Elliot let the words settle against him with the full weight of her body tucked into his side.

There it was again.

That small, honest need.

Not the kind that came dressed up in crisis. Not the sort that needed a big solution or a plan or some careful rearranging of the entire night. Just Iris, tired down to the bone, choosing him over the sink. Choosing the warmth of his body and the quiet of the couch and one more minute where nobody asked anything of her except to stay.

Something in him went soft in a way that felt almost helpless.

He shifted carefully, making more room for her before she had to ask for it, one arm sliding around her shoulders while the other reached down to draw her legs more comfortably across his lap. Not enough to make a production of it. Just enough to take the awkwardness out of how she’d folded herself there, to let her body understand that he had noticed the strain in her knees and the careful way she kept trying to make herself smaller even when she was exhausted.

“There,” he murmured, voice low in the lamplit room. “That’s better.”

His hand settled over her shin for a moment, warm and steady, his thumb moving in a slow absent path against the soft skin there. Then his fingers pressed gently into the muscle of her calf, careful at first, testing the tension gathered there before working it loose in slow, unhurried strokes.

Iris didn’t have to ask.

He knew.

He could feel the leftover tightness in her body. The long day sitting in her legs from crouching on hardwood, chasing after Ollie’s feelings, standing in hallways too full of truth. Not sharp now. Not frantic. Just the aftershape of the day still caught in her muscles.

He hated that she carried so much.

Loved that she let him close enough to feel it.

His gaze moved over her face as she rested near his shoulder—the tired slope of her mouth, the faint shine still clinging to her eyes, the little furrow between her brows that hadn’t fully accepted retirement for the evening. Even curled up against him, even after everything, some part of her was still trying to monitor the room. The dishes. The smudge near the rug. The life they would have to resume eventually.

Elliot bent his head slightly, pressing his mouth to her hair.

“The dishes are gonna have to find themselves spiritually productive for a while,” he said quietly. “Because I’m not moving you.”

His hand moved lower, thumb kneading slowly along the outside of her calf, palm broad and warm against her skin.

“And if they grow mold in the next ten minutes, that’s on them. Poor character.”

His fingers trailed slowly up and down her arm with his other hand, not trying to soothe her out of anything. Just giving her something steady to feel. Something that said she didn’t have to hold herself upright right now—not emotionally, not physically, not even a little.

He looked toward the kitchen for half a second, not because he intended to go there, but because he could picture it exactly. Plates waiting. A pan in the sink. The evidence of dinner and groceries and a night that had become larger than anyone planned. Practical things. Necessary things.

Not urgent things.

Not more urgent than her.

His attention returned to Iris fully, and the sight of her there nearly pulled the breath out of him again.

“You know,” he said softly, “for someone who claims catastrophic thinking as a personal brand, you are remarkably bad at recognizing when you’ve done something right.”

His thumb pressed into a knot near her calf, gentle but certain, easing through the tightness until he felt her muscle give a little beneath his hand.

“You got our boy through a hard feeling tonight. You let him be accountable without making him feel abandoned. You made him laugh after he thought he’d ruined everything.”

The words came quietly, but there was no hesitation in them.

“And then you walked down that hall and somehow still had room to make sure I knew I mattered in it too.”

His throat tightened slightly around the last part, but he didn’t look away from her.

That was the thing that always got him. Iris could be half wrung out by the world and still reach for the places in other people that needed tending. She did it with Ollie. She did it with patients. She did it with him, even when she thought she was only clinging to stay upright.

He saw it.

He wished she could see it from where he stood.

“You’re not failing him,” Elliot murmured. “And you’re not failing me.”

His hand slid to her back, palm broad and warm between her shoulder blades, while the other continued its slow work at her legs, moving from her calf to her ankle and back again like he had all night to convince her body it was allowed to unclench.

“You’re tired. You’re human. You’re probably one minor inconvenience away from declaring war on a household appliance.” His mouth curved faintly. “But you’re not failing.”

Ollie Jr. padded in from the hallway then, as if summoned by the emotional weather of the house, and stood in front of the couch with his enormous head tilted slightly to one side.

Elliot looked down at him.

“No.”

The dog wagged.

“No, sir. This is not a three-person cuddle committee.”

Ollie Jr. blinked with devastating innocence.

Elliot narrowed his eyes. “Do not weaponize your face. I live with professionals.”

The dog took one hopeful step closer.

