Riley, Joe & Kids
 

Riley found him in the bedroom, the door half-open, soft yellow light spilling across the floorboards. Joe was at the dresser, folding one of Bentley’s T-shirts—badly, but with that same quiet focus he brought to everything else.

She stood there for a moment, watching.

It was late. The kind of late where the house finally sighed into silence. The dishes were done. Nikki was out cold. Bentley had passed out with a book over his face. There was no real reason to speak now, except the one that had been clawing at her all day.

She didn’t clear her throat. Didn’t ease into it.

She just said it.

“I need to tell you something.”

Joe turned, slow. Not startled. Not suspicious. Just… ready.

Which somehow made it worse.

Riley wrapped her fingers tighter around the hem of her sweatshirt. The words sat heavy in her chest. She hadn’t rehearsed them. Maybe because deep down, she knew no version of this would ever come out clean.

Still, she met his eyes.

“It’s not bad,” she added quickly. “Not like that.”

But it wasn’t nothing, either.

And she knew he could tell.

Joe turned at the sound of her voice, slow and unhurried, his hands still cradling the half-folded T-shirt like it might tell him something if he stared long enough.

Riley stood in the doorway, haloed in the kind of light that made everything feel a little softer. Her sweatshirt sleeves were pulled over her hands. Her eyes were steady but unsure, like she was bracing for a tide she hadn’t named yet.

“I need to tell you something.”

He didn’t flinch.

Didn’t brace.

Just met her gaze with that quiet steadiness he always tried to keep in reserve for moments like this—the ones that felt like they mattered more than they should.

Not bad, she said.

But not nothing either.

He could feel it already, threading through the room like smoke. The weight of whatever was coming. The way her fingers curled tight around the hem of her sweatshirt told him this wasn’t casual. It wasn’t offhand. It had lived in her long enough to settle.

Joe placed the shirt down gently on the dresser and crossed the room without a word. Not to fix, not to fill the silence. Just to be close enough that if she broke, she wouldn’t do it alone.

He stopped in front of her, voice low. “Okay,” he said, simply. “I’m listening.”

And God help him, he meant it.

Whatever it was. Whatever it meant.

He’d listen. Because it was Riley. And when it came to her—he always would.

Riley nodded once—barely a dip of her chin—but it felt like everything.

Her fingers were cold. She hadn’t noticed until just then, still curled around the hem of her sweatshirt like they needed something to hold onto. She let out a breath. Not shaky. Not quite. But enough to remind her this wasn’t going to be easy.

She looked up at him, and his eyes didn’t waver.

Of course they didn’t.

Because it was Joe. And when it came to showing up, he always had.

“I’ve been getting phone calls,” she said, voice low. “From Nathaniel.”

There it was. The name she hadn’t said out loud in almost a year. Felt strange, sour on her tongue now. Like something she’d already spat out but could still taste.

She didn’t look away, though. Didn’t give herself that out.

“He’s my ex,” she went on. “From New York. He was… kind of my boss. And we were together longer than I’d like to admit.”

The silence stretched, but Joe didn’t move. Didn’t jump in to fill it. Just waited.

“He asked me to marry him,” she said. “I said no. And that night, I sat on my couch thinking about you. About this place. About who I was before I started letting other people make my life feel too small.”

She swallowed. Hard.

“And then Sara died. And the rest… happened.”

Riley stepped forward, just an inch. But enough. Enough to feel the shift.

“I haven’t answered his calls. I don’t want him. But I needed you to know. Because you matter. And because I’m not hiding anything from you.”

Her voice cracked a little, but she didn’t pull back. Not this time.

“I chose this. I choose you. And I should’ve said all this sooner, but… I was scared. Not of you. Of screwing this up. Of not knowing how to hold something this good without breaking it.”

She took one last breath.

“And I just—I don’t want to lie to you. Not even by accident. Not about this.”

Her hands finally fell from her sleeves.

Open now.

Just in case he needed them to be.

Joe blinked once.

Nathaniel.

Who the fuck is Nathaniel?

The name hit like an elbow to the gut, sharp and unexpected, but he didn’t say anything. Didn’t let it show. Just kept his face neutral and steady, the way you do when something inside you flinches but you’re not ready to bleed yet.

He stood there, listening. Really listening. The kind that didn’t come with interruptions or commentary or trying to make it easier. Because she didn’t need a rescue—she needed a place to land. And he’d be damned if he didn’t give her that.

When she stepped forward—just an inch—he felt it like a shift in gravity. Not much. But enough.

Enough to know this wasn’t just about an ex.

It was about her choosing to stay.

About her cracking her ribs open and handing him everything inside.

Joe let the quiet settle a moment longer, until it felt like it had wrapped itself around both of them. Then he nodded—once, slow—and gave her the only answer that felt honest.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “For telling me.”

His voice was warm. Low. The kind of low that settled somewhere behind your ribs and stayed there.

And then, without missing a beat—because too much tension never sat right with him—he let the corner of his mouth lift just slightly.

“So… next time that guy—” he gestured vaguely, like even saying the name would leave a bad taste, “—decides to call, you let me answer.”

A pause. A glint in his eyes.

“I’ll tell him flower girl’s spoken for.”

He stepped in closer, brushing his fingers over hers before taking her hand in his fully. Solid. Certain.

“Promise I’ll be polite about it,” he added. “Mostly.”

And that was it. No dramatics. No threats.

Just a man who meant every word.

Riley laughed—quiet, breathy, almost surprised.

It cracked something in her, the good kind. The kind that made the air feel lighter. The kind that made her want to lean all the way in and never let go.

She looked down at their hands, his thumb sweeping slow across her knuckles like she was something sacred. Something claimed, but not caged. And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like she was holding too much.

She felt like she was holding just enough—and someone else was holding it with her.

“You’re ridiculous,” she murmured, but there was a smile curling at the edge of her lips. “I mean, terrifyingly charming—but still ridiculous.”

Her voice softened as she met his eyes again.

“But yeah. You can answer next time. Just make sure you use your customer service voice. Really let him hear the Southern gentleman.”

She stepped in until her forehead brushed his chest and let out a long, slow breath. Relief. Gratitude. The ache of honesty soothed by the kind of presence that didn’t ask her to be anything but here.

“I was scared to tell you,” she admitted. “Not because I thought you’d get mad. But because… this means everything to me. You. The kids. This life we’re building.”

Her hands slid up to rest at his sides, fingers curling gently into the cotton of his shirt.

“I didn’t want to mess it up by dragging my past into it.”

She tilted her chin up, brushing a kiss to his jaw—barely there.

“But the truth is, it’s part of what brought me home. Saying no to him… that was me making space for the life I actually wanted. I just didn’t know it yet.”

She looked at him—really looked—and the fear was gone now. All that was left was her.

Present. Grounded. Certain.

“I’m yours, Joe Barnes. I’ve always been a little bit yours.”

And finally, finally, she didn’t feel like she had to run from that truth.

She could run toward it.

Joe let out a low breath, like something he hadn’t even realized he was holding finally let go. Not relief exactly. Something warmer. Deeper. Like coming in from a storm and realizing the lights are still on. That someone waited for you.

He didn’t rush the silence that followed. Didn’t fill it with a joke or a kiss or anything meant to distract.

He just looked at her.

Really looked.

And then, quietly—like it didn’t need to be loud to be real—he said, “I’m glad you told me.”

He shifted, brushing his thumb over her knuckles again, slower this time. “Not 'cause I needed to know about him, but ‘cause I needed to know you knew you could tell me.”

A pause. His gaze softened. Voice dipped lower.

“I’ve never wanted perfect, Riley. I just want honest. I want the kind of life where we carry the hard stuff together. The ghosts, the past, the stuff we don’t always know how to say—bring it. I’d rather hold too much than have you carry it alone.”

He stepped in closer, forehead touching hers now, the space between them gone like it had never been there to begin with.

“And if that guy calls again?” Joe said, his voice slipping into something warm and wicked, that signature twang edged with amusement. “Hand me the phone. I’ll ask if he’s calling to apologize for having a pretentious-ass name, or if he just wanted to hear what a real man sounds like when he says she’s not yours anymore.”

His grin flickered, lazy and sure. But his thumb never stopped moving along her skin.

“'Cause she’s not,” he added, quieter. “Not his. Not anybody’s but her own.”

Then, after a beat—more reverent than teasing—

“But if she wants to be mine? I’ll spend the rest of my life making damn sure she never has to be scared of that.”

Riley didn’t answer at first.

She just let the words settle—low and steady and curling into her like roots. Like something she didn’t have to chase or outrun or second-guess. They wrapped around all the bruised parts she never quite let anyone hold, and for once, she didn’t flinch.

God, he always knew how to say the thing she didn’t know she needed until it cracked her wide open.

Her forehead stayed pressed to his, her eyes slipping shut for half a second as her fingers curled a little tighter into the back of his shirt. She felt that same old ache start to rise in her chest—the one that used to warn her to leave before she got too attached.

But this time, it didn’t feel like a warning.

It felt like surrender.

“I do,” she whispered. “Want to be yours.”

Her voice was soft, but steady.

She leaned back just enough to meet his gaze again, and this time there was no trace of apology in her eyes. Just truth. Just her. All in.

“I want all of it. The hard stuff, the history, the flower shop that smells like coffee filters and pollen. The late-night cereal bowls. The kids climbing into bed when they have bad dreams. Your stupid socks in the hallway.”

She smiled then—really smiled. “You. I want you.”

She reached up, brushing her fingers gently along his jaw.

“I’ve spent so long trying not to need anyone. But you’re not anyone. You’re the only thing that’s ever felt like home.”

Then, quieter—closer:

“I’ll hand you the phone next time. But only if I get to watch you make him sweat.”

She kissed him after that—slow and certain, like a promise. One he could lean on. One she’d keep.

Joe didn’t speak right away. Couldn’t, really.

Not with her words still echoing in his chest like they’d taken root somewhere under his ribs. Not with that kiss still pressed against his mouth, soft and certain and holy in a way that made his whole damn world tilt.

She wanted him.

Not just the good parts. Not just the easy days or the smiles that came quick. She wanted the mess, the noise, the weight of it all. She wanted them.

And hell if that didn’t undo him a little.

He held her there for a beat longer, forehead resting against hers, breathing her in like he was trying to memorize what it felt like to belong.

Then, with a quiet huff of a laugh, he pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes, mischief lighting behind the warmth.

“Alright,” he said, voice low and a little gruff around the edges. “Indulge me for a second.”

Before she could ask, he bent—swift and smooth—and swept her off her feet, arms tucking beneath her legs and around her back like he’d done it a hundred times in his mind. She let out a soft gasp, half protest, half laugh, but didn’t resist. Didn’t pull away.

He carried her toward the door, the old floor creaking gently under his socked feet. The hallway light caught the gold in her hair, the curve of her smile, the way she looked at him like he’d hung the damn stars.

And when they crossed the threshold into the hallway, he paused.

Just for a second.

Just long enough to let the moment bloom.

“I’ve always wondered what this would feel like,” he murmured. “Carrying you like this. Through a doorway. Through a life.”

He looked down at her then—so sure, so in love he could barely stand it—and added, “If you’re all in, Riley… then you should know something.”

