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."