Ben didn't just lean into her touch; he seemed to exhale his entire day—the cold wind, the rocks, the distance—right into the crook of her neck. When her fingers slipped beneath his shirt, the heat of her palms against his skin felt like a match hitting gasoline. He let out a low, rough sound, half-groan and half-surrender, and crowded closer, his body fitting into the space between her knees like it had been carved specifically for her.

His hands, still cool from the Icelandic air, didn't stay still for long. One slid from the soft wool of her waist up the curve of her ribs, his thumb tracing the underside of her breast through the thin fabric of her shirt, while the other gripped the back of her thigh, hoisting her even tighter against him.

"Cleo," he rasped against her lips, his voice dropping into that gritty, basement-register rumble. "You have no idea. You have absolutely no idea what you're doing to me right now."
He broke the kiss just long enough to trail his mouth down her jawline, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below her ear before he buried his face in the hollow of her throat. He breathed her in—mint and warmth and the lingering scent of the lagoon—and felt a fierce, possessive ache tighten in his chest.

He didn't want the slow, poetic version of this anymore. He wanted the unraveled version.
His hands moved with a sudden, focused urgency. He pulled back just enough to look at her, his dark eyes blown wide, heavy with a hunger that made the room feel like it was losing oxygen. He reached down, his fingers hooking into the hem of her sweater, and tugged it upward, his gaze never leaving hers as he helped her skin it over her head.

He didn't wait for it to hit the floor before he was back in her space, his bare chest pressing against her lace-covered heat. The contact was electric, a jolt of pure, unadulterated sensation that made his hands shake just a fraction as they found her waist again.

"Sage or Briar," he whispered, the names a low, raw vow against her skin as he started a path of biting kisses down the slope of her shoulder toward the swell of her breast. "I meant it, Cleo. Every word."

He bit his lip, a wicked, desperate grin flashing for a split second before he looked up at her, his hands sliding around to the small of her back, pulling her so flush against him that he could feel every hitch in her breathing.

"I’m done being patient," he murmured, his voice thick and demanding. "I want everything. Right now."

He reached for the button of her jeans, his knuckles brushing against her stomach, and he didn't stop, his focus narrowing down to the hitch in her breath and the way her fingers were digging into his shoulders.

Cleo didn’t just give in; she dissolved into him, her resistance a memory lost to the Icelandic wind outside. As his knuckles brushed her stomach, a low, broken moan vibrated through her, lost against the heat of his mouth. The air in the room felt heavy, thick with the scent of the lagoon and the raw, electric weight of Ben’s proximity.

She reached up, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck to cup the back of his head, her grip firm and anchoring. She tilted her head back, a silent invitation that exposed the long, sensitive line of her throat, offering him every inch of the access he craved. While his mouth claimed her skin, her hands moved with a matching urgency. She reached down to help him with the stubborn denim of her jeans, pushing the fabric over her hips until it pooled on the floor, leaving her in nothing but lace and the burning intent in his eyes.

Not willing to let a single barrier remain, she grabbed the hem of his shirt. Her fingers hooked into the fabric, and she helped him yank it over his head, finally bringing her bare skin against the hard, radiating heat of his chest.

The contact was a jolt that seemed to snap the last thread of her composure. She didn't wait; she leaned in, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Her lips were hot and demanding as she began to kiss her way down his neck, moving over the ridge of his collarbone to the broad expanse of his chest. His chest hair tickled her lips, a coarse, masculine texture that sent a fresh wave of heat through her, but she didn't slow down. She continued her trail, her kisses growing more deliberate as she moved lower, tracing the firm muscles of his torso. Just as she reached the center of his stomach, she let her tongue dart out, tasting the salt and warmth of him. She dragged it slowly, teasingly, back up the centerline of his chest, making him catch his breath.

She surged upward then, reclaiming his mouth in a kiss that tasted of desperate, beautiful finality. "Sage or Briar," she murmured against his lips, the names of their future echoing his earlier vow.