He adjusted his grip slightly, just to hold her a little closer.

“I’m gonna marry you.”

A breath.

“Not tomorrow. Not until you’re ready. But I am. I’ve been ready since the day you walked back into my life with that look in your eyes and that stubborn heart you keep trying to hide. So… yeah.”

His smile curved, slow and real.

“I just needed to see what it’d feel like.”

And standing there—holding her, grounded in a future that didn’t scare him anymore—he knew.

It felt like home.

Riley didn’t cry.

She could’ve. The kind of tears that came with being seen like that, held like that—loved with no escape hatch. But instead, she smiled. That quiet, all-in kind of smile that didn’t need to prove a damn thing.

Because she believed him.

Because she felt it too.

Every heartbeat of it.

Her arms looped around his neck, easy and instinctual, like she was made to fit right there. “You don’t have to wait,” she said softly, voice brushing the space between them like something sacred. “Not for me to be ready.”

She pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes, the hallway light catching the soft sheen in hers.

“I already am.”

There was a steadiness to her now—one she hadn’t let herself trust in a long time. But with him? She could. She wanted to.

“I want this. You. The kids. The mess. The grocery runs and the flower shop deadlines and you leaving coffee mugs everywhere.” Her fingers toyed with the collar of his shirt, grounding herself in the moment. “I want the forever part. Even if it’s scary.”

She kissed him then—sure, slow, and deep—like she was sealing something in.

Then she pulled back just enough to murmur, “So if you ask me… tonight, next week, whenever you’re ready…”

A breath.

“I’ll say yes.”

And in his arms, with the world quiet and the future wide open, she didn’t feel afraid.

She felt home.

Joe held her tighter, the kind of hold you don’t even think about—like muscle memory, like instinct.
Like home.

Her words knocked the breath clean out of him. Not rough. Not violent. Just that slow, heavy kind of realization that changes everything without making a sound.

She was ready.

She was his.

And God, if it were up to him, he’d drop to one knee right now, right there in the damn hallway with nothing but the sound of the old pipes rattling and the smell of detergent in the air. No grand speech. No fancy setup. Just him and her and every reckless, sacred thing they ever promised themselves when they were too young to know better—and too stubborn to ever let it go.

But he caught himself. Felt the weight of it. Knew she deserved more.

Not because this moment wasn’t enough.
Because she was.

Because Riley Carson deserved a memory so good it would rewrite every bad one she’d ever been handed.

He dipped his head, brushing his nose against hers in that soft, lingering way he only ever did with her. His voice, when it came, was roughened with everything he was holding back.

“Sweetheart,” he rasped, “if you mean that—and God, I believe you—I need you to know somethin’.”

He kissed her forehead, slow and reverent, like sealing a vow.

“I’ve had it planned since we were kids. Since you punched me on the playground for callin’ you bossy and then stole my hat to prove a point.”

A soft huff of laughter rumbled in his chest, but it didn’t hide the emotion in his voice.

“I’ve been carryin' the ‘how’ in my back pocket for years. Just needed the excuse.”

He pulled back enough to look at her, really look, thumb brushing slow over the line of her cheekbone.

“So no, I’m not askin’ you tonight, even though every damn part of me wants to.” His smile turned crooked, boyish, his eyes full of fire and devotion. “Because when I do? You’re gettin’ the whole nine yards. The sunset, the story, the moment you tell the grandkids about when you’re tired of yellin’ at me for leavin’ my boots in the hallway.”

He leaned in again, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“But you better believe, Riley Carson—it’s comin’.”

And God help the world when it did. Because when Joe Barnes loved, he didn’t do it halfway. He didn’t know how.

Riley’s heart caught right there in her chest—stopped, flipped, pressed its palms against her ribs like it was trying to memorize this moment forever.

She didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe for a second.

Just looked at him.

Because it was all there—in his eyes, in his voice, in the way he said her name like it meant something holy.

And damn it, she was gone.

Gone for the boy who never stopped loving her. Gone for the man who somehow loved her more now, after everything. Gone for every version of him she’d ever known—and every one still to come.

Her smile broke slow, warm and stunned and laced with a kind of happiness that made her knees feel shaky in the best possible way.

“You’ve had it planned since the playground?” she whispered, her hand coming up to press flat against his chest, right where his heart still thundered beneath her palm. “All this time, and you’re telling me now?”

She laughed, breathless. Wrecked.

“You really are ridiculous.”

But her voice cracked on the last word, because it wasn’t just funny. It was everything.

“You want the sunset and the story and the moment for the grandkids?” she said, eyes shining now. “Then I’ll wait. I’ll wait for the proposal you’ve had tucked away all this time. I’ll wait for the boots-in-the-hallway and the flower shop chaos and the days where we don’t get it right the first time.”

She leaned in, her forehead brushing his, her voice barely a breath.

“I’ll wait, Joey. But only because I already know how it ends.”

Then she kissed him.

Like she meant it.

Like she’d always meant it.

Joe kissed her back like it was muscle memory.

Like his body already knew the choreography, had known it since the moment she crashed into his world with scraped knees and a sharp tongue and eyes that never once looked away from a storm.

His hand cupped her jaw, steady and sure, the other anchoring her against his chest like he’d never let her fall. And then—just when she thought he’d stay there, grounded and golden and wrecked—he pulled back with a grin that was all trouble and charm.

“Baby,” he murmured, voice low, “you think I’ve only been plannin’ the proposal?”

And then he dipped her.

Right there in the damn hallway.

One smooth, practiced motion—like he’d been rehearsing that too. Like every wedding scene he’d ever seen in a movie was secretly filed away under important life skills, use if Riley ever comes back.

She let out a half-laugh, half-gasp, gripping his shirt like her knees couldn’t be trusted.

And he just smiled down at her, eyes alight with something wild and reverent. “Gotta make sure I get the dip right,” he said, all Southern sparkle. “Can’t be embarrassing you in front of the cake table.”

Then he kissed her again.

Slower this time. Fuller. The kind of kiss that made the world tilt and time stall and every bad thing they’d ever been through feel a little farther away.

Because he wanted every version of this. Every chapter. Every day she let him wake up beside her and build a life brick by brick.

He pulled her upright again, arms still wrapped around her, and whispered against her temple—

“I’ve always wanted everything with you, Rye. Every messy, perfect, ordinary, extraordinary bit. And I’m not plannin’ on missin’ a thing.”

He pressed one last kiss to her hair, like a seal.

Like a promise.

And Lord, did he mean it.

Riley blinked, breath catching as he lifted her. She wasn’t expecting it—wasn’t prepared for the way the world tilted or how easily she let herself lean into him, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

She laughed—quiet, breathless, warm in the way that only came when something was both brand new and deeply familiar.

“You’ve been waiting to do that,” she said, eyes narrowing like she could tease the truth out of him, even though she already knew it. “Don’t even try to lie.”

But she didn’t pull away. Didn’t ask him to let her go.

She let her fingers settle at the base of his neck, holding him there like she wanted this memory tucked between the ordinary moments of their life.

When he kissed her again—slow and full of promise—something in her stilled.

Not stopped.

Just… stilled.

Like her heart had been running a race she didn’t know she was still in until it saw the finish line standing barefoot in a hallway, grinning like he’d waited his whole life to lift her off her feet.

When he whispered to her, all those pieces of someday, all those bits of always, Riley didn’t smile right away.

She just looked at him.

Long. Quiet. Steady.

And then, softer than anything, she said, “You know what’s wild?”

Her hand slid down to rest flat against his chest.

“I’m not scared.”

A beat. A breath.

“I should be, right? Everything’s changed. The life I built fell apart. I’m raising kids I didn’t plan for. I run a business I didn’t choose. And you… you were always the one thing I could never figure out how to stay close to without burning up.”

She swallowed.

“But here I am. In your arms. In our house. With your socks in the hallway and a future I’m not trying to control for once.”

And then her voice softened.

“So no. I don’t need you to ask me anything tonight.”

She pressed her hand tighter over his heart.

“Because I’ve already answered. Just don’t take too long.”

She smiled then—really smiled. The kind that reached her eyes.

“Also, if you’re gonna dip me again, give a girl a warning. I nearly kicked a picture frame off the wall.”

Riley brushed past him with a little smirk still curling the edge of her mouth, fingers trailing along his arm like she wasn’t quite done being close yet—but needed a moment to breathe.

She crossed the room slowly, steady now, like her heart had found a new rhythm and was finally willing to trust it.

The lamplight hit her pajama top as she peeled it back into place—soft tan cotton with white piping, creased just a little from where his hands had held her. She moved with the quiet confidence of someone who was sure now. Not perfect. Not fearless. Just sure.

She pulled back the sheets and climbed in, shifting onto her side with a content exhale that sounded almost like disbelief. Like she couldn’t believe she’d finally landed in this moment—this room, this life, this quiet.

Then she looked up at him.

“You coming, or are you planning a flash-mob proposal I should be worried about?” she teased, voice a little dry but laced with something warmer—something that said she knew what she had now.

As he moved to join her, she tucked the blanket around her waist and rested her cheek against the pillow, eyes on him.

“I mean it,” she added, quieter now. “I’m not scared.”

Her hand reached out, palm open, waiting for his.

Joe watched her cross the room like she belonged to it.

Like she'd always belonged to it.

Like somehow, this place—this house, this bed, this quiet—had just been waiting for her to come back and fill the spaces he’d kept empty without even realizing it.

And when she turned and said she wasn’t scared?

He believed her.

Because he wasn’t either. Not when they were kids daydreaming about a life too big for their hometown. Not when they were teenagers tangled up in first love and reckless hope. Not when she left and the world tilted, or when she came back and it somehow felt like no time had passed at all.

He'd never been afraid of Riley Carson.

He peeled his shirt off slowly, more out of habit than heat, the soft cotton falling to the floor in that familiar arc she probably didn’t even realize she knew by heart. The hallway light caught the line of his shoulder as he moved, the quiet strength of someone who wasn’t rushing—but knew exactly what he wanted.

And what he wanted?

Was her.

He toed off one sock and didn’t bother with the other, leaving it by the door with a smirk that said he absolutely heard her earlier comment. The other he kicked toward the wall with zero precision and even less guilt.

As he crossed the room, his eyes met hers—steady, warm, a little mischievous.

“Flash-mob’s canceled,” he murmured, climbing into bed beside her, voice thick with affection. “Turns out the backup dancers had moral objections to country music.”

She rolled her eyes, but he caught the way her mouth twitched with the start of a smile.

He reached for her hand—her open palm, waiting for him—and took it like it was sacred. Wove his fingers through hers and kissed the back of it before pulling her close.

“You’re not scared,” he echoed softly, voice close to her ear now. “Good. 'Cause I’m not either.”

A pause.

“I’ve got plans, Riley. Still keepin’ ’em close to the chest, but I promise you—when it happens? It’ll be unforgettable.”

He kissed her temple, then settled in behind her, tucking her close like he was anchoring something. Like he always had. Like he always would.

“Just like the rest of our life.”

And with her heartbeat steady beneath his hand and her warmth tucked into the curve of him, Joe Barnes finally let himself fall asleep.

Not waiting.
Not worrying.
Just home.

