for the first time, she didn’t flinch at the word future.

She held him like she believed in it.

The knot that had been sitting in the center of his chest for months—maybe years—finally unraveled.

It wasn't a sudden snap; it was a slow, warm release, like the tension leaving his muscles when he first sank into the water. Hearing her say it—I'm choosing us—was the quietest, most thunderous sound he had ever heard.

He felt the sting of tears in his own eyes, hot and sudden, and he didn't bother to fight them. He just let out a shaky, incredulous laugh that vibrated against her forehead.
"You have no idea," he whispered, his voice rough with relief. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to hear you say that."

He pulled back just enough to see her. She looked wrecked and beautiful, her face wet with tears and steam, her eyes shining with that new, terrifying hope. She looked like the rest of his life.

He brought his hands up to cup her face again, his thumbs brushing over her cheekbones, treating her like she was the most precious thing in the universe.

"I’ll take the hope," he promised, his gaze intense. "I’ll take the fear. I’ll take the screaming brain. I’ll take all of it, Cleo. As long as you don't run, I can handle anything."

He leaned in, kissing her soft and deep, sealing the promise against her lips. It was a kiss of gratitude, of overwhelming love, of a man who realized he just got the one thing he was terrified he’d lose.

When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against hers again, a lopsided, watery grin spreading across his face.

"And just for the record," he murmured, the old charm creeping back into his voice, warm and familiar. "Those kids? They’re gonna have the coolest earmuffs money can buy. Custom made. Maybe some glitter. We’re not doing anything halfway."

He squeezed her waist under the water, grounding her, grounding himself.

"So, new rule," he announced softly. "No more counting down the five days. We’re not on a timeline anymore. We’re just... living. Okay?"

He kissed the tip of her wet nose.

"Now, are you going to let me make you dinner? Because I bought an embarrassing amount of pasta at the store, and I feel like we have something to celebrate."

Cleo didn’t answer him right away.

She just wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling herself closer until her forehead rested against his, her breath shaky but warm. The sound that left her was half laugh, half sob—soft and disbelieving, like her body was still catching up to what her heart had already decided.

“I know,” she said quietly, her voice thick. “I know you’ve wanted it. I think that’s why I was so scared to say it out loud. I didn't want to let you down.”

She leaned into his touch when he held her face, her hands sliding up his arms, thumbs brushing over his shoulders like she was grounding herself in the fact that he was real. Here. Choosing her back just as fiercely.

When he talked about taking all of it—the fear, the noise, the mess—her eyes squeezed shut for a second, emotion cresting too fast. She nodded against his hands, swallowing hard.

“I’m not running,” she said, more to herself than to him at first. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him properly. “I don’t want to be brave alone anymore. And I don’t want to pretend I don’t feel things just to make it easier.”

His kiss broke her open in the gentlest way. She kissed him back slowly, deliberately, like she was sealing the choice she’d just made into her bones. When he pulled away, she stayed close, noses brushing, her smile small but real.

At his grin, she let out a breathy laugh and shook her head, pressing her face briefly into his shoulder like she couldn’t help herself.

“Okay,” she said, nodding once, decisively. “Okay. No countdown. No five-day math in my head. Just… living.”

She kissed the tip of his nose back, softer this time, affectionate and grounding.

“And yes,” she added, finally pulling back just enough to look at him properly, a spark of playful determination lighting her eyes. “I’ll let you make dinner.”

A pause. A tilt of her head.

“But only if you let me show you how to make a centerpiece,” she continued, already slipping out of his arms. “Because I love you, but the paper bag and oranges situation? That was inspired chaos at best.”

She laughed as she stood, water streaming off her skin, not bothering with a robe or slippers. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, eyes bright.

“Don’t start without me,” she called, already moving off the deck toward the trees. “I’ll be right back. I’m upgrading us.”

And for the first time in a long time, her chest didn’t feel tight with fear when she walked away—just light with possibility.

Cleo didn’t slow down when her feet hit the snow.

The cold bit immediately—sharp and clean against her skin—but it only made her laugh under her breath as she stepped off the deck and into the edge of the trees. Steam still clung to her shoulders, hair damp against her neck, the two-piece doing absolutely nothing to protect her from January in Truckee, and yet she felt strangely untouchable.

Like the cold couldn’t reach whatever had finally settled inside her.

She scanned the ground first, crouching to brush snow aside with her fingers. Pinecones came easy—small, tight ones tucked near the base of the trees, dusted white. She gathered a few into the crook of her arm, then stood and snapped a thin branch cleanly from a fallen limb, inspecting it like she was already picturing it on the table.

Better than a paper bag, Wilder.

She found berries next—deep red, stubbornly clinging to a low bush that hadn’t surrendered to winter yet. She hesitated only a second before plucking a few, the color vivid against the snow. She smiled at that. The contrast. The way life insisted on showing up even when everything else was dormant.