Elliot sighed through his nose, but his arm around Iris didn’t loosen, and his hand kept moving over her leg in steady, patient circles.

“You can have the rug,” he allowed. “That’s the offer.”

Ollie Jr. considered this insult, then circled once dramatically before collapsing beside the couch with a groan that suggested he had been cast out of paradise.

Elliot glanced down at Iris again, a quiet smile still lingering.

“See?” he murmured. “Whole household is emotionally demanding. You’re doing exceptional work.”

He let the humor stay for a moment, light enough to give her somewhere to breathe. Then his expression softened again, because underneath the joke was still the truth of her curled against him. The exhaustion. The vulnerability. The way she’d said she needed him and then actually let herself need.

He lowered his voice.

“I like when you choose this, by the way.”

His hand moved slowly at her back, while his other thumb worked along the arch of her foot now, gentle and methodical.

“Not because I don’t want you to rest without me. You can. You should. But when you look around at everything that needs doing and decide, even for a minute, that sitting with me matters more…”

He paused, searching for the right words and finding only the simple ones.

“I like being the place you come to.”

The confession felt intimate in the quiet room. Not grand. Not polished. Just true.

He leaned his cheek lightly against her hair and breathed her in—the faint clean scent of soap, the softness of her skin beneath the day, the trace of Ollie’s bedtime still clinging to them both.

“You don’t have to earn this either,” he said. “You don’t have to finish the kitchen first. You don’t have to be done worrying. You don’t have to be cheerful enough or calm enough or whatever impossible standard your brain tries to invent when nobody’s supervising it.”

A faint smile touched his mouth again.

“And clearly, someone should be supervising it.”

His fingers brushed gently along her side.

“But not tonight. Tonight, you sit here. I’ll do the dishes later. Or I’ll do them in the morning and complain quietly to myself like a noble Southern martyr.”

He shifted just enough to look down at her more fully, his gaze warm, amused, and impossibly fond.

“And you can tell Tessa I suffered bravely.”

A beat.

“No, don’t tell Tessa that. She’ll make it weird.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, but his eyes stayed tender.

He was struck again by how much she fit here. Not neatly, exactly. Iris was not a neat woman, no matter how carefully she tried to arrange herself for the sake of everyone else. She was vivid and tired and stubborn and soft in places she protected with claws. She was a woman who could handle emergencies all day and then be nearly taken out by a five-year-old asking whether love survived a mess.

She was the woman he loved.

The life he wanted.

The center he kept choosing.

His arm tightened around her by a fraction, and his hand continued its slow massage over her leg, steady enough that the rhythm became part of the room. Part of the quiet. Part of him loving her without needing to announce every place he noticed she hurt.

“You were beautiful tonight,” he said quietly.

Not casual.

Not about the way she looked, though God, she was that too. Even exhausted. Especially exhausted, maybe, because there was no performance left between them.

“I mean it,” he added, before she could deflect. “Not in the tidy way. In the real way.”

His gaze lingered on her face.

“The way you got on the floor with him. The way you listened. The way you came to me after and said the thing that scared you instead of swallowing it down until it turned into something sharp.”

His thumb swept slowly over her shoulder.

“That’s beautiful to me.”

He let that sit there, knowing it might make her squirm. Knowing, too, that she needed to hear it from someone who wasn’t trying to flatter her out of discomfort.

Then he pressed another kiss to her hair, softer this time.

“You’re my favorite part of this house,” he murmured. “Even when you’re threatening dishes with mold and accusing me of suspicious emotional health.”

His smile deepened faintly.

“Maybe especially then.”

For a while, he didn’t say anything else.

He just held her.

Let the room go quiet around the edges. Let the kitchen remain unattended. Let the blue smudge near the coffee table leg sit there like evidence of a day they would probably laugh about tomorrow and remember years from now with an ache neither of them would be ready for.

His hand kept moving at her back, slow and sure, while the other worked gently over her calf again, kneading away what the day had left behind one careful pass at a time.

Eventually, his voice returned, softer than before.

“You did good today, Iris.”

A pause.

“We did good.”

He liked the shape of that better.

Not because he needed credit. Because she needed not to be alone inside it.

His fingers curled gently at her side.

“And right now, the most productive thing you can do is stay exactly where you are and let me adore you for a minute.”

A small, teasing breath.

“Maybe two, if you’re feeling ambitious.”

The first thing Iris felt was the shift of his body making room for hers before he said anything at all.

Tiny.

Instinctive.