Riley settled deeper into the pillows, one leg brushing his as she stretched out beneath the sheets. The quiet of the room had a different weight now—heavier in a good way, like something had landed after floating too long.

She didn’t rush to fill the silence. She never did with him. Not anymore.

Her thumb moved slowly along the edge of his hand, thoughtful. Familiar.

“You really left one sock by the door,” she muttered, eyes closed, lips tugging into a sleep-laced smirk. “We’re not even married yet and I’m already planning the passive-aggressive storage basket I’m buying for that habit.”

She could feel him grin without looking.

But then her voice softened, edged with something else. “You say unforgettable like I haven’t been carrying pieces of this moment around since I was eighteen.”

She blinked slowly, gaze finding his in the dark.

“I don’t need fireworks,” she said. “I don’t need rose petals or a string quartet or some big speech that makes people cry.”

Her fingers laced through his again.

“I just need this. The quiet. The knowing. The way you look at me like we’ve got years ahead of us and nowhere else to be.”

She pulled the blanket higher, let the rhythm of their joined breath settle the last of her nerves.

And then, after a long pause, just barely audible:

“I hope you do ask. But not ‘cause I need the question. Just… I think we’d tell a good story.”

Then she turned her face into the pillow, smile hidden, but steady.

“And I’m not wearing heels to the wedding, by the way. You’re tall enough for both of us.”

Joe couldn’t help the grin that stretched across his face, quiet and slow, even in the dark.

God, he loved her.

Every smart-mouthed, sleep-soft, barefoot inch of her. Every truth she let spill in the hush between breaths. Every bit of her that reached for him without hesitation now—like she’d finally decided he wasn’t something to be afraid of.

He squeezed her hand gently, brushing his thumb over the back of hers. “Well,” he murmured, voice thick with affection and sleep, “there goes my plan for the fireworks, the string quartet, and you arriving on horseback in a custom-made veil.”

She huffed a laugh into the pillow, and he felt it all the way down to his chest.

But beneath the charm, the grin, the teasing warmth that always buzzed in his blood when she was near—there was something deeper tonight. Something rooted.

“I used to think it had to be a production,” he said quietly, the kind of honesty that only came out under moonlight and blanket weight. “Back when I was younger. Back when I thought big meant better. I planned this whole thing in my head—rose petals, music, cameras, stupid-ass speech where I probably would've blacked out halfway through.”

He turned slightly so he could watch her, her silhouette barely outlined in the dim glow of the bedside lamp they forgot to turn off. “But I’ve been thinkin’ about it ever since. Tweakin’ it. Shaping it around who we are. Who you are. Who we’ve become.”

He paused, and this time his voice dropped low—reverent.

“It’s not over the top anymore. But it’s good. It’s us. Humble. Sentimental. The kind of story we’d tell on a porch someday with a dog at our feet and a kid yellin’ in the background.”

A breath.

“So when I ask?” He leaned in, brushing a kiss to her temple, then to the edge of her jaw. “It’ll be unforgettable. Not ‘cause it’s flashy. But because you’ll know—you’ll feel—I meant every damn second leading up to it.”

He pulled her in tighter then, his hand resting low at her back.

“And I’m good with the no-heels thing,” he added, smirking into her hair. “Just means I don’t have to carry you after you kick ‘em off halfway through the reception. My back’s already grateful.”

She didn’t answer right away, but he felt her smile against his skin. Felt her exhale into his chest like she’d been holding that breath her whole life.

And Joe?

He just held her.
Because this—this—was everything he ever wanted.
And now that he had it, he wasn’t letting go.

Riley woke up slowly, the way people do when the house is quiet and the world hasn’t remembered to ask anything of them yet. The sun was barely pushing through the curtains, golden and warm, and the air still smelled like last night’s lavender candle.

She stretched once, toes brushing Joe’s calf under the covers, and only then realized—

He was awake.

Very awake.

She cracked one eye open, just enough to peek over at him without giving herself away.

There he was.

Flat on his back, hair a mess, one arm tucked behind his head… and his phone held inches above his face.

And on his screen?

Rings.

Engagement rings.

Her mouth twitched. Oh, he was so done for.

She blinked fully awake, rolled onto her side, propped her cheek into her palm, and let her voice come out sweet and scratchy from sleep.

“Well, well,” she mumbled, “glad to know you only look up diamonds when you think I’m unconscious. Very sneaky, Barnes.”

Joe jumped a little—just enough to confirm she’d caught him red-handed—then groaned and dragged his free hand over his face like he’d been emotionally ambushed before coffee.

Riley grinned and continued, “Just so you know, mystery shopper, I like rose gold. Simple diamond. Maybe a thin band.” She shrugged casually, like she wasn’t basically choosing her own ring at seven in the morning. “But I’m sure you already have a spreadsheet.”

Before he could say a single word, she made a dramatic little noise and turned over, flopping onto her stomach and dragging the blanket with her like a queen making an exit.

“Anyway,” she added, voice muffled into her pillow, “I’m not here. Carry on with your secret agent jewelry mission.”

She waited exactly four seconds.

Four.

Because she knew him.

She knew the second she rolled away, he would drop his phone, scoot closer, and put his whole, warm, stupidly comforting self right against her back like she’d pulled an invisible string.

Sure enough—

thud
(phone hitting mattress)
shuffle
(blankets shifting)
arm sliding around her waist

And then his breath touched the back of her neck.

She smirked into the pillow.

“Wow,” she whispered dramatically. “He abandoned the rings. Shocked. Betrayed. Utterly heartbroken.”

His arm tightened around her in that warm, sleepy way that said he was already smiling into her shoulder.

Riley reached back blindly, found his hand, and laced their fingers together without even looking.

“Good morning, Joey,” she murmured, soft as the sunlight creeping into the room.

And God, it felt like home.

Joe Barnes did not mean to freeze like a man caught planning treason.

But the second Riley spoke—sleep-rough, amused, dangerously perceptive—his whole body went stiff, like she’d just walked in on him drafting a confession letter.

Because she’d seen.
Not just the screen.
Him.

The planning, the wanting, the stupid stupid hope he’d been carrying around like a secret second heartbeat.

He let out a groan and covered his face with both hands for a moment, because this woman… this woman made him feel seventeen again. Fumbling. Transparent. Lit up from the inside.

When he finally managed to drag his hand away and breathe again, she’d already rolled over, performing theatrics into the pillow like she was collecting an Oscar for “Most Dramatic Mockery of a Man in Love.”

He dropped the phone.
Of course he did.

And when she turned her back, giving him that perfect excuse to do what he’d been wanting to do since she stirred awake—

Yeah, he moved.

He slid in behind her, arm fitting around her waist like it had been carved for this exact purpose, his chest molding to her back, his nose brushing the curve of her shoulder.

She laced their fingers.
And something low and warm went soft in him.

“Morning, darlin’,” he murmured against her neck—voice a little deeper, a little raspier, still colored by the kind of sleep that made everything feel honest.

She radiated smugness.
Full-body, victorious, I-caught-you energy.

He pressed a slow kiss to the back of her shoulder.

“First of all,” he mumbled, shifting just close enough that she felt every syllable, “I was doing research. That’s what responsible grown men do when they’ve got a beautiful, brilliant woman who—”

He hesitated.

Not because he didn’t know the ending.
But because saying it out loud still felt like stepping into sunlight he wasn’t sure he’d earned.

He swallowed, thumb brushing her knuckles under the covers.

“—who deserves something real,” he finished quietly.

A breath.
Not fearful—just full.

“And second,” he added, letting the grin creep back in, “rose gold, simple diamond, thin band… got it. But for the record, sweetheart—if I didn’t want you to see, I would’ve looked those rings up in the kitchen, not right beside you like a fool.”

She snorted into her pillow.
He grinned into her neck.

Then, softer—gentler than he meant to be—

“You can tease me all mornin’, Riley Carson. You earned that. But you didn’t scare me off the rings.”

His hand at her waist tightened, thumb sweeping a slow arc over her stomach like he couldn’t help it.

“If anything,” he whispered, lips brushing her skin, “you made me surer.”

A beat.

“And also very, very aware that you clock everything I do before I even know I’m doin’ it.”

He felt her try not to giggle.

God, he loved her.

Riley didn’t giggle.

Not at first.

She tried—God, she tried—but the second he said research, her shoulders shook and a quiet laugh escaped into the pillow anyway.

She rolled halfway onto her back, just enough to look at him over her shoulder, hair falling across her cheek.

“Research,” she echoed, eyebrows lifting. “Right. Very official. Very science-forward of you, Joey.”

His breath was still warm against her skin, his arm firm around her waist, thumb still stroking her stomach like he didn’t even know he was doing it. And it made something warm and stupidly soft bloom in her chest.

She reached back, fingertips brushing his jaw.

“You know what’s funny?” she murmured. “For a man who thinks he’s sneaky, you are hilariously not. You look at me like the sun came up early every time I walk into a room. I’ve been clocking that for months.”

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. She swallowed a smile.

When he said who deserves something real, Riley bit her lip—once, hard—because that one hit somewhere she’d kept locked up for years.

She shifted in his arms until she was fully facing him, their noses a whisper apart.

“Hey,” she said softly, brushing a thumb across his cheekbone. “I don’t need diamonds to know what’s real with you.”

A beat.

Then she ruined it, smirking.

“Although I’m absolutely keeping the rose gold note on record.”

He laughed under his breath, and she felt it against her lips as she leaned in, nudging his nose with hers.

When he said you didn’t scare me off the rings, she felt her heart give one loud, defiant, ridiculous thump.

“Oh good,” she whispered, fingers sliding into his hair, “because you sure as hell didn’t scare me off the idea of wearing one.”

His hand tightened on her waist. She pretended she didn’t notice how breathless he got.

“And as for knowing what you’re doing before you know you’re doing it…” She let her gaze drop to his mouth, then lifted slowly. “Baby, I grew up next to you. I could’ve written the instruction manual.”

She kissed him then—soft, slow, full of the kind of love that doesn’t need planning because it was built into the bones.

When she pulled back, she whispered the final blow against his lips, barely a breath:

“And just so we’re clear? Surer looks good on you, Joey Barnes.”

Riley let the kiss linger—just long enough to feel him melt a little beneath her mouth—before she pulled back with that slow, sleepy smile she only ever gave him first thing in the morning.

Her fingers traced his jaw, then the dip beneath his bottom lip, soft and teasing. She watched the way his eyes followed her, warm and wrecked and wholly hers.

“Y’know…” she murmured, voice low and scratchy from sleep, “if you keep talking to me like that… I’m gonna start expecting you to use my future name.”

She let the beat hang, her thumb sweeping his cheek, her smile turning sly.

“Riley Barnes.”

Joe froze for half a second, breath catching exactly the way she knew it would.

She grinned.

“It’s always sounded better,” she whispered, leaning in until her lips grazed his, “even when we were kids.”

Another soft kiss—just a brush, just a promise.

She pulled back enough to look at him again, eyes warm and wicked.

“So maybe you should start practicing, Joey,” she added, voice dropping to a playful whisper. “Gotta make sure it rolls off your tongue right.”

She tapped his chest lightly, right over his heart.

“After all… you’re the one doing research.”

