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

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

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

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

Then, she whispered the logistical issue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s when he saw it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cleo had been awake for hours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That part sat heavy in her chest now.

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

Her canvas was already half-finished.

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

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

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

She kept painting because it helped her breathe.

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

She wasn’t sad.

She wasn’t scared.

She was just… awake.

Wide open to it all.

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

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

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

His hand hit cold, flat cotton.

His eyes snapped open.

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

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

Empty.

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

"Cleo?"

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

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

And then he stopped.

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

She was there.

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

She was painting.

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

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

But it was the contrast that wrecked him.

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

Now? Now she was the picture of stillness.

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

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

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

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

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

She smelled like oil paint, sleep, and her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How’d you sleep?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The words died in his throat.

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

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

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

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

Then she said it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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