The reality of it settled in the space between their heartbeats: they were really doing this. They weren't just losing themselves in each other; they were trying to create something entirely new. The weight of that realization only made her pull him closer, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she signaled that she was done waiting, too.

Cleo felt the shift in his muscles—that sudden, rigid stillness that came when a man realizes he’s won everything he’s ever wanted. The air between them was gone, replaced by a humid, heavy heat that made her skin feel too sensitive for the cool air of the room.

She didn't want to talk anymore. She didn't want the names or the vows or the heavy, beautiful weight of the future hanging in the air. She just wanted him—all of him, without the barrier of a single inch of space.

Her fingers tightened in his hair, her nails lightly scraping his scalp as she pulled him a fraction closer, her mouth hovering just a breath away from his. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, a frantic, rhythmic demand that matched the hitch in his own breathing.

"Bed," she whispered against his lips, the word less of a suggestion and more of a broken command.

Ben’s brain essentially flatlined.

The wet, burning glide of her tongue tracing the center of his chest had already short-circuited his nervous system, but feeling her mouth move against his skin while she breathed those names—Sage or Briar—incinerated whatever fragmented restraint he had left. It wasn’t a concept anymore. It was a physical, pulsing reality anchored right in front of him, her bare legs already locked around his waist.

When she whispered Bed, he didn't give her the chance to climb down.

His hands clamped down hard on the backs of her thighs, his thumbs pressing deeply into the soft, bare skin just below the edge of her lace panties. With a sharp exhale, he hoisted her higher against his chest, lifting her cleanly off the marble counter. Cleo let out a breathless gasp, her legs instinctively tightening their vice grip around his hips, her nails digging into his shoulders as he carried her.

He crossed the suite in three long, urgent strides. The cool, muted Icelandic light filtering through the heavy drapes was entirely lost on him; his entire world had narrowed down to the weight of her in his arms and the frantic, hammering rhythm of his own pulse.

He let her fall back onto the center of the mattress, following her down so fast the physical connection barely broke. The bed dipped heavily under their combined weight, the crisp, chilled hotel sheets offering a shocking contrast to the absolute fire radiating from their bodies.

Ben settled firmly between her spread knees, bracing his weight on his forearms to hover over her. He looked down—her dark hair fanned wildly across the white pillows, her chest heaving, her eyes blown wide and dark with the same consuming hunger tearing him apart. She was a wrecking ball to his senses, and he was entirely ready to be demolished.

He didn't say a word. He didn't need to.

His hands moved to the delicate lace still clinging to her hips. He skipped reverence entirely, his fingers hooking into the thin sides, dragging the fabric down her legs with a singular, ruthless focus before tossing it blindly onto the floor.

He rocked back on his heels just long enough to deal with his own clothes, making frantic, tearing work of his zipper. He kicked his jeans and boxers away with a harsh thrust of his legs until there was absolutely zero fabric left in the room to get in his way.

When he came back down over her, the heavy, full-body friction of his bare skin pressing flush against hers drew a ragged, animal sound from the back of his throat. He caught her wrists, pushing them gently but firmly into the pillows above her head—not to trap her, but to anchor himself before he lost his mind completely.

He captured her mouth in a bruising, open-mouthed kiss, his tongue sweeping inside to taste the desperate, breathless heat of her. At the same time, his hips shifted forward, settling perfectly into the cradle of her thighs. He found the wet, slick heat of her instantly, the alignment so devastatingly precise it made his vision blur at the edges.

He broke the kiss, dragging his mouth down to her jawline because he needed to see her face. He kept his eyes locked intensely on hers, watching her pupils dilate, watching the breath stutter in her chest as the anticipation peaked.

With one deep, unbroken thrust, he drove himself completely inside her.

The breath punched out of his lungs in a sharp hiss. She was impossibly hot and tight, gripping him so perfectly that his jaw locked, the veins in his neck standing out as he forced himself to hold dead still for a fraction of a second, letting them both absorb the stretching, overwhelming fullness of it.