Joe froze for half a second — just long enough for Riley to see that she’d knocked the breath clean out of him — and then that slow, crooked grin started tugging at the corner of his mouth.

The room felt different suddenly.
Not louder.
Not brighter.
Just… closer.

Sunlight filtered through the curtains in soft stripes, dust motes drifting lazily in the warm air. The sheets still smelled faintly like lavender and her shampoo, the kind that hit him in the chest every damn time. Riley’s palm rested lightly on his chest, warm through the thin cotton of his shirt, and the whole world narrowed down to the space between her mouth and his.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he murmured, voice low and gravel-warm.
“You really just went for the kill shot, huh?”

She shrugged — casual, deliciously smug — hair messily falling across her cheek in a way that made his heartbeat trip over itself.
“Just giving you material for your research.”

That did it.

He tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her fully into him, slow and sure, until her body pressed flush to his. The mattress dipped under their weight, the quiet creak of springs filling the space the way thunder fills the horizon — subtle at first, then all-consuming.

“Sweetheart,” he said, brushing his nose along her cheek in a lazy, unhurried drag, “you say ‘Riley Barnes’ like that again, and I’ll be down at the courthouse in ten minutes makin’ inquiries.”

Her breath hitched — barely audible, but he felt it.
Right against his mouth.
Right against his ribs.

God, he loved how transparent she was in the mornings.
Before her walls, before her deflection, before the day could make her careful again.

His fingers slid into her hair, slow and purposeful, the way you touch something you’ve loved so long it feels like home. Her strands were warm from sleep, soft against his knuckles, and when he cupped the back of her head, she relaxed into him without even thinking.

“And don’t think I missed what you said,” he added, voice dipping low as the pads of his fingers traced small circles at the nape of her neck.
“You ain’t scared of the idea. Not even a little.”

Her eyes warmed — not sharp, not teasing — something gentler, something older than the years they’d spent apart. The kind of look that lived in childhood summers and long drives and the taste of fireflies on humid nights.

He kissed her jaw first — featherlight, reverent — then the corner of her mouth, lingering like he wanted to memorize the exact spot her smile always began. And finally her lips, slow and savoring, like he was taking his time with something he planned to keep for a long, long while.

“You could write every manual you want,” he whispered against her lips, breath slipping into hers.
“But I’m pretty sure we both know there’s only one ending to us.”

She inhaled softly — one of those tiny, instinctive sounds he’d never admit he’d chase across a room.

Joe kissed her again, deeper this time, slow enough to send heat rolling down his spine.

When he pulled back just far enough to see her face, the morning sun caught her eyes in a way that damn near wrecked him.

“And sweetheart?” he said, grin pulling wider, softening everything inside him.
“You keep callin’ yourself Riley Barnes… and I promise you, one day, you ain’t gonna be jokin’.”

The room felt suspended — warm, quiet, theirs.

He brushed his thumb along her waist, not even thinking about it, just drawn there like it was instinct.

“That’s the kinda research,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss her once more, slow and honey-sweet, “I can stand behind.”

Riley didn’t even try to hide the smile curling at her lips when Joe froze like that.
God, she loved catching him off guard.
Nothing in the world hit quite like watching him be the breathless one for once.

She slid her hand up his chest, slow and unhurried, feeling the warmth of him through the thin fabric. His heartbeat thudded under her palm — strong, steady, but definitely faster than before — and it made something inside her tighten in the sweetest way.

“Kill shot?” she murmured, arching a brow.
Her voice was low, sleep-soft, dangerously close to a purr.
“Baby, that wasn’t even me trying.”

She bit her lip just long enough to see the way his eyes flickered.

Then she pressed closer, letting his arm tighten around her as she tucked her leg over his like she owned the space. Because she did. She always had.

When he warned her — half playful, half deadly serious — about the courthouse, her breath really did catch. Just a little. Just enough for him to feel.

But she didn’t pull back.

She lifted her hand to the back of his neck, fingertips brushing the spot she knew made him inhale a little harder, and whispered against his jaw:

“Maybe I said it because I meant it.”

She felt him go still for half a second — that quiet, seismic kind of still that happened right before his chest rose with something big, something real — and her own heart tugged in response.

She didn’t run from it.

Didn’t bury it.

Didn’t hide.

Instead, she let her nose brush his cheek, slow and intimate.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “I’m not scared of it. Not of you. Not of us. Not anymore.”

Her thumb traced along the line of his jaw, memorizing the faint morning scratch of stubble like she hadn’t touched it a thousand times.

“You and me… we’ve only ever had one ending. Everyone knew it but us.”

Then he kissed her — the slow, savoring kiss that unraveled her every single time — and she melted into him, fingers curling in his hair like she was holding on to something she’d waited years to get back.

When he finally pulled back enough to look at her, she didn’t look away. Didn’t joke. Didn’t deflect.

She touched her forehead to his, breath mingling with his, and whispered:

“And Joe? Just so we’re clear…”

Her lips brushed his slowly, barely a kiss, more a promise.

“I’m not gonna stop calling myself Riley Barnes.”

A small smile ghosted across her mouth — tender, certain, full of love that didn’t scare her anymore.

“Because that’s exactly who I am. Maybe not legally yet…”
Her fingers slid down and laced with his on her waist.
“…but tell me it doesn’t sound right. Tell me it doesn’t fit.”

She kissed him again — slow, sweet, claiming.

“And the best part?” she breathed against his lips.

“I want it. All of it. You. The name. The family. The life.”

One last, soft kiss.

“So yeah. Do your research, Joey. But just know — you’re not the only one sure about where this is going.”

Joe’s heart just about left his damn body.

The second Riley said all that — in that slow, syrupy, morning voice of hers — he felt it hit like a lightning bolt wrapped in velvet.
Warm.
Soft.
Devastatin’.

And the worst part?

She knew exactly what she was doin’.

He huffed out a breath — part laugh, part “Lord help me” — and shook his head like a man who’d just been taken out by a woman half-asleep and still somehow armed to the teeth.

“You’re somethin’ else, you know that?” he murmured, drawl thicker than honey on hot asphalt.

She smiled — barely, but enough — and he damn near blacked out from it.

He slid his hand down her waist, tugging her in until their legs tangled together the way they always did, natural as moonlight on a dirt road. She fit against him like he’d been carved with her in mind.

“Here I am,” he went on, brushing his nose against hers, “thinkin’ I’m playin’ it all cool and slick… and you just stroll in here with the whole wedding speech like it’s casual conversation.”

She didn’t deny it.
Of course she didn’t.

Joe kissed the corner of her smile — slow, warm, lazy as a summer morning — because if he didn’t touch her, he might’ve said somethin’ stupid like I love you in full caps.

“You ain’t scared of it,” he said softly, thumb tracing her cheekbone. “You want the name, the family, the whole shebang.”

He pulled back just an inch, enough to look at her straight-on.

“And you think I’m gonna run from that?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Baby, I’d trip over my own damn boots runnin’ toward that.”

He tightened his hold on her hip, pulling her flush against him.

“Riley Barnes…”
He said it like he was savoring a good whiskey — slow, warm, rollin’ right off his tongue.
“You’re sayin’ it like you’re claimin’ the land.”

He nudged his forehead to hers, grinning that crooked, soft little grin that only ever showed up for her.

“And far as I’m concerned,” he murmured, “you staked that claim back when we were kids and you stole my last popsicle and I let you.”

Her breath hitched — tiny, but enough for him to catch it — and Joe felt the smugness bloom right in his chest.

“And hear me good,” he said, brushing his lips over hers in a slow tease that had no business bein’ that gentle, “you don’t gotta worry ’bout me bein’ sure.”

He paused, just long enough to let the tension settle sweet and thick between them.

“Last time I wasn’t sure ’bout us?”
He kissed her — deep and lazy, the kind of kiss that tasted like long drives and southern heat and years of almosts finally cashing in.
“—was before you ever said my name like that.”

Her fingers tightened in his hair.
He felt every bit of it right down to his bones.

He rested his hand over hers on his waist, threading their fingers together slow and sure.

“You keep callin’ yourself Riley Barnes…” he whispered, mouth brushing hers like he was drunk on her, “and I’m gonna spend the rest of my life makin’ sure you never wanna call yourself anything else.”

He grinned against her lips — warm, cocky, stupidly in love.

“And that, sweetheart?”
A soft kiss.
A promise dressed up like flirtin’.
“That’s research I’ve been conductin’ since the fourth grade.”

“And trust me…” he added with a lazy drawl that melted straight into her,
“I got a lot of data.”

Riley felt it — that shift in him.

That barely-there pause he tried to smother, the way his breath stuttered when she said Riley Barnes, the way his whole chest moved like he’d been hit with something he wanted and feared and never actually thought he’d get.

God, she loved doing that to him.

She slid her hand up his chest again — slow, claiming, absolutely intentional — her fingers tracing the path between his ribs like she was memorizing the map of where he kept her.

“Joe,” she whispered, and her voice was warm and teasing and true all at once, “if you think I’m not fully aware you’ve been planning all this since we were kids… then you’ve forgotten who you’re dealing with.”

His chest vibrated with that half-swallowed laugh of his — the one she felt before she heard.

She leaned in, brushing her lips along the corner of his mouth, slow enough to make him hold his breath.

“You always think you’re hiding things from me,” she murmured, letting her thumb stroke along the edge of his jaw. “But I’ve known you my whole damn life. You don’t get to pretend.”

Her nose brushed his.
Soft. Certain.

“You look at me the same way now as you did when I showed up to school with uneven pigtails and mismatched socks. Like you made up your mind about me before either of us had the language for it.”

She felt him swallow, slow and thick.

She kissed him — lingering, warm, just enough pressure to make him chase more — and pulled back only a breath.

“So yeah,” she said softly. “I want the name. The family. The forever.”

She ran her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp until his eyes fluttered just the way she liked.

“And I’m not scared of any of it. Not when it’s you.”

Her mouth curved into a grin — soft around the edges, smug through the middle.

“Because honestly? I’ve been Riley Barnes since the fourth grade too. I just… took the scenic route getting back to it.”

She felt him exhale — more like a release than a breath — and she pressed her forehead to his, closing her eyes against the warmth of him.

“And if you’re really keeping all that ‘data’ you claim…”
She tilted her head, lips brushing his.
“…then you already know the conclusion.”

She kissed him again — slow and sure and sweet with promise.

“I’m yours, Joe. Fully. Completely. And I’ll say that name every morning if you want. Riley Barnes. Riley Barnes. Riley Barnes.”

Another kiss — deeper now, hungrier, her fingers curling in his shirt.

“Because that’s who I am. And you’re the only man I’ve ever wanted to be worth it for.”

She tugged him a little closer, breath warm against his mouth.

“So you keep researching, baby. But don’t act surprised when the results keep pointing in the same direction.”

Riley didn’t give him a chance to say a single word.

Not one.

Because the second his breath hitched — that barely-there sound he only ever made when she got too close, too honest, too him — she slid her hand up the back of his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers.

No hesitation.
No space.
Just heat.

The kiss deepened in a way that felt inevitable — like gravity, like history, like every version of them winding its way back to this exact moment in this exact bed. His lips were warm and familiar and completely hers, and Riley kissed him like she’d been waiting years to do it right.