But her exhausted brain caught it immediately.

The couch cushion dipped differently beneath them as he adjusted, and then his arm came around her shoulders more fully, warm and solid along the top of her back. The movement drew her closer without force, just quiet certainty, and her body responded before thought did—muscles loosening another fraction as she settled more completely into his side.

Then his other hand slid beneath her legs.

Iris inhaled softly at the contact.

Not surprise exactly.

Awareness.

The careful lift of her calves across his lap changed the angle of her knees instantly, easing the ache she had been half ignoring for the last hour. She hadn’t realized how much tension she’d been holding there until it stopped pulling so sharply.

“There,” he said.

And God.

The tenderness of him noticing that almost hurt.

Her cheek stayed against his shoulder, but her eyes closed briefly as his hand settled over her shin. His palm felt broad and warm through the thin fabric of her leggings, thumb moving slowly enough that she could track every pass.

Steady.

Unhurried.

Not fixing her.

Caring for her.

The distinction landed deep.

Then his fingers pressed gently into her calf.

Iris’s breath stuttered before she could stop it.

Not dramatically.

Just the involuntary release of tension being found by someone who knew her body too well.

The soreness there answered immediately beneath his touch, tight muscle slowly giving way under careful pressure. Heat spread outward in slow waves from each movement of his hand, and she became abruptly, overwhelmingly aware of how exhausted she actually was.

Not emotionally now.

Physically.

Her body had apparently been waiting for permission to admit it.

And Elliot knew.

Of course he knew.

She felt his gaze on her face a second before she opened her eyes again, the weight of his attention warm against her skin even before she looked up enough to meet it. The lamplight softened everything around him—the tiredness near his eyes, the faint shadow along his jaw, the way concern and affection sat openly across his face without embarrassment.

Then he kissed her hair.

The contact sent something immediate through her chest.

Small.

Quiet.

Dangerously comforting.

His joke about spiritually productive dishes pulled the corner of her mouth upward despite herself, and the sound that escaped her this time wasn’t really laughter so much as the exhausted collapse of resistance around one.

“You’re such an asshole,” she murmured softly, though there was no force behind it at all.

Especially not when she shifted even closer afterward.

The pressure of his thumb kneading slowly into her calf made her muscles twitch once in protest before loosening further beneath his hand. Iris felt herself becoming heavier against him by increments, her body gradually surrendering its rigid little attempts at self-sufficiency.

Then he looked toward the kitchen.

She followed the movement instinctively.

The sink.

The abandoned pan.

The faint glow over the counter.

For one dangerous second, guilt tried to re-enter through the crack in the door.

Dishes.

Laundry tomorrow.

Lunches.

The normal endless maintenance of living.

But then his attention came back to her fully.

And stayed there.

The comment about catastrophic thinking hit fast enough that she actually let out a tired breath of disbelief through her nose.

“Excuse you,” she muttered automatically.

Weak defense.

She knew it immediately.

Especially because his hand kept moving over her leg with maddening patience while he listed everything she had done right tonight.

Each example landed separately.

Ollie.

Accountability.

Laughter.

Then her.

The mention of her making sure he mattered too caught her completely off guard.

Her chest tightened abruptly.

Because she hadn’t even realized he’d noticed that part.

The room suddenly felt intensely quiet around the edges. Rain tapping softly outside. The low hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. Ollie Jr.’s nails faintly clicking against hardwood somewhere down the hall before he appeared beside the couch like a summoned spirit of emotional dependency.

Iris physically felt herself smile before it fully reached her mouth.

Then Elliot denied him entry into the cuddle situation with the seriousness of a man negotiating international policy.

The dog’s face—

God.

The wounded innocence nearly finished her off.

She pressed her forehead briefly into Elliot’s shoulder to hide the laugh that escaped this time, shoulders shaking once against him while Ollie Jr. continued attempting psychological warfare from the rug.

“You say that,” she whispered against Elliot’s shirt, still laughing quietly, “like you aren’t equally obsessed with him.”

The dog’s dramatic collapse beside the couch made the cushions tremble faintly beneath their feet.

Martyrdom.

Pure martyrdom.

But Elliot’s hand never stopped moving over her leg.

That part got her more than the words somehow.

The consistency of it.

The way he kept touching her like comfort was something he intended to continue providing rather than briefly offer.

Then his voice lowered.

I like when you choose this.

The sentence moved through her slowly.