Cleo’s back arched off the mattress, a beautiful, shattered moan tearing from her throat as her eyes fluttered shut.

That sound snapped the last cord of his control. He released her wrists, letting her hands scramble to grip his shoulders, her nails biting into his skin as he withdrew and slammed back in. The rhythm was immediate, deep, and relentless. There was no gentle buildup, no slow seduction—just the raw, forceful friction of his hips snapping against hers, driving into her with a primal, consuming urgency. The silence of the room shattered, replaced entirely by the wet slap of skin on skin, the creak of the heavy bedframe, and the ragged, desperate sounds they were both making as he buried himself in her over and over again.

The world outside the heavy drapes—the frozen moss, the jagged lava rocks, and the biting Icelandic wind—ceased to exist. The only reality was the white-hot friction of Ben’s skin against hers and the sheer, overwhelming fullness of him. As he drove into her with that first, deep thrust, the air punched out of Cleo’s lungs in a jagged, broken sound. Her back arched violently off the mattress, her spine a taut bow as she met his weight head-on. Every relentless movement sent a shockwave through her nervous system; it was a blunt, heavy sensation that bordered on a sharp sting every time he hit the base of her, but she didn’t want him to slow down. She wanted the bruise of it. She wanted the mark of him.

She was finished with being delicate, finished with the "slow and poetic" version of them that had sustained her for so long. Her hands scrambled blindly across the pillows before finding his sweat-slicked shoulders, her nails digging into his skin to anchor herself against the sheer force of his rhythm. With a guttural moan that was half-plea and half-triumph, Cleo shifted her hips, tilting her pelvis upward to eliminate the last fraction of space between them. She was angling herself, guiding him with a desperate, instinctive intelligence, ensuring that every time he slammed back in, there was nowhere left for him to go but deeper.

The physical intensity was staggering, a raw and beautiful violence that made her head toss restlessly against the pillows. She lifted one leg, hooking it high and tight around his hip, locking him into the cradle of her thighs. The movement forced a deeper alignment, one so visceral and precise that her vision blurred into a haze of white light and dark shadows. Every time he withdrew and lunged back, she felt her internal muscles clench around the intrusion with a fierce, possessive heat. The sting was there—a sharp, electric throb at the very center of her—but it only served to ground her in the reality that they were finally, irrevocably, doing this.

"Ben," she gasped, the name breaking apart in her throat as her eyes flew open to find his. She didn't care about the breathless ache in her chest or the way the bedframe groaned under their combined weight; she only cared about the way he was looking at her—like he was a man drowning and she was the only air left in the world. She tightened her grip on his shoulders, her fingers leaving red crescents in his skin, as she signaled with every hitch of her breath and every tilt of her hips that she wanted every bit of the unraveled, demanding version of him.

Cleo felt her own control shredding, melting into the heat and the rhythmic, heavy friction that was filling her entire world. The sting of him hitting deep was no longer a warning; it was a catalyst, a sharp, grounding reminder that they were finally crossing the line they’d been dancing around for so long. She wasn't just a participant; she was a vacuum, pulling him in with every desperate tilt of her pelvis and every hitch in her lungs.

She reached up, her arms winding around his neck as she sought to bridge the tiny remaining gap between them. Her hands dove into the thick, dark mass of his hair, her fingers curling tight and pulling with a frantic, rhythmic urgency that matched the snap of his hips. She needed his mouth. She needed to taste the same desperation she was feeling. When she finally caught his lips with hers, the kiss was bruising and lawless, a collision of teeth and tongues that tasted of salt and the fierce, possessive heat of the moment.

The sound of their breathing was a ragged, unified thing in the quiet of the suite. Cleo’s fingers tightened even further in his hair, her knuckles white as she tugged his head down, anchoring him to her as if she were afraid he might disappear if she let go for even a second.

Every time he drove back into her, her eyes squeezed shut, her head tossing against the pillow in a blur of white-hot sensation. She could feel the tension coiling in the base of her spine, a tight, electric spring that was winding tighter with every deep, relentless thrust.