She swung a leg over to straddle his hips, slow and certain, her hair spilling around them like a curtain of morning light. He let out that sound — soft, low, unguarded — and she felt it vibrate straight through her chest.

“Joe…” she whispered against his mouth, but she didn’t finish it. Didn’t need to.

Her lips moved to his jaw, trailing kisses along the sharp line he always denied having. She lingered there a moment — slow, indulgent — before following the curve down to the warm place below his ear.

He breathed her name.
She smiled against his skin.

Her mouth found his neck next — soft kisses at first, then deeper, open-mouthed, lingering just long enough to feel the pulse beneath her lips. One hand slid under the hem of his T-shirt, fingertips brushing his stomach, and he arched just barely, just enough for her to feel every ounce of the effect she had on him.

She kissed her way down, from the column of his throat to the hollow at the base, tasting warmth and sleep and that familiar scent of him that always hit her like home.

Then she reached his collarbones.

God, she’d always loved these.
The shape of them.
The vulnerability of them.
The way he always melted just a little when she touched them.

She pressed one slow kiss to the left — soft, almost reverent.

Another to the right — lingering this time, lips curved into a smile against his skin.

Her fingers slid up to cradle his jaw as she lifted her face again, hovering over him, her breath mingling with his.

“Still takin’ notes, Barnes?” she murmured, her voice low and warm, the teasing tangled with something deeper — something unmistakably her choosing him.

Because she was choosing him.
Again.
And again.
And again.

She kissed him once more, deeper than before — the kind of kiss that felt like a promise.

And the kind that left no doubt in either of them:

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Joe’s whole damn world went molten.

Not the panicked kind — the familiar kind.
The kind that only ever happened with her, every single time she climbed into his lap like she belonged there. Because she did. God help him, she always had.

“Still takin’ notes, Barnes?”

Lord have mercy.

The way she said that — voice lazy, lips swollen, sittin’ over him like the memory of last time and the promise of next time — it lit him up from the inside out.

Joe laughed — low, dangerous, knowing exactly what he was doing to her too — and the sound rumbled under her hands like a warning she absolutely wasn’t going to heed.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he drawled, sliding his hands up her thighs with slow, practiced confidence, “I ain’t takin’ notes anymore.”

He let his thumbs drag up just under the hem of her shorts — slow, teasing, claiming — because he knew exactly how that touch made her breath hitch.

“I’m studyin’,” he added, voice dropping to something dark-sweet.
“And trust me, I got a whole curriculum planned.”

Her fingers curled in his shirt.
Yeah — he felt that.

“You sittin’ up here like you’re doin’ me a favor…” His hands traced up her hips, knowing exactly where to linger.
“You kissin’ down my neck like you forgot the last time you did that, I nearly threw my back out tryin’ to pull you closer—”

She let out a quiet breath against his skin.
Joe grinned wider, cockier.

“Baby, that ain’t research,” he murmured, lips brushing the corner of her mouth, “that’s a damn thesis defense.”

She kissed the hollow of his throat — slow, deliberate — and Joe couldn’t stop the quiet, rough sound that escaped him.
He never could with her.

His hips lifted — just enough to tell the truth, not enough to surrender all the control.
She felt it.
Of course she did.

“See,” he rasped, hand sliding under her shirt, fingers finding bare skin he knew better than his own, “this is where you mess up, darlin’.”

He tilted his head, eyes dark and amused, jaw tight with how much he wanted her.

“You think you’re drivin’ this,” he whispered, lips brushing her ear, “but you forget—”

His other hand grabbed her hip, steady and firm, guiding her down a push closer to him.

“—I know your tells too.”

Her breath stuttered.
He felt her thighs tighten around him.

“Oh yeah,” he murmured, cocky as hell, “there she is.”

He shifted beneath her — slow, purposeful — and she made a sound he felt everywhere.

“You kiss me like that, Riley,” he breathed against her mouth, “and you act all smug like you ain’t already pulled that move on me ten times…”

He kissed her jaw.
Then her throat.
Then that sweet spot just under her ear that had ruined her the first time they ever crossed that line.

“…and you think I don’t remember every single one of ’em?”

He lifted his head, meeting her eyes with a lazy, devastating smile.

“Baby, I could write your manual.”

His thumb stroked the inside of her thigh, slow as honey.

“And chapter one?”
A kiss to her collarbone — hot, open-mouthed, lingering.
“That look on your face when you call yourself Riley Barnes.”

Her breath hitched again — and he chased it with a soft groan.

“God, sweetheart,” he muttered, pulling her flush against him, “you keep doin’ that, and I’m liable to forget we were ever apart.”

He nipped her jaw lightly — playful, familiar, hungry.

“And I promise you,” he murmured, lips hovering just over hers, “I ain’t surprised the results point in the same direction.”

He kissed her — slow and deep, the kind of kiss that meant I know you, I want you, I’m not goin’ anywhere.

Then he smirked against her mouth.

“Data’s conclusive,” he murmured.
“You’re mine, and I’m yours. Been that way since before either of us knew what the hell to do with it.”

Another kiss — hotter this time, as if pulled from somewhere low and certain.

“And now that we know?”
His hands tightened at her hips.
His voice dropped to a promise:

“I ain’t wastin’ a damn second of it.”

Riley let out a sound that was caught somewhere between a laugh and a gasp, her head falling back as his thumbs pressed into the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. God, he was infuriating. He was arrogant. He was absolutely, one-hundred-percent right.

“You talk a big game for a man currently pinned to the bed,” she managed, though the bite in her voice was ruined by the way her fingers tightened in his hair, scratching lightly against his scalp.

She looked down at him—at that smirk she’d wanted to smack off his face when they were sixteen and kiss off his face when they were eighteen. Now? Now she just wanted to bite it.

“And for the record,” she murmured, leaning down until her lips were a ghost against his, ignoring the way her pulse was hammering a traitorous rhythm against his chest, “if I nearly threw your back out, that’s just you gettin’ old, Barnes. Don’t blame my technique.”

She ground down, just a fraction. Just enough to feel the heavy ridge of him snap against her, just enough to make his eyes darken further.

“Besides,” she whispered, her voice dropping to that husky register she knew wrecked him. “You loved it. Every second of it.”

When he brought up the name—Riley Barnes—she felt the heat rise up her neck, hot and prickly. She could bluff her way through a lot of things. She could bluff through grief, through business licenses, through town gossip. But she couldn’t bluff through the way his voice wrapped around that name like he’d already engraved it on the mailbox.

She didn’t pull away, though. Instead, she softened. The fight went out of her shoulders, her body melting into the solid, warm line of his. This was the soft-edged resilience—the part of her that fought the world but folded for him.

She traced the line of his jaw with her thumb, her expression shifting from teasing to something achingly tender. “Don’t let it go to your head, Joey. I haven't signed the paperwork yet.”

She leaned in, brushing her nose against his, breathing in the scent of him—soap, cedar, and that underlying warmth that just smelled like home.

“But if you’re so sure about your data,” she whispered against his lips, her heart feeling like it was going to beat right out of her chest and into his hands, “...then stop talking about the curriculum, Professor.”

She bit his lower lip, a sharp, sudden tease, before pulling back just an inch, her eyes challenging him, daring him.

“And show me what you learned.”

Joe never claimed to be a saint.

But right then?

With Riley Carson straddling him, grinding down slow enough to knock the breath out of his lungs, biting his damn lip like she had every legal right to?

Yeah.
If God Himself wanted a word, He’d have to get in line.

Because Joe Barnes wasn’t thinkin’ holy thoughts.
He was thinkin’ finally.

Her laugh—gasp—whatever that sound was, it tore right through him.
And that crack in her voice when he squeezed her thighs?

Sweet Jesus.

He’d replay that until he was old and gray.

“You talk a big game for a man currently pinned to the bed.”

Pinned?

He let out a low, dark laugh, the kind that rumbled in his chest and vibrated right through her.
“Oh sweetheart,” he drawled, thumbs pressing deeper into the soft skin of her inner thighs just to hear her breath hitch again, “you think I’m pinned, you ain’t been payin’ attention.”

And then she said it.

Show me what you learned.

He felt it hit him like a damn freight train made of heat and history and every bad decision he’d ever stopped himself from making with her when they were younger.

His smile went slow.
Dangerous.
The kind of smile that used to get them both in trouble behind the bleachers.

“Oh, darlin’,” he murmured, voice dipping into that low register he only had for her, “you shouldn’t’ve said that.”

His hands slid up her thighs—slow, certain, possessive in a way he didn’t bother hiding.
He mapped every inch of her skin like it was notes on a page he’d been memorizing since childhood.

“You sittin’ here askin’ for demonstrations…”

He tilted his head, dragging his teeth lightly along the inside of her knee, just to feel her shiver.
“…you really forget this ain’t our first rodeo?”

Her breath faltered.
He felt it.
He loved it.

“Oh no, baby,” he said, thumbs brushing up her hips, “I remember every thing you like.”

His voice dropped even lower, a warm southern hum against her skin.

“The way your breath stutters right before you try to get cocky.”
His fingers traced the curve of her waist.
“The way your thighs tighten when I get my hands right here…”
A flex of his grip.
“And the way you say my name like you’re mad at me and beggin’ at the same time.”
He dragged his mouth up her thigh—slow, strategic, sinful—until he reached the place just under her hip that always made her tremble.

“Told you already,” he whispered, breath hot against her skin, “I ain’t takin’ notes.”
He kissed her there—open-mouthed, claiming.
“I’ve been studyin’ you my whole damn life.”

He looked up at her from beneath his lashes—dark, hungry, smiling like he knew exactly what he was about to do to her.

“So if you want the lesson…”

His hands slid firmly up her back, guiding her closer, his lips brushing hers in a slow, devastating tease.
“…you better hold on.”

He didn't need to be on the bottom for this next part.

His hands, already spanning her back, moved with sudden, urgent purpose. He found the hem of her loose T-shirt, bunching the fabric in his fists. He lifted his hips just enough to meet the motion as he dragged the shirt up, pulling it over her head in one swift, soundless movement.

He tossed the cotton aside and looked up at her—her chest heaving, the sheer, intoxicating shock of exposed skin and frantic breath in her eyes.

She was stunning. The kind of raw, reckless beauty that made him want to forget every protocol he’d ever learned.

“Now who’s pinned, Riley?” he murmured, his voice laced with triumph and heat.
With a powerful flex of his core, he leveraged himself, sliding them over the sheets in one smooth motion until he was above her, his weight heavy and solid, settling between her thighs. Her legs instinctively clamped down on his hips, and the involuntary friction of it made his vision swim.

He didn't touch her breasts immediately. That was too quick.

Instead, his hands cradled her jaw, holding her face still as he took her mouth again—a deep, silencing, territorial kiss that was half claim, half desperate hunger.

When he finally pulled back, he lowered his head, tracing a path down her neck. His breath was hot on her skin, but his mouth was hotter.

He paused at the soft curve of her shoulder, tasting the faint salt of sweat and the familiar scent of her skin. He left a slow, deliberate line of kisses from her collarbone toward her chest, his intention unmistakable.