Her body reacted first—a tiny tightening low in her chest, a pulse of warmth beneath her skin where she lay against him—before her thoughts fully caught up to why it affected her so much.

Because he wasn’t making her feel guilty for needing space.

He wasn’t demanding reassurance.

He was simply… telling her something mattered to him.

Openly.

Without making it her responsibility to manage.

Iris swallowed once before lifting her head enough to look at him properly again.

His thumb had shifted to the arch of her foot now, slow pressure easing through soreness she hadn’t even consciously registered until it began disappearing beneath his hands.

And suddenly she understood something new about him that cracked quietly open inside her chest.

Elliot loved through attention.

Not performance.

Attention.

The way he noticed tension before she named it. The way he rearranged space around her exhaustion automatically. The way he remembered things her body needed before she admitted needing them herself.

The realization sat warm and aching beneath her ribs while he kept talking.

Then he said she didn’t have to earn this.

That one hit hardest.

Her throat tightened immediately.

Because somewhere deep and ugly and old inside her, there was still a voice constantly trying to negotiate worthiness through usefulness.

Finish the kitchen first.

Handle everything first.

Deserve rest first.

And Elliot just kept stepping calmly in front of those instincts every time they surfaced, like he genuinely did not understand why she thought love should require proof of labor before it was allowed to soften.

Her eyes burned suddenly.

Damn him.

The joke about noble Southern martyrdom saved her barely in time, enough that a watery laugh escaped instead of something more embarrassing.

“Oh, absolutely not,” she said softly. “Tessa would bully you for the next forty years.”

She could practically hear it already.

Her fingers curled lightly into the fabric of his shirt as the image passed through her mind.

Then he shifted enough to look at her fully.

And the warmth in his expression stole the remaining breath right out of her chest.

Not because he called her beautiful.

Because of the way he meant it.

She knew immediately he wasn’t talking about appearances. Could hear it before he clarified.

Still, the directness of it made heat crawl slowly beneath her skin.

No deflection arrived fast enough this time.

No joke.

No immediate escape route.

So she just… felt it.

Felt the weight of being seen that clearly by someone who knew exactly how frightened and messy and exhausted she could be.

When he spoke about her getting on the floor with Ollie, about listening instead of swallowing things down, Iris felt emotion rise so suddenly she had to look down for a second just to survive the force of it.

Her vision blurred faintly.

The room softened around the edges.

His thumb moved across her shoulder.

Gentle.

Grounding.

Beautiful to me.

The words lodged somewhere frighteningly deep.

Not because nobody had called her beautiful before.

Because he kept locating beauty in the exact places she feared made her hardest to love.

The kiss against her hair afterward nearly undid her completely.

She let out the smallest shaky breath and tucked herself closer without thinking, forehead resting against the side of his chest now while her hand slid slowly across his ribs beneath his shirt.

Warm skin.

Steady breathing.

Real.

When he called her his favorite part of the house, Iris’s eyes closed briefly against the rush of feeling that moved through her too fast to organize neatly.

Then he kept talking.

Kept holding her.

Kept loving her out loud in all these unbearably specific little ways.

And by the time he told her the most productive thing she could do was stay where she was and let him adore her, something inside her had gone entirely soft.

Not fragile.

Just open.

Her fingers spread slowly against his chest while she breathed him in for a second before finally speaking.

“You realize,” she said quietly, voice rough from exhaustion and too much emotion, “you are aggressively difficult to emotionally resist.”

The admission made her blush immediately afterward.

Ridiculous.

Thirty years old and still reacting like this.

But she couldn’t quite make herself care.

Especially not when his hand was still moving over her calf with that unbearable patience.

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the kitchen again before returning to him.

Then lower.

To his hands.

To the way he kept caring for her body like it mattered to him personally that she hurt less.

The sight tightened her chest unexpectedly.

“I think,” she admitted softly after a second, “I spent so long trying to be useful all the time that I forgot resting next to somebody can also be part of loving them.”

The confession surprised her a little even as she said it.

She felt the truth of it arrive in real time.

Her thumb brushed slowly once across his ribs beneath his shirt.

“And you make it feel…” She paused, searching carefully. “Not selfish.”

A quiet settled after that.

Warm.

Rain against the windows.

The faint snore-like huff from Ollie Jr. sprawled dramatically beside the couch.

The slow movement of Elliot’s hand against her leg.

Iris tucked herself closer again, eyes heavy now, but her attention remained fixed on him for one more second before she spoke again.