"Harder, baby," she managed to moan against his mouth, the words muffled and thick with a sudden, overwhelming Need. She arched higher, her leg still hooked high around his hip to keep him locked deep within her, her body vibrating with the sheer force of him. The "Sage or Briar" of it all wasn't a dream anymore—it was pulsing in the friction of their skin, in the way her internal muscles were starting to ripple and seize around him, and in the raw, primal focus in his eyes that told her he wasn't going to stop until they were both completely undone.

The word harder ripped through the last, fraying thread of his sanity like paper.

He didn’t just hear it; he felt it vibrate against his mouth, a breathless command that bypassed his brain entirely and went straight to his blood. Ben tore his lips from hers with a wet, ragged gasp, his chest heaving as he pushed himself up just enough to look down at her. She was a vision of absolute, beautiful ruin—her dark hair fanned wildly across the stark white pillows, her lips bruised and swollen, her eyes blown wide with a desperate, feral hunger that perfectly mirrored his own.

She had her leg locked around his hip, holding him captive, but he needed more leverage. He needed to give her exactly what she was begging for.

Ben shifted his weight, the muscles in his back pulling taut. He slid one hand down to catch the back of her hooked knee, pushing her leg higher and pressing it back so she was completely, devastatingly open to him. He braced his other arm rigid against the mattress beside her head, locking his elbow to anchor his weight.

"Like this?" he ground out, his voice completely unrecognizable—stripped of all its usual easy charm and reduced to a raw, guttural rasp.

He withdrew almost entirely, the slick, slow friction making his jaw lock tight, and then he drove his hips forward, slamming back into her to the hilt with a forceful, punishing snap.
The heavy, wet sound of their bodies colliding echoed sharply in the quiet room. Cleo cried out, her spine bowing off the mattress as she took the full, blunt force of him, and that sound hit Ben like a mainline of pure adrenaline.

He didn't give her a chance to catch her breath. He established a brutal, unrelenting rhythm, pulling back and burying himself inside her over and over again. He wasn't making love anymore; he was staking a claim. Every violent thrust was calculated to hit that deep, aching spot that made her lungs stutter. The heavy wooden headboard began to knock a frantic, rhythmic beat against the wall, a physical metronome to their chaos, but Ben didn't care. He didn't care about the hotel, the lava fields, or the rest of the planet. His entire universe had shrunk to the wet, tight heat of her body clutching around his length.

It was pure, agonizing torture. Her internal muscles were beginning to spasm and ripple around him with every strike, dragging him dangerously close to the edge. The coil in his groin was winding so tight it physically ached, a blinding pressure building at the base of his spine, but he stubbornly clamped down on it. He refused to let it snap. Not yet. He wasn't done wrecking her.

He leaned down, the sweat glistening on his chest sliding slick against the bare heat of her breasts, and buried his face in the crook of her neck. He opened his mouth against the sensitive curve where her shoulder met her throat, his teeth scraping lightly over her skin as he pistoned his hips.

Her nails dragged hard down his back, leaving lines of absolute fire in their wake, urging him on. The pain was grounding, a sharp counterpoint to the overwhelming pleasure that was threatening to drown him. He tightened his grip on her thigh, his knuckles turning white, and pushed the tempo even faster, driving deeper, pushing them both higher up the steep, terrifying incline of the climb.

Cleo felt as though she were being dismantled and rebuilt with every heavy, forceful strike of his hips. The stinging depth of him was a jagged, beautiful reality that made her head toss against the pillows, her breath coming in short, panicked hitches as she tried to keep up with the sheer momentum of his hunger. She was no longer just a participant; she was a live wire, sparking and snapping under the weight of him. When he buried his face in her neck, she felt the vibration of his growl against her skin, but she couldn't let him stay hidden. She needed to see the man who was currently burning her world to the ground.