He reached the sensitive, warm skin of her cleavage and lingered, letting his tongue map the hollow between her breasts before pushing one hand into the pillow above her head.
He looked her straight in the eye, all the raw, dangerous intention of a man pushed past his limit, and then he lowered his head. His mouth closed over the perfect, waiting curve of her right breast, and he drew her in with a sound that was less of a groan and more of a vow.

“‘Cause I’m about to refresh your memory, Riley Barnes—”

A slow, deliberate suckle.
A scrape of his teeth.
A shudder that went through her like a shockwave.

“—on exactly what the hell you came back home for.”

Riley’s world didn’t just tilt; it capsized.

One second she was the one looking down, feeling powerful, and the next, the room blurred into a dizzying smear of motion. The mattress rose up to meet her back with a soft thump, the air rushing out of her lungs in a startled, ragged gasp that was immediately swallowed by the heavy, crushing weight of him settling between her legs.

He felt like a mountain. Solid, immovable, and emanating a heat that seemed to radiate right through the denim of his jeans and into the bare skin of her thighs.

The loss of her shirt happened so fast she barely registered the movement, just the sudden, shocking rush of cool air against her skin—followed instantly by the searing warmth of his breath. It left her feeling stripped, not just of cotton, but of every defense mechanism she’d built up over the last three years.

"You... you play dirty, Barnes," she choked out, though the words lacked any real heat. They were breathless, wrecked things.
And then he claimed her.

When his mouth closed over her breast—hot, wet, and maddeningly precise—a white-hot wire of sensation snapped tight in her belly. The scrape of his teeth wasn't gentle; it was a possessive graze that sent a volt of electricity straight down her spine, shattering her composure into a thousand glittering shards.

Her back arched violently off the sheets, her body moving on pure, frantic instinct. Her hands, desperate for an anchor in the storm he was creating, flew to his head, fingers tangling deep into his short hair, gripping his scalp hard enough to hurt.

"Joe," she pleaded, her voice cracking, a high, thin sound that she barely recognized as her own. "God—Joe."

Hearing him say that name—Riley Barnes—in that low, rough growl, while his tongue worked magic on her sensitive skin... it hit her harder than the physical pleasure. It felt like a brand. It felt like coming home and locking the door behind her.

"I didn't..." She struggled to speak through the haze, her chest heaving as she fought to catch her breath between the waves of sensation rolling off him. "I didn't come back for this."

It was a lie, and they both knew it. But she needed to say the truth of it, even if it cost her the last shred of her pride.

She dragged his head closer, her nails scraping lightly against his skin, her hips bucking up to meet the heavy pressure of his.

"I came back," she confessed, the words tumbling out in a rush, raw and unvarnished, "because I realized that being safe in New York was just another way of being numb."

She shuddered as he swirled his tongue, her eyes fluttering open to stare up at the ceiling, her vision blurring.

"And I was starving," she whispered, her voice breaking on the admission. She looked down at him, her eyes dark, dilated, and full of reckless surrender. "I was starving for you."

She tugged sharply on his hair, demanding his attention, demanding everything.

"Now stop talking," she breathed, pulling him up just enough to crash her mouth against his in a messy, desperate kiss. "And feed me."

Joe wasn’t a religious man.

​But if he ever had a moment that could’ve converted him?

​It was this one.

​Because when Riley Carson—Riley Barnes in every way that mattered—hit his mouth with hers like that, dragging him up by the hair with a force that shot straight down his spine, every thought in his head burned right out.

​He growled.
Actually growled.

​A low, raw, feral sound that vibrated against her lips as he kissed her back hard enough to steal the breath right from her chest.

​“Feed me,” she’d said.

​Oh, sweetheart.
She had no idea.

​He broke the kiss only long enough to look at her—really look at her—hair wild on the pillow, lips swollen, eyes blown wide with want and something so real it damn near leveled him.

​Starving.
​She’d said she was starving.

​And Joe Barnes had never wanted to give someone so much in his entire damn life.

​“Riley…” he rasped, voice shredded and thick with heat, “you ain’t gotta ask me twice.”

​He didn't need to ask for permission. He already had the marching orders.

​He kissed her again—fast, sharp, a hungry punctuation mark on their conversation—before pulling back and shifting his attention lower. He braced himself on one elbow, his eyes never leaving hers, watching the anticipation widen those dark pupils.

​Her pajama bottoms were thin, soft cotton, a casual, maddening barrier. His fingers hooked into the fabric at her hip, and he dragged the pants down her legs slowly, deliberately, forcing her to lift her hips just a fraction off the sheet to help him.

​The sight of the lace she wore beneath—unapologetically black, a stark, delicious contrast to the soft skin of her thighs—hit him like a flash of lightning. It was calculated. It was for him.

​He peeled the cotton pants off her ankles and tossed them somewhere into the periphery, their presence forgotten.

​Then, he leaned down, pressing his mouth to her inner thigh just above the edge of the lace. His breath, hot and heavy, was enough to make her gasp and arch against the pillow.

​He ran his hands up the outside of her thighs, planting them firmly on her hips, anchoring her to the bed, possessive and focused.

​“Data collection, Riley,” he mumbled against her skin, the low sound vibrating through her flesh and straight to her core. “High priority retrieval.”

​He started with slow, open-mouthed kisses, tracing the seam of the delicate fabric, torturing her with proximity and patience. He kissed the sensitive skin of her hip bones, the curve of her belly, working his way inward, drawing out the tension until she was breathless.

​He reached the center, and paused one last time, looking up at the woman who had always been his one constant, his one unpredictable storm.

​He saw the begging in her eyes, the feverish want, the total surrender he craved.
​Joe didn't hesitate. He pulled the lace aside with a single, firm finger, revealing her wet, waiting heat, and then he buried his face against her.

​The first stroke of his tongue was slow, deep, and utterly consuming. He was methodical, tracing the most sensitive points, mapping the tremors that were already starting to rack her body. She gasped his name, her hands flying to the sheets beside her head, gripping the fabric tight.

​He applied pressure, careful and deliberate, watching her face—the way her eyes clenched shut, the small, desperate sound caught in her throat. He felt the frantic hammer of her pulse beneath the tips of his fingers where they gripped her hips, and the knowledge that he was the one causing this beautiful loss of control was the sweetest rush he'd ever known.

​He smiled against her skin, a dark, primal, satisfied curve of his mouth. This was his language. This was the conclusion he’d always known.

​He kept the rhythm steady and deep, savoring the way her breath hitched with every deliberate movement, driving the heat higher and higher, refusing to let her settle, refusing to let her come apart until he knew she was aching for it.

​Riley Barnes was his storm. And he was going to stand right in the eye of it.

Riley’s head fell back against the mattress with a thud, her eyes rolling back as the first damp, hot drag of his tongue against her inner thigh sent a shockwave straight to her chest.

"High priority... God," she choked out, the sarcasm dying a quick, breathless death on her lips. She wanted to laugh at him—at the sheer, audacious nerdiness of the line—but he didn't give her the chance.

He was moving the lace.

The sensation of the fabric sliding against sensitive skin was maddening, but the feeling of his unshaven jaw grazing her inner thigh was worse. It was better. It was everything.

When he finally settled—when he pulled the lace aside and claimed her with that terrifying, perfect confidence—Riley ceased to be a person who owned a flower shop or worried about grocery lists. She was just a live wire, and he was the current.
"Joe—"

The name broke on a ragged sob as his tongue swept over her, deep and slow and so agonizingly precise it felt like he was taking her apart at the seams.

Her hands found the sheets by her head, fists clenching so hard her knuckles turned white, anchoring herself against the tide. He wasn't just touching her; he was memorizing her. He was learning the exact pressure that made her hips jerk, the exact rhythm that made her breath catch and hold in her throat.

"Don't you..." she gasped, her hips lifting off the mattress, seeking more friction, harder pressure. "Don't you dare stop."

But he knew that. He knew everything.

The steady, relentless rhythm he set was torture. Sweet, blinding, white-hot torture. Every time she thought she might crest, he slowed just enough to keep her on the edge, leaving her hanging in the terrifying, beautiful space between freefall and flight.

"Please," she whimpered, the word torn from the back of her throat, stripped of all pride. She was thrashing now, her head moving restlessly on the pillow, her legs trembling around him.

"Joe, please."

She didn't even know what she was begging for anymore—for him to stop, for him to harder, for him to never let her go. All she knew was that he was the storm, and she was drowning in him, and she didn't want to be saved.

He felt the surrender in her every tremor. The way her thighs shook around his head, the helpless thrashing of her hips, the sound of her breath dissolving into broken pleas—it was better than any data set he'd ever compiled.

​She was losing the battle, just as he'd intended.

​He deepened the contact, using his hands on her hips to drive the motion, watching her back arch against the pressure. Every gasp of his name was a shot of pure, uncut adrenaline. He could feel the tension building, coiling tight and sharp in her core, pushing her right to the limit where sensation tipped into oblivion.

​Almost there.

​He felt the first ripple of release start to pulse through the soft flesh beneath his tongue—that tight, involuntary clenching that signaled imminent collapse.

​Not yet.

​He didn't want to watch her shatter alone. He wanted to feel the shockwave from the inside.
​With a final, excruciating stroke, he pulled back. It was a cruel, necessary yank that made her cry out in immediate, desolate protest.

​He didn’t move far. He kept his face pressed close to her skin, his breath hot and ragged against her damp heat as he steadied his hands on her waist.

​“Easy, darlin’,” he mumbled, his voice thick and dark, heavy with his own building need. “We’re just recalibrating the system.”

​He slowly dragged his tongue up the slick curve of her abdomen, kissing her way past the last barrier of her lace, letting his stubble rake against her skin and chase the shivers he loved so much.
​He tracked the tremor line up her body, tasting the faint salt of sweat, feeling the chaotic hammer of her pulse everywhere he touched. His eyes locked onto hers, burning with the dark, focused intensity she knew meant she had zero control left.

​Her eyes were still glazed, frantic, trying to track his movement.

​“You still think you’re in charge, Riley?” he growled, reaching her breasts. He paused only to take a deep, rough breath, pressing his face into the soft skin of her chest just below her collarbone. The taste of her was intoxicating.

​While his mouth worked its way up her throat, taking her jaw with a possessive, rough kiss, his hands dropped instantly and efficiently to the waist of his own boxers.
​He didn't break the kiss. He couldn't.

​With one hand gripping the back of her head, anchoring her to the pillow, the other hand yanked the elastic of his damp, restricting fabric. A swift, impatient downward motion, and his boxers joined her pajama bottoms somewhere on the floor.

​He was heavy now, solid, his erection hot and immediate against the bare skin of her thigh, a brutal, undeniable punctuation mark on the end of her lesson.

​He leaned back, bracing himself on his arms, breathing hard, their eyes locked in the low light.
​“I told you I remember every damn thing you like,” he rasped, his voice a promise and a threat. He shifted his hips, pressing his hard length against her, finding the sweet, hot, perfect center of her slick heat.
​“And you like it when I’m here.”

​He drove into her then—one long, deep, utterly perfect stroke that made her shout his name in a voice that was pure pleasure, pure completion, pure Riley Barnes.