She hugged her little haul to her chest and tipped her face up toward the cabin for a moment, watching the faint glow from the windows, imagining him inside already filling a pot with water, probably humming something half-formed, probably pretending he wasn’t watching the door.

The thought softened her chest again.

“I’m doing this,” she murmured to herself, more a promise than a declaration. “We’re doing this.”

The cold finally started to sink in for real, goosebumps racing up her arms, and she let out a small hissed laugh as she turned back toward the deck, balancing branches and pinecones and berries like a scavenger with a purpose.

She jogged the last stretch, bare feet slapping against the wood as she climbed back up, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, heart steady.

Ben didn't move from the water immediately. He sat up straighter, resting his elbows on the frosted rim of the tub, ignoring the cold air biting at his wet forearms so he could keep his eyes locked on the figure moving through the trees.

She was insane. Absolute, beautiful, certified lunatic behavior.

He watched her crouch down in the snow, her skin glowing pale against the shadows of the pines, scavenging for pinecones like she wasn't wearing nothing but a few scraps of fabric in sub-freezing temperatures. Every instinct in his body wanted to yell at her to get back in the warmth, to wrap her in a towel and carry her inside, but he stayed put.

He stayed put because he saw the way she was moving. She wasn't shivering; she was bounding. She looked light. She looked like the weight she’d been carrying around for days—the fear, the hesitation—had just evaporated into the thin mountain air.

If freezing her ass off to find the perfect branch was what she needed to seal the deal on "us," he wasn't going to stop her.

"Careful," he murmured under his breath, his muscles tensed and ready to launch himself over the railing if she slipped on a patch of ice. "Don't drop the berries, babe."

He watched her snap a branch, watched her inspect it with that critical artist’s eye he loved so much, and a huff of laughter escaped him, puffing out as a white cloud. She was right. His paper bag and orange situation had been tragic. She was going to turn a pile of yard debris into something that looked like it belonged in a magazine, and he was going to take full credit for finding the location.

As she turned back toward the deck, clutching her frozen treasure to her chest, Ben finally moved.

He hauled himself out of the water in one fluid motion, the transition from 104 degrees to 20 degrees hitting him like a physical slap. He gasped, water streaming off his naked body and turning instantly icy on his skin.

He grabbed the thick towel he’d left on the bench, whipping it around his waist and tucking it securely just as her bare feet slapped onto the deck stairs.

He stood there, dripping wet, steam rising off his skin, and just shook his head at her as she crested the top step. She was flushed pink from the cold, her hair freezing in wet clumps, holding a bundle of sticks and berries like she’d just robbed a squirrel.

"You," he said, reaching out to grab her free arm and hustle her toward the sliding door, "are a maniac. A visionary, sure. But a maniac."

He pulled the glass door open, ushering her into the warmth of the cabin before the cold could settle into her bones.

"Get inside before you turn into an ice sculpture. I am not explaining to the paramedics why my girlfriend is frozen to a pinecone."

Cleo laughed as he grabbed her arm, half stumbling because she absolutely refused to slow down for him. The cold barely registered now—she was riding the high of adrenaline and whatever soft miracle had just cracked open in her chest.

“Hey,” she protested between breathless laughs as he herded her toward the door, “I was careful. Mostly.”

The word girlfriend hit her a second later.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just… there. Slipped into the sentence like it belonged.

Her grin went soft and private instantly, something just for herself as she let him hustle her inside. She didn’t say anything about it—didn’t want to spook it—but she tucked the word away like a secret treasure.

Inside, the warmth wrapped around her and she finally hissed, “Okay, fine, you win, it’s freezing,” but she didn’t stop moving. She shook the snow from her hands and crossed straight to the fireplace, kneeling down to carefully unload her haul onto the floor—pinecones first, then branches, then the berries, arranging them like she was already mentally composing the centerpiece.

“Tragic paper bag era is officially over,” she muttered to herself, smiling.

She popped back up and wandered into the kitchen, opening cabinets with quick, purposeful movements. “We have to have something glass in here,” she murmured, rifling through shelves until she found a mismatched set of old vases and candle holders clearly left behind by previous renters.

“Perfect,” she whispered, grabbing a tall one and a squat little bowl.

She spotted a rolled runner tucked on a shelf—some forgotten decorative thing—and snatched it too, tucking it under her arm before heading back to the fireplace and dropping everything in a messy pile.

Then she disappeared down the hallway toward their room.

Ben would hear drawers opening, zippers tugged, a very focused hum. She resurfaced a moment later with a silky pair of red pajamas balled up in her hands, grinning like she’d found buried treasure.

She glanced at the setup again, then muttered, half to herself,
“I need scissors…”

Two steps later she leaned into the doorway and called out, louder—

“Hey, rockstar—do we have scissors or am I about to commit a crime with a steak knife?”