Her hands, slick with sweat and shaking with a desperate adrenaline, flew to his face. She didn't just touch him; she gripped him, her palms framing his jaw with a possessive strength that forced him to look at her. She pulled him up, her fingers digging into his skin as she pressed her forehead hard against his, their sweat mingling in the narrow, heated space between them. A long, shattered moan vibrated through her chest and into his, a sound of total surrender and fierce demand. "Ben," she choked out, her voice a raw, broken thread as she sought his lips with hers. The kiss was messy, desperate, and tasted of the salt from their skin and the frantic heat of the room.

While their mouths were fused in a bruising collision of teeth and tongues, Cleo reached down, her hand finding the iron-grip of his wrist. She guided him, urging him to take hold of her other leg—the one not already pinned back—and hoist it high. She pushed against the solid, radiating heat of his chest, not to create distance, but to force him back onto his knees, widening the angle until she was completely, devastatingly exposed to him. The shift allowed him even deeper, hitting that aching, sensitive spot with a precision that made her back arch violently off the mattress.

She was wide open now, held captive by his hands and her own desperate need, her internal muscles already beginning to ripple and seize around him in a rhythmic, involuntary welcome. Every time he drove back in, the world splintered into shards of white light, and she clung to his face, her eyes locked on his as she felt the coil at the base of her spine wind tighter and tighter. She was drowning in the sensation of him, her head falling back as another shattered cry broke from her throat, her body vibrating with the knowledge that they were finally, violently, crossing into the point of no return.

Cleo’s vision was a blurred smear of white sheets and Ben’s dark, focused eyes, but her nerve endings had never been more sharp. The pressure building inside her was a tidal wave, a heavy, coiling heat that made every inch of her skin feel like it was humming. She was stretched to her limit, anchored by Ben’s bruising grip on her thighs, but it wasn't enough. She needed to shatter.

With a ragged, animalistic moan, she released her hold on his face. One hand stayed white-knuckled against the headboard to steady herself against the violence of his pace, while the other slid down between their bodies. The friction was incredible—the slick, sliding heat of him moving inside her combined with the frantic, trembling movements of her own fingers as she found the center of her own storm. The contact was electric, a jolt of pure, unadulterated sensation that made her breath hitch and her eyes roll back.

She began to move against herself in a fast, desperate rhythm that mimicked his, her touch adding a sharp, stinging clarity to the blunt force of his thrusts. It was too much; it was everything. Her internal muscles began to seize and pulse around him in a frantic, rhythmic greeting, each contraction tighter than the last. The world outside the room, the future they were building, even the names they had whispered—it all condensed into this one, singular point of friction.

"Baby, please," she sobbed against his mouth, her fingers working with a blurred, focused urgency. She was pushing herself over the edge, her back arching so high off the mattress that only her heels and shoulders touched the silk. The coil at the base of her spine snapped, sending a blinding explosion of white-hot pleasure through her entire frame. Her head fell back, a long, shattered cry tearing from her throat as she spiraled, her body rippling in a deep, prolonged release that gripped him with a fierce, possessive intensity.

Ben was gone. The second she reached down, the second the sound of her own desperate, focused touch joined the wet, rhythmic slap of their bodies, any remaining fragment of his restraint was incinerated.

He watched her shatter. He watched her eyes roll back and her spine arch into that beautiful, impossible curve, and the sight of her completely undone by him—and by her own hand—was the final, devastating blow.

The fierce, rhythmic pulsing of her internal muscles seizing around him was a physical trap, dragging him under. His jaw locked so tight it felt like it might crack, the veins in his neck and forehead standing out as he took the full, vibrating force of her release.
"Cleo—"

Her name was a shattered, guttural sound, less a word and more a broken exhale of pure worship.

He didn't slow down. He couldn't. He drove into her with three more deep, staggering thrusts, his hands nearly bruising her thighs as he held her open, his entire body vibrating with a tension that had become agonizing. On the final strike, he buried himself to the absolute hilt, his head falling back as his own control snapped violently.

The explosion was blinding. It felt like his entire nervous system was being rewired in a single, white-hot burst of sensation. He poured everything into her—every vow they’d whispered in the dark, every hope for Sage or Briar, every ounce of the protective, consuming love he’d been carrying since 2020.