“Two minutes,” she murmured softly. “Maybe even three if your supervision skills remain exceptional.”

Iris stayed tucked against him for another quiet stretch of seconds after she spoke, listening to the soft rhythm of rain against the windows and the steady rise and fall beneath her cheek where his breathing moved through his chest.

The room had gone loose around the edges now.

Sleepy.

Warm.

Ollie Jr. let out another dramatic sigh from the rug like exile continued to weigh heavily on him emotionally, and Iris’s mouth softened faintly at the sound before her attention drifted back upward again.

To Elliot.

To the way the lamplight caught along the curve of his jaw.

To the soft tiredness sitting around his eyes now that the day had finally stopped demanding things from him.

Her fingers moved before she consciously decided to touch him again.

Slowly.

Absentmindedly.

She slid her hand higher across his chest until her fingertips reached the hair just above his ear, lightly catching one darker strand between her fingers and smoothing it back.

The contact sent a tiny pulse of warmth through her immediately.

Not dramatic.

Just intimate in the quiet way long love became intimate. Knowing exactly how soft his hair felt there. Knowing he leaned subtly into touch when he was relaxed enough not to guard against it.

Her nails brushed gently against the skin behind his ear.

Once.

Then again.

Iris watched the movement of her own hand for a second, strangely soothed by it. By the simplicity of sitting here touching him with nowhere urgent to be.

No crisis.

No emotional emergency dinosaur weddings.

Just this.

The realization settled warmly through her tired body while she played lightly with the ends of his hair near his neck.

Then a thought arrived suddenly enough that she felt herself smile before she fully examined it.

Small at first.

Then growing.

Dangerous.

“I have an idea,” she murmured softly.

Her fingers continued tracing lazy paths near his ear while she lifted her head enough to look at him properly again.

The exhaustion was still there in him too. She could see it now more clearly from this close—the long day sitting in his shoulders, the quiet patience he’d spent on everybody else still lingering in his posture.

And abruptly she wanted to take him somewhere neither of them had to be needed for a minute.

The feeling hit hard and immediate.

“I could ask off for a weekend,” she said slowly, almost thinking aloud now while the idea unfolded in real time. “My mom would absolutely steal Ollie for two days if we let her.”

Her thumb brushed lightly along the edge of his jaw before slipping back into his hair again.

“And honestly? Ollie Jr. worships her because she feeds him like he survived the Great Depression.”

A sleepy little laugh escaped her.

Then she shifted slightly against him, eyes warming as the thought became more real the longer she sat inside it.

“We could go to Nashville.”

The words landed differently once spoken aloud.

Excitement flickered softly through the exhaustion.

Not huge.

Quietly electric.

Iris watched his face carefully while she kept talking, fingers still moving slowly through the hair near his ear.

“Just us,” she said. “For like… forty-eight hours.”

The idea almost felt fictional after the shape their life usually took.

She could already picture it in fragments though.

A hotel room without cartoons playing somewhere in the background.

Sleeping in.

Coffee while it was still hot.

Not answering twenty-seven emotionally devastating questions before 8 a.m.

Her mouth curved faintly at the thought.

“We could eat dinner somewhere that doesn’t hand out crayons,” she murmured. “Maybe get slightly drunk. Maybe sleep past sunrise for the first time since the Obama administration.”

Another soft laugh.

But underneath the teasing, something more vulnerable moved quietly into place.

Her hand slowed in his hair.

“And maybe,” she admitted more softly, “we could remember what it feels like to only belong to each other for a minute.”

The sentence stayed suspended between them afterward.

Tender enough that she suddenly felt shy hearing it aloud.

Not because she regretted it.

Because it was true.

She loved being Ollie’s mother with a force that rearranged her entire internal world daily.

But sometimes she missed him too.

Not physically.

Differently.

Missed the version of them that existed before every moment had to share space with schedules and responsibilities and somebody needing apple slices immediately or they might emotionally perish.

Her fingers curled lightly near the nape of his neck.

“I wanna kiss you somewhere nobody’s asking us for juice,” she whispered finally, the honesty of it making her laugh softly against his shoulder afterward. “I think that’s a reasonable domestic request.”

Elliot felt the shift in her before he had a name for it.

Not in the words first.

In the way her weight settled more honestly into him after she said them.

That did something quiet and dangerous inside his chest.