​The feeling of coming home was immediate, visceral, total. She was tight, wet, and absolutely everything he’d needed for twenty years.

​He rested his forehead against hers, pulling his hands into her hair, gripping it tight, letting his control shred as she clenched around him.

​“Welcome back, Riley,” he gritted out, the words ripped from his throat.
​And then he started to move.

The sound that tore from Riley’s throat wasn’t a word; it was a jagged, broken cry of pure relief.

His entry wrecked her. It was a brutal, beautiful invasion that snapped her head back against the mattress and arched her spine like a bow. The sheer, stretching fullness of him was overwhelming, filling the empty ache he’d carefully cultivated, replacing the void with heavy, unyielding heat.

She didn’t waste breath trying to speak. She couldn't have formed a syllable if she tried.

Her legs flew up, wrapping instantly around his waist, ankles locking tight to trap him against her, terrified he might retreat even an inch. As he began to move—a slow, punishing withdrawal followed by a heavy, snapping thrust that hit her deepest spot—her hands scrambled for purchase on his sweat-slicked back.

She didn't just hold on; she clawed at him. Her nails dug into the shifting muscles of his shoulders, dragging down the length of his spine, leaving red, stinging crescents in her wake. She needed to mark him. She needed to know he was feeling even a fraction of the chaos he was inflicting on her.

But the edge he’d left her on was still right there, a razor-sharp precipice that his rhythm was pushing her toward but not quite shoving her over. The friction of him inside her was maddening, perfect, consuming—but the ghost of his mouth was still pulsing on her skin, leaving her desperate and vibrating with unfinished need.

She needed more.

With a frantic, animalistic whimper, she let go of his shoulder with one hand and shoved it down between their damp, grinding bodies. The space was tight, hot, and slick with sweat and desire, but she forced her way in.

Her fingers found the swollen, sensitive peak he’d abandoned moments ago, and the second she touched herself, the world turned white.

She rubbed hard, circling frantically in time with the brutal snap of his hips. The dual sensation—the heavy, filling stretch of him burying himself inside her and the sharp, electric friction of her own fingers—was too much. It was sensory overload.

Her other hand tangled violently into the short hair at the nape of his neck, yanking his head down. She buried her face in the curve of his neck, her mouth open and wet against his pulse, biting down on his skin to stifle a scream as she ground herself against her own hand and his relentless thrusts, chasing the oblivion he promised.

The shout of his name that ripped from her throat on entry was the most beautiful sound Joe had ever heard. It was confirmation. It was the closing statement in his life’s research project.

​He felt the immediate, desperate trap of her legs around his waist, the tight, possessive lock of her ankles, and the sense of absolute possession was staggering. He was home. He was sealed, slicked, and swallowed by the one variable that mattered.

​He started the rhythm—slow, heavy, deep—driving down, sinking into her heat until he felt the cushioned resistance of the end of his travel, then pulling back just far enough to make her gasp before slamming back into her again.

​He felt the sting of her nails on his shoulders, the furious, frantic clawing down his spine, and he welcomed the pain. It was proof that she was feeling the chaos she had claimed to love about him. He needed her to mark him, to claim him back just as savagely as he was claiming her.

​Mine. You are always mine.

​He watched the beautiful devastation on her face, the way her lips were swollen and parted, the total lack of language or control. He kept the pace brutal and rhythmic, refusing to give her the release she’d been begging for moments before, pushing her higher on the very precipice where she was fully aware of the fall.

​Then she shocked him.

​He felt the frantic, slick insertion of her hand between their bodies. The instant her fingers connected with the sensitive spot he’d just abandoned, her entire body went rigid beneath him, a massive, seismic surge of sensation.

​Her climax started as a violent, low whimper buried against his neck, where her open mouth was pressing hot and desperate against his pulsing throat.

​He tasted the sudden salt of her sweat and the raw intensity of her need. Her teeth scraped his skin as she tried to stifle the scream, and the sensation—the simultaneous clenching of her muscles around him, the frantic self-touching, the sharp pain of her teeth, the overwhelming depth of his penetration—was too much for even his rigorous control.

​He couldn't hold back the sound this time. A guttural, ragged roar tore from his chest, an animalistic reaction to her immediate, total surrender.

​He slammed his hands against the mattress on either side of her head, locking his elbows, and let his hips take over, driving into her with three deep, mind-numbing thrusts that mirrored the frantic pace of her own hand.

​The fourth, final thrust was a bellow of utter release, a massive, shuddering release that poured into her heat, pulling a final, broken cry from her throat as she completely shattered around him.

​He collapsed, his weight crushing her into the mattress, his body a heavy, sweat-slicked parenthesis around her spent form. His mouth found her neck, breathing raggedly against her skin, the taste of her and the sharp tang of their combined heat the only air he needed.

​He didn't move. He didn't want to. He was sealed, satisfied, and profoundly, irrevocably hers.

​After a long, shuddering minute, he managed to lift his head just enough to press his lips against her ear. His voice was a thick, raw sound—less Dr. Barnes, more Joe, the boy who'd loved her forever.

​"Conclusion accepted," he murmured, before kissing her temple, his entire body trembling with the aftershocks of their perfect storm. "No further research required."

Riley felt like she had been dismantled, molecule by molecule, and put back together in a completely different shape. A shape that fit him perfectly.

The climax had been shattering—a white-out of sensation that stripped the last of her conscious thought away, leaving her gasping and clawing at him as the world dissolved. Now, the only thing tethering her to the earth was the heavy, crushing weight of him pressing her into the mattress.

And God, she didn’t want him to move an inch.
She lay there, her chest heaving against his, her legs heavy and useless where they were still tangled with his. She could feel the frantic, dying gallop of his heart hammering against her ribs, slowing in time with her own.

When he spoke, the vibration of his voice rumbled straight through her chest, deep and raw.
“No further research required.”

A sound bubbled up in her throat—weak, breathless, and achingly fond. It was a laugh, but it sounded more like a surrender.

Her arms, which felt like lead, managed to tighten around his ribs, her hands sliding up to cup the back of his neck, fingers toying idly with the damp hair at his nape. She turned her head just enough to press her face into the curve of his shoulder, breathing in the scent of sweat, soap, and Joe.

"I don't know, Barnes," she whispered, her voice rough, a vibration against his skin. She opened her eyes, heavy-lidded and soft, staring at the wall but seeing only the future.

She kissed his shoulder—a slow, lingering press of her lips.
"I feel like... for the sake of scientific accuracy..."

She shifted her hips beneath him, just a tiny, exhausted movement, settling him deeper into the cradle of her thighs.

"...we might need to run a few more trials tomorrow."

Joe wasn’t sure where his body ended and hers began.

All he knew was weight — his on top of her — and heat — everywhere — and breath — shared, shallow, unsteady.

He felt like he’d been emptied out and filled right back up with nothing but her name.

Riley.
Christ.

When she shifted beneath him, settling him even deeper between her thighs, he made a sound he didn’t have the dignity to swallow. Something low. Rough. Born in the back of his throat because he didn’t have the strength to stop it.

Her voice drifted up to him, all warm edges and lazy teasing about “trials tomorrow,” and Joe tried — tried — to form a coherent response.

It didn’t go well.

“Tomorrow,” he echoed, barely more than a breath. His lips brushed her shoulder on accident. “Mmh. Yeah. Sure. That’s… somethin’.”

His brain wasn’t firing.
Nothing was firing.
Except the feeling of her.

Her arms tightened around him, fingers in his damp hair, and his whole body seemed to melt one inch deeper into her.

He managed a soft laugh — the broken, helpless kind that came from having absolutely nothing left.

“You’re trouble,” he murmured, voice so low it barely counted as speech. “Real. Damn. Trouble.”

He could feel her smile against his skin.

Joe forced himself to lift his head an inch — just enough to look at her.
Her flushed cheeks.
Her swollen mouth.
Her eyes heavy and soft and so full of him it stole what little air he had left.

Something warm and raw pushed up inside his chest, too big to speak, too honest to swallow.

So he kissed her instead.

Not hot.
Not hungry.
Just slow.
Deep.
The kind of kiss you give someone you’ve already handed your whole self to without meaning to.

When he pulled away, his forehead dropped to hers, breaths syncing without effort.

“Riley…”
Her name slipped out like an exhale, like a confession.
He didn’t bother finishing the sentence.
He couldn’t.

He pressed another lazy, open-mouthed kiss to her shoulder, tasting salt and warmth and something that felt like home.

Then, quieter:

“…yeah. Trials tomorrow. If I survive this one.”

His arm tightened around her waist — not possessive, just needing her close, needing her real.

“Don’t let go yet,” he whispered, not even thinking, just feeling.

“I ain’t done comin’ back to you.”

Riley let out a breath that was a ragged, beautiful collision of a laugh and a sigh, her chest rising and falling in a jerky rhythm against the crushing weight of his.

And God, the weight was heavy. He was solid muscle and dead weight, a mountain of heat pressing her down into the mattress, but for the first time in years, Riley didn’t feel trapped. She felt grounded. She felt like someone had finally piled enough sandbags on her chest to keep her from floating away into the numb, grey ether she’d been living in.

Her arms, which felt like they were made of lead and jelly, refused to drop. Instead, they tightened around his ribs, a fierce, involuntary contraction. Her hands slid over the slick, damp expanse of his back, her palms absorbing the heat radiating off him. Her fingers splayed wide, nails retracting to softly, reverently trace the knobs of his spine and the tension slowly bleeding out of his shoulders. She could feel the raised welts where she’d clawed him moments ago—physical proof that this wasn’t a dream, that she had wrecked him just as thoroughly as he had wrecked her.

"Trouble," she murmured, the word vibrating against the damp skin of his neck where her lips were pressed. She turned her head, just enough to graze the tip of her nose against the rough stubble of his jaw, a sleepy, intoxicated smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You love trouble, Joe. You were bored out of your mind without me. Admit it."

When he forced his head up to look at her—flushed, sweaty, eyes heavy-lidded and stripped of all that confident, scientific arrogance—her heart did a slow, painful flip in her chest. He looked wrecked. He looked open. He looked at her like she was the sun and he was the one in orbit, and it terrified her as much as it healed her.

The kiss he gave her then wasn't the storm; it was the quiet aftermath. It tasted like salt and exhaustion and a promise he hadn’t spoken aloud yet but was already keeping. It was a seal on a contract she would have signed in blood right then and there.

She melted into it, her body softening, molding to the hard lines of his as if they were made of the same clay. Her fingers brushed lightly up his shoulder blades, soothing the skin she’d marked, apologizing and claiming him all at once.

“I ain’t done comin’ back to you.”
The words settled in the marrow of her bones, heavier than his body.

"I'm not letting go," she whispered back, the words fierce and thick with emotion despite how quiet they were.

She shifted her legs, the movement sluggish and heavy, and hooked her ankles tighter behind his thighs, locking him in place. She anchored him to her, using her body to tell him what her voice was too wrecked to say: You couldn't leave even if you wanted to.

"I just got here, Barnes," she breathed into the hollow of his neck, pressing a kiss to the frantic pulse still beating there, her eyes fluttering shut as the darkness of the room wrapped around them like a cocoon. "And I ain't planning on moving for at least... the next fifty years."

Joe couldn’t move.