His muscles spasmed, his back pulling into a rigid, trembling line as he spent himself completely. He stayed there, buried deep, his chest heaving as he fought for air that didn't seem to exist in the room anymore.

Slowly, the world began to bleed back in.

The sound of their frantic breathing, the smell of salt and sex, the cool Icelandic light still mocking them from the edges of the drapes. Ben’s arms finally gave out, and he collapsed forward, careful not to crush her but needing the full-body contact. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his skin slick and burning against hers, his heart hammering a slow, heavy rhythm against her ribs.

He didn't move for a long time. He just held her, his fingers still tangled in her hair, feeling the aftershocks of her release still fluttering against him.

"Stay right here," he managed to rasp, his voice a ghost of itself, thick with an exhaustion that felt like peace. "Don't move a muscle, Cleo."

He shifted just enough to press a lingering, salt-tasting kiss to the pulse point in her neck, his eyes still closed, finally—completely—unraveled.

The silence that followed was heavy, humid, and thick with the weight of what they had just done. Cleo lay there, her chest heaving in a jagged, syncopated rhythm with Ben’s, her skin slick and burning wherever it pressed against his. The ceiling of the suite seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat, the cool Icelandic light at the edges of the drapes feeling like a world away. She felt hollowed out and filled up all at once, her muscles still twitching with the faint, electric aftershocks of a release that had felt more like an exorcism than a climax.

She didn't move—not because he’d asked, but because she couldn't have if she tried. Her limbs felt like clead, anchored to the mattress by the sheer gravity of his body. Slowly, she lifted one shaking hand, her fingers finding the damp, dark silk of his hair. She began to play with the strands at the nape of his neck, a rhythmic, grounding motion that helped tether her back to reality. Her other hand slid down the broad, sweat-slicked expanse of his back, her palm dragging slowly up and down the valley of his spine, tracing the rigid muscles that were only just beginning to lose their frantic tension.

The scent of him—salt, warmth, and the fading trace of the lagoon—was everywhere, filling her lungs as she turned her head slightly to press her cheek into his temple. She could feel the frantic hammering of his heart against her ribs, a wild, galloping pace that slowly began to settle into a deep, steady throb. The "Sage or Briar" of it all didn't feel like a whispered dream anymore; it felt like a living, pulsing vow settled deep inside her body.

"I’m not going anywhere," she breathed, her voice a soft, wrecked splinter of itself. She tightened her hold on him, her fingers curling into his hair as she pulled him just a fraction closer, if that was even possible. "I’m right here, Ben. I've got you."

She closed her eyes, letting the heavy peace of the aftermath wash over them both. There was no more cold wind, no more distance, and no more patience—just the two of them, tangled together in the wreckage of the bed, finally and completely unraveled.

The heavy, sacred silence of the room was suddenly punctuated by a sound that was decidedly less than poetic. Cleo felt the vibration of it before she heard it—a deep, insistent, and prolonged grumble from her stomach that echoed against Ben’s chest. The sheer timing of it, coming right on the heels of such a life-altering, soul-baring moment, was enough to break the spell.

A small, breathless huff of air escaped her, which quickly spiraled into a genuine, tired laugh. She didn't try to hide it; she just let her head fall back against the pillow, her fingers still lazily twining through the damp hair at the nape of his neck. The tension that had just been so primal and heavy shifted into something warm and human.

"My body has spoken again," she murmured, her voice still a bit husky and wrecked from the screaming she’d been doing minutes before. She felt another ripple of hunger beneath her ribs, more demanding this time, as if her metabolism had just realized exactly how much energy she'd spent.

She turned her face into the crook of his neck, her lips brushing his skin as she spoke. "And I hate to break it to you, Ben, but the granola bars? Yeah, those aren't going to cut it this time. Not even close." She let out a soft sigh of mock-defeat, her hand continuing its slow, rhythmic glide up and down the damp skin of his back. "I think we’ve officially moved past 'light snack' territory and straight into 'I need a three-course meal and possibly a whole loaf of bread' or I might actually faint."