His hand paused for half a second against her calf, not stopping so much as registering the change beneath his palm. The muscle under his fingers had softened, the guarded little resistance in her body loosening by degrees until she felt less like someone bracing beside him and more like someone allowing herself to be held.

He kept his pressure steady.

Careful.

Slow.

If he made too much of it, she might notice herself relaxing and decide to argue with the entire concept out of principle.

So he let the silence do some of the work.

The blush hit next.

Small.

Immediate.

A little unfair.

Elliot saw it creep up her face and had to press the corner of his mouth into something less pleased than he felt, because God knew Iris did not need him looking delighted every time she became visibly tender. She would accuse him of collecting evidence.

Still, the warmth under her skin pulled at him.

Made him aware of the exact place her cheek rested near his shoulder, the softness of her breathing against his shirt, the way her fingers had moved beneath the hem and found him without apology.

His stomach tightened faintly beneath her touch.

Not from surprise.

From the intimacy of it.

The quiet domestic familiarity of her hand against his ribs should have been ordinary by now. It wasn’t. Not tonight. Not after all the raw places they had both touched and survived. Her thumb moved once, and the small brush of it against bare skin sent a low, contained warmth through him that had nothing to do with urgency and everything to do with being wanted in a room that had finally stopped demanding performance from either of them.

Then her gaze moved away from him.

He followed only because her body told him to.

The kitchen sat in his periphery—waiting, lit softly, holding all the practical evidence of a night paused rather than finished. He felt the tiny change in her as she looked that direction. The old tug of responsibility trying to find purchase again.

His hand deepened slightly at her calf before she could drift too far into it.

Not enough to distract her.

Just enough to remind her there was still a body here. Hers. His. Contact. Warmth. Couch beneath them. A dog sighing near their feet like he had been exiled from the royal court.

When her attention dropped to his hands, Elliot became suddenly aware of every place he was touching her.

One hand at her leg.

One arm around her.

Thumb working slowly along the arch of her foot now, feeling the tension gather and release beneath small circles of pressure. Her skin was warm through the thin fabric, her ankle relaxed in his palm in a way that made something inside him go nearly foolish with tenderness.

He did not look away from her face.

Not for long.

He wanted to see the moment she understood whatever was happening inside her. Wanted to catch the exact second the thought landed, not to claim it, not to interrupt it, just to know where she was.

Her expression changed slowly.

First concentration.

Then surprise.

Then something quieter that touched the corners of her mouth and made him feel, absurdly, like he had been trusted with a secret she hadn’t fully known she was telling.

His throat tightened when she spoke again.

Not because the words were dramatic.

Because they weren’t.

Because she gave him something small and true, and those were always the ones that got under his skin fastest.

His fingers stilled for one beat against her foot.

Just one.

Then he started again, slower now.

“There you go,” he murmured, voice low enough that it barely disturbed the room. “Look at you. Resting and still finding a way to turn it into emotional growth.”

The dry edge was gentle.

A place for her to breathe.

But beneath it, he felt the force of what she had given him. The idea that closeness could be care. That letting him hold her might count as loving him back. He had known that, maybe, somewhere wordless. Felt it every time she chose the couch instead of the sink. Every time she leaned into his chest instead of sitting upright with her shoulders held like armor.

Hearing her arrive there herself made his chest go strangely full.

His thumb moved across the top of her foot once, lingering.

“Not selfish,” he said quietly.

He let the words sit on their own first.

Then his mouth brushed her hair again, not quite a kiss this time. More like he needed contact before the rest could leave him honestly.

“Never was.”

Ollie Jr. huffed from the floor, offended by his continued lack of elevation.

Elliot glanced down, one brow lifting.

“You have a whole rug,” he told him softly. “Some folks are out here fighting for one emotionally productive couch minute, and you’re complainin’ about luxury accommodations.”

The dog sighed again, longer this time.

Elliot shook his head once, but the amusement in him stayed quiet and warm. He felt Iris’s attention shift with it, felt the faint softening through her body before she looked back up.

Then her fingers moved.

Slowly at first.

Up his chest.

Toward his neck.

Elliot’s breath changed before he could stop it.

Barely.

Not enough for anyone else to notice.

Iris would.

Her fingertips reached his hair, and the first light touch near his ear sent a small spark down the back of his neck. His hand faltered at her calf, pressure softening into stillness while his body took in the sensation.

There was no demand in the touch.

That was what made it worse.

Better.

Worse.