Not because he didn’t have the strength — though God knew she’d taken every last bit of it — but because his body, his heart, his whole damn soul refused to be anywhere that wasn’t pressed against her.

Her legs tightened around him.
Her arms locked him in.
Her grip said stay, even before her voice did.

And Joe Barnes wasn’t going anywhere.

When she murmured “Trouble” against his neck, it sent a warm shiver down his spine.
Not the sharp, electric kind she’d dragged out of him minutes ago—
but the soft, bone-deep kind that made him want to wrap his whole life around her.

Then she said he loved trouble.

That he’d been bored without her.

“Yeah,” he managed, voice barely above a breath, his mouth brushing her hair as the truth slid into place, unhidden. “I did.”

His mind was sluggish, syrupy, coming back to itself molecule by molecule, but that part—
the part about her—
was sharp.
Clear.

He lifted his head again, slower this time.
Not out of effort—
out of reverence.

Because she looked… God.
She looked like everything he’d ever wanted folded into one moment:
flushed cheeks, swollen lips, eyes soft and sleepy and still burning for him.

“Rye…” The nickname slipped out without thought, warm and rough and full of something old. “I ain’t ever been bored a day in my life when you were in it.”

Her fingertips stroked the marks she’d put on his back, and Joe felt something loosen inside him—
something tight, something knotted, something he hadn’t realized he’d been holding since the day she left town.

Her legs hooked behind his thighs, pulling him closer.
Claiming him.
Grounding him.

And there it was—
that slow, tidal wave of coherence, washing back through his veins, bringing everything into sharp, aching focus.

She’s here.
She’s staying.
She chose this. Chose me.

When she whispered, “I just got here… and I ain’t planning on moving for at least fifty years,” Joe’s breath hitched hard enough he had to shut his eyes for a second.

Fifty years.
Jesus.

His throat tightened, his chest doing something warm and painful that left him more exposed than anything else tonight.

He nuzzled into her shoulder, pressing a kiss there—
slow, lingering, grateful
in a way that surprised even him.

“That’s good,” he whispered, voice still scrambled but sure. “Real good.”

His hand found her cheek, thumb brushing the side of her face as he leaned back just enough to see her—
really see her.
Her eyes, glassy with exhaustion.
Her smile, small but certain.
Her breath warming his lips.

“’Cause I’m… I’m tryin’, sweetheart,” he admitted, low and earnest, the honesty slipping out as easy as breathing. “I’m tryin’ real hard to come back to myself right now.”

His forehead rested against hers.

“And the only thing I keep thinkin’—”
He swallowed, the words thick but steady.
“—is how damn easy it is to come back to you.”

His thumb traced her jaw.
Slow.
Loving.

“You say fifty years,” he murmured, voice softening even more, “and I’ll raise you a lifetime.”

He kissed her—
not like the fire they’d burned through minutes before,
but like the embers afterward.
Warm.
Steady.
Endless.

When he pulled back, he let his weight settle over her again, gentler this time, protective.

“I’m right here,” he whispered into her hair. “Ain’t lettin’ go either.”

His hand slid down to her hip, anchoring them together, as if his body was echoing the promise.

“Not now.”
A soft kiss to her temple.
“Not tomorrow.”
Another kiss to her cheek.
“Not in fifty years.”

Then, softer than everything else—

“Riley… I’m home.”

The silence that followed his words wasn’t empty; it was heavy, saturated with the kind of truth that usually takes a lifetime to find.

“You say fifty years, and I’ll raise you a lifetime.”
Riley felt that promise land in the center of her chest like a physical weight, heavier than his body but infinitely softer. It cracked through the last layer of protective armor she’d been wearing since she stepped off the train, since she put on that engagement ring in New York, since she left this town three years ago.

Her breath hitched—a sharp, ragged inhale that shook her entire frame beneath him. The sting of tears was sudden and hot, pricking at the corners of her eyes. They weren't tears of grief, though God knows she had enough of those stored up. These were tears of sheer, overwhelming relief. The kind that come when you finally put down a burden you didn’t realize was crushing your spine.

"You..." Her voice cracked, failing her completely. She had to swallow hard, fighting the lump in her throat to find her words again.

Her arms, which had been resting heavily on his back, suddenly engaged with fierce, desperate strength. They tightened around his ribs, clamping down hard, pulling him into her until the pressure on her chest was borderline suffocating—and she loved every second of it. She needed the crush. She needed to feel the expansion of his lungs against her own, the solid thud of his heart beating a rhythm that synced perfectly with hers.

"You don't play fair, Joe Barnes," she whispered, the words trembling and wet. "You wait until I can't move, until I'm completely at your mercy, and then you say things like that."

Her fingers splayed wide against the damp, hot skin of his back. She drifted them slowly down the valley of his spine, feeling the tension that was finally, finally bleeding out of him. Her nails, which had been weapons moments ago, were now instruments of reverence. She traced the red welts she knew she’d left on his shoulders, soothing the skin with the pads of her fingers, silently apologizing and simultaneously claiming the marks as her own.

She looked up at him—at the face she’d memorized before she knew her multiplication tables, at the eyes that had seen her at her worst and her best and still looked at her like she was the only person in the room.

"A lifetime," she echoed, testing the weight of the word. It didn't scare her. For the first time in years, the future didn't look like a blank, terrifying void. It looked like him. It looked like coffee in the morning and arguments about the thermostat and this weight, right here, every night.

She shifted her hips, just a fraction, tucking her face into the curve of his neck where his pulse was still hammering against her cheek. She breathed him in—deep, greedy inhales of salt and cedar and home.

"I'll take that bet," she murmured against his skin, pressing a kiss to the sensitive spot just below his ear. Her legs squeezed him tighter, locking him in, making sure he knew he wasn't going anywhere.

"But just so you know..." She pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, her expression raw, stripped of all humor, leaving only the naked, terrifying truth of her heart. "I'm not betting with chips, Joe. I'm all in. Everything I have. Everything I am."

She reached up, her hand trembling slightly as she cupped his jaw, her thumb brushing over his lips.

"So if you're home," she whispered, her voice breaking on the last word, "then lock the damn door. Because I'm never leaving again."

Joe felt her words hit him—every last one of them—but unlike before, when heat and afterglow had blurred the edges of everything, this time they landed clean.

Sharp.
Precise.
Undeniable.

Her voice broke.
Her arms tightened.
Her whole body wrapped around his like she was anchoring herself to the only solid thing in her world.

And Joe—fully present now, fully aware—felt a fierce, steady calm rise up inside him.

Not the shaky relief of a man who almost lost something.

The certainty of a man who refuses to lose it again.

He lifted one hand to her cheek, brushing away the tear trailing down before she even realized it had fallen.

“Riley,” he murmured—soft, deliberate, but with a backbone of iron running through it. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

She did.
God help him, she did.

Eyes shining, cheeks flushed, trembling from more than what they’d just done.
Trembling from truth.

He held her face in both hands, thumbs sweeping over her skin like he was learning a map he’d never forgotten.

“You think I don’t know you’re all in?”
His voice was low, warm, achingly sure.
“I’ve known that since the day you showed up here again tryin’ to act like you weren’t.”

Her breath hitched.
He felt it against his chest—real, raw, alive.

“I didn’t say lifetime ‘cause it sounded pretty,” he continued, leaning in so their foreheads touched. “I said it ‘cause that’s what I want. What I choose. What I’m bettin’ on.”

He kissed her—slow and deep, not hungry now, but full, grounding, anchoring.
When he pulled back, his voice dropped further.

“And if you’re all in?”
His hand slid from her jaw down her neck, resting over her heart.
“Then, baby, that makes two of us.”

She trembled beneath his touch.

Not from fear.
From release.

“You tell me to lock the door,” he said, brushing his thumb along her bottom lip, “and I will. I’ll bolt it, nail it shut, hell—I’ll weld the damn thing closed if that’s what it takes.”

A soft, shaky laugh escaped her.
He smiled.
Small. Warm. Certain.

“But not ‘cause I’m scared of you leavin’.”
His voice softened into something almost unbearably tender.
“That girl who left… she ain’t the one holdin’ onto me right now.”

His hand slid into her hair, fingers threading through the damp strands with reverence.

“And this woman?”
He kissed the corner of her mouth, slow as breathing.
“This woman knows where home is.”

Her arms tightened again—fierce, desperate, full of emotion that had nowhere else to go.

Joe lowered his body more fully onto hers—careful of his weight but unwilling to give her even an inch of distance.

“You wanna stay fifty years?” he whispered into her hair. “Good. You want forever? Better.”

He pulled back just enough to look at her again, eyes steady and warm and unshakably in love.

“’Cause I’m not just here, Riley.”
A thumb brushed her cheek.
A kiss found her jaw.
A breath warmed her lips.

“I’m yours.”

He let the truth settle between them like a promise forged in steel.

“And sweetheart… I don’t walk away from what’s mine.”

Her breath caught.
He kissed her again—slow, claiming, sealing every word.

Then he whispered against her lips, quiet and sure:

“I’ll lock the door.”
A beat.
His forehead against hers.
“I’ll build the damn house around you.”

Riley stared up at him, her chest heaving with a breath she couldn't quite catch.
I’ll build the damn house around you.

The words hit her harder than a physical blow, cracking the very last piece of armor she had left. It wasn’t a poetic line. It wasn’t a sales pitch. It was Joe. It was practical, sturdy, unshakeable Joe, promising to construct a reality where she couldn't run even if her old fears came knocking.

And for the first time in her life, the idea of being walled in didn't make her claustrophobic. It made her feel... safe.

A sob broke free—short, sharp, and wet. She didn't try to hide it. She didn't try to turn her face away or crack a joke to deflect the intensity. Instead, she lifted her head off the pillow just enough to press her forehead fiercely against his, closing her eyes tight as the tears finally spilled over, hot and fast.

"You..." She choked on a laugh that was mostly air and water. Her hands slid from his neck to cup his face, holding him with a desperate, trembling strength. "You hold me to that, Barnes. You hear me?"

She brushed her thumbs over his cheekbones, feeling the rough stubble, the heat, the solid reality of him.

"You build the house," she whispered, her voice thick and raw, vibrating in the small space between their mouths. "But you better make sure the foundation is strong. Because I come with a lot of baggage, and two kids, and a flower shop that barely breaks even, and I leave my shoes everywhere..."

She opened her eyes, dark and shimmering with tears, searching his gaze with a terrifying amount of hope.

"And I'm not easy," she confessed, a wobble in her chin. "I'm messy. And I get scared. And I run when things get too quiet because silence usually means something is about to break."

She took a shaky breath, pulling him down until their lips were barely brushing.
"But if you're willing to build around all that..."

She kissed him—soft, salty, and full of a reverence she usually reserved for nothing.
"...then you can lock the door," she murmured against his mouth. "Throw away the key. Meld the lock. I don't care."

Her arms slid back around his neck, pulling him down until his heavy weight crushed her into the mattress again, shielding her from the rest of the world. She turned her face into his neck, breathing him in like oxygen.

"Just don't let me go," she whispered into his skin, her body finally, fully relaxing into the surrender. "Even when I'm stubborn. Especially when I'm stubborn. Just... keep me here."