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, savoring the weight of him and the absolute peace of the aftermath, even as her stomach gave another low, traitorous growl.

"Sage or Briar is going to be a very hungry baby if this is the baseline," she joked softly, the name feeling more real now than it ever had before.

Ben didn’t move at first. He just let his forehead drop against the curve of her shoulder, his breath coming in hot, shallow hitches that puffed against her skin. He felt like he’d been dismantled and put back together in a way that left several parts in the wrong places, but he didn't care. Every nerve ending was humming a low, steady frequency of pure, unadulterated devotion. The sound of her stomach—that deep, subterranean roar against his own ribs—hit him like a splash of cold water, and a slow, lopsided grin started to spread across his face, hidden in the hollow of her throat.

He let out a long, ragged exhale that turned into a quiet, vibrating chuckle. It was so perfectly her. They could touch the edge of the universe together, they could rewrite their entire history in a single afternoon, and her biology would still chime in with a reminder that it was lunchtime.

"Sage or Briar is clearly taking after their mother," he murmured, his voice a gravelly, basement-register rumble that felt like it was vibrating straight into her marrow. "Already demanding a rider. Already sending back the catering."

He finally shifted his weight, though it felt like trying to move through molasses. He pushed himself up onto his forearms, bracing his weight so he could look down at her. He didn't pull out of her yet; he stayed anchored there, relishing the heavy, slick heat of their connection as the air of the room finally started to cool the sweat on his back. He looked down at her, taking in the beautiful, chaotic wreck of her—the dark hair plastered to her forehead, the bruised softness of her mouth, and the way her eyes were just beginning to focus again.

"A loaf of bread," he repeated, his eyes dark and heavy with a warmth that was less about hunger and more about a terrifyingly deep level of adoration. "You’re really going to hold me to that, aren't you? After I just gave you a spiritual experience, you’re looking at me like I’m a delivery driver."

He leaned down, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to the center of her forehead, then her nose, then the corner of her mouth. Each one felt like a seal on a contract.

"I feel like a hollowed-out tree, Cleo. My legs are currently made of cooked spaghetti. I’m pretty sure if I try to stand up, I’m just going to dissolve into the carpet." He let out a soft, huffed laugh, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw with a slow, rhythmic intensity. "But for you? For the mother of my future bread-thieves? I will rally. I will find the strength. I will wage war on the room service menu until they bring us everything that isn't nailed down."

He lowered his head again, resting his nose against hers, breathing her in. The weight of the future felt solid now. It wasn't a "maybe" or a "someday." It was the heat between them, the exhaustion in his limbs, and the quiet, fierce promise in the way she was looking at him.

"Three courses," he whispered, his grin widening just a fraction, flashing that boyish, slightly wicked edge. "But I'm ordering the fries, too. And I'm not sharing. Well, okay, I’m sharing with the baby. You’re on your own."

He shifted, finally and reluctantly moving to slide off her, the loss of contact feeling like a physical ache. He rolled onto his back beside her, the sheets cool and crisp against his overheated skin, and stared up at the ceiling, his chest still rising and falling in deep, heavy swells. He reached out, his hand finding hers blindly on the mattress, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight.

"Give me two minutes to remember how to be a human being," he exhaled, his voice still thick and wrecked. "Two minutes of silence to honor the man I was before you destroyed me. Then I’ll get the bread."

He turned his head to look at her, his expression suddenly stripping back to something raw and defenseless.

"I meant it, you know," he added softly, the humor fading into a quiet, resonant sincerity. "The 'not going anywhere' part. I think I’m actually fused to this bed. I think this is just who I am now. Ben Wilder: Provider of Carbs and Eternal Devotion."

He squeezed her hand again, his eyes locking onto hers.

"So, what's the verdict? Are we going with the massive club sandwich that requires a map to navigate, or the steak that’s definitely larger than my head? I feel like we’ve earned the 'everything' section of the menu. Every single calorie."