Her fingers moved through the hair there like she knew exactly what would undo him without making a spectacle of it, and she did know. Of course she did. Her nails brushed the skin behind his ear, and Elliot’s eyes half-closed before he caught himself.

He let it happen anyway.

Only for a second.

Long enough for his head to tilt a fraction toward her hand.

Long enough to give her the truth of it.

The couch seemed to settle beneath them. Lamplight stretched warm across the room, catching the pale mark of chalk still near the coffee table leg, turning the disorder softer instead of sharper. Her legs rested across him, her hand in his hair, her cheek close enough that every breath she took shifted the cotton of his shirt.

He kept massaging her with one hand because stopping would make the touch between them too pointed, and somehow the steadiness of the motion helped him survive the sweetness of her fingers at his neck.

Then he heard the change in her voice before the idea fully arrived.

A little spark.

Small, but alive.

His eyes opened.

He looked down at her, attention narrowing so quickly he almost forgot to keep breathing evenly. The tiredness was still there in her face, but something had moved behind it. Not the brittle energy of someone forcing herself onward. Something softer. Curious. Almost shy around the edges.

His thumb slowed at her ankle.

The first piece of the thought landed.

He felt his body answer before his mind did.

A low pull in his chest.

A lift.

Not excitement exactly, not yet. He didn’t want to pounce on the idea so fast she felt crowded by her own wanting. But the shape of it reached him immediately. A pocket of time. A door cracked open somewhere beyond the constant orbit of need and chores and little voices calling from other rooms.

His gaze stayed on her.

Her fingers kept moving near his ear.

That made listening difficult in the best way.

When she brought up childcare, Elliot’s mouth started to curve before he could stop it.

He pictured her mother with Ollie for all of three seconds—Ollie fed, admired, possibly spoiled into a version of himself who came home with new socks, three unsolicited life lessons, and a suspicious amount of dessert in his system.

Then the dog entered the imagined weekend by force.

Of course he did.

Elliot exhaled a quiet laugh through his nose.

“Yeah,” he murmured, “he does come back from her place lookin’ like he’s seen hardship and conquered it with ham.”

The image settled in the room between them, ridiculous enough to loosen the tenderness without breaking it.

Then she shifted against him.

His arm adjusted automatically around her shoulders, making room for the movement while his hand stayed wrapped loosely around her foot. Her eyes had warmed now. He could see the idea gaining shape in her before she fully trusted it.

And then she said where.

Elliot went still.

Not stiff.

Not hesitant.

Just caught.

The place itself wasn’t the point. He knew that immediately. The city had weight because of the wedding, because of Sarah, because of everything they had been circling earlier. But coming from Iris now, tucked against him in the wreckage of their ordinary evening, it sounded different.

Not obligation.

Not performance.

Choice.

His fingers resumed their movement along her calf, slower than before.

He felt something open in him, careful and bright.

She kept going.

He let her.

Forty-eight hours became a real thing in his head before he could stop it. A room with a door that locked. No small footsteps at dawn. No half-eaten fruit abandoned on side tables. No dog pressing his snout between them like an underpaid chaperone. Iris in a bed she didn’t have to leave because someone needed help finding a dinosaur sock.

His pulse shifted.

He kept his face soft, but the want in him gathered quietly.

Not only physical, though that was there too, waking under his skin with every lazy pass of her fingers through his hair. More than that. The want to have her unfragmented. To hear a full sentence from her without interruption. To see what her face did when rest had enough time to reach all the way into her.

The dinner part made his smile deepen.

The drinking part pulled a low sound from him, almost a laugh.

The sleeping-in part nearly made him close his eyes in reverence.

“Careful,” he said softly. “You keep talkin’ like that, I’m gonna start believing in miracles.”

His hand slid from her calf to her knee, then back down again, unhurried. His thumb pressed gently into the muscle there, still tending, still keeping them anchored in the room even as the idea started building somewhere beyond it.

She laughed.

He felt it against him.

The small movement of her body, the warmth of it, the way it brushed over his ribs where her hand still rested. His chest tightened, but not painfully. It was the kind of pressure that came from wanting more of a moment without needing it to change too quickly.

Then her hand slowed in his hair.

Elliot noticed immediately.

The shift made his attention sharpen.

The room seemed to narrow again, lamplight and soft couch cushions and the dog’s faint snuffle fading to the edges while he watched the vulnerable turn in her face. Her eyes stayed on him, but there was a hesitancy now that hadn’t been there a few seconds before.

His hand stopped moving on her leg.

Not from withdrawal.

From listening with his whole body.

The next words landed more quietly.

Deeper.

His throat worked once.

He had missed her too.

That was the first thing that rose in him, fast and unguarded.

Not because she had been absent. She was here every day. Beside him at the sink, in the hallway, passing him laundry, sleeping with one hand under her cheek and one ear trained for Ollie even in dreams.

But there was a version of them that got crowded out by logistics. Not gone. Never gone. Just waiting in the margins while life asked for snacks and schedules and clean socks and emotional support for fictional reptiles.

He had missed being only hers for longer than a stolen kiss in the kitchen.

He hadn’t realized how much until she said it.

The recognition moved through him slowly enough to hurt.

His fingers tightened lightly around her leg, then loosened.

His other hand came up from her shoulder and settled at the side of her face, thumb resting near her cheekbone. He didn’t pull her closer yet. He just held her there, looking at her.

Seeing the shyness that came after the wanting.

Seeing how quickly she had made herself brave and then seemed startled by the sound of it.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured.

The word came out before he could make it smoother.

He didn’t try to take it back.

His thumb moved once along her cheek.

“I miss you too.”

Plain.

Immediate.

No dressing it up.

He watched that land, then leaned his head slightly into the fingers still at his hair, letting her feel him receive the touch instead of just allowing it.

“Not because this isn’t enough,” he added, voice quiet and certain. “It is. This house. Him. The dog with the tragic face. All of it.”

Ollie Jr. huffed again from the rug, because apparently he had been slandered.

Elliot’s mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed on Iris.

“But I miss you when we’re both in the same room and somebody needs somethin’ every six minutes. I miss finishing a thought with you. I miss kissing you without having to calculate whether a small person is about to appear and ask where socks go.”

His thumb brushed slowly beneath her cheekbone.

“I miss getting to look at you for as long as I want.”

That one came out lower.

More exposed.

He let it.

Her final admission moved through him with warmth first.

Then want.

Then a tenderness so sharp he had to breathe through it carefully.

The humor in it was real, and he loved that. Loved that she could make desire sound domestic and ridiculous and still somehow more intimate than anything polished. But underneath it, she had asked for him. For time. For space where the two of them could remember themselves without guilt.

His hand at her face slid gently to the back of her neck, fingers resting in the soft hair there.

“That is a very reasonable domestic request,” he said.

His voice had gone rougher.

He felt it.

Couldn’t quite help it.

“I’d even call it overdue.”

He shifted carefully, lifting her legs just enough to move beneath them without dislodging her fully, then settled closer again, angled more toward her. His hand returned to her calf after, because the care of her body still mattered even with heat moving quietly through his own.

“We’ll make it happen,” he said.

Not maybe.

Not someday.

A decision.

“I’ll call your mama tomorrow and let her pretend she’s doin’ us a favor when we all know she’s gonna have a suitcase packed for him before lunch.”

A pause, then his mouth tipped.

“And I’ll pack extra food for the dog so she doesn’t turn him into a barrel with ears.”

Ollie Jr. lifted his head.

Elliot glanced down.

“You heard me.”

The dog thumped his tail once, unbothered.

Elliot looked back to Iris, and the humor softened the instant his eyes found her again. His fingers moved in her hair now, mirroring the touch she’d given him, slow and careful near the nape of her neck.

“Two days,” he murmured. “Just us.”

He let the words become real in the room.

Not as escape from their life.

As a return to a part of it that needed tending too.

His gaze dropped to her mouth.

Only briefly.

Long enough for his body to remember exactly what she had asked for and for his restraint to thin at the edges.

Then his eyes came back to hers.

“And for the record,” he said, voice low enough that it belonged only to the couch and the lamplight and her warm weight against him, “I am very interested in kissing you somewhere nobody asks for juice.”

His thumb brushed the back of her neck.

“Repeatedly.”

A beat.

“Possibly with irresponsible hotel-room room service involved.”

He leaned closer, not taking the kiss yet, letting the space between them gather.

“But until then…”

His nose brushed hers once.

Light.

Deliberate.

A promise without rushing toward it.

“I can start here.”

Then he kissed her.

Slowly.

Not like a stolen thing.

Not squeezed between tasks.

He kissed her like the dishes could rot in the sink and the chalk smudge could haunt the coffee table until morning and the dog could file a formal complaint with management. His mouth moved against hers with the warmth he had been holding back in pieces all evening, patient at first because she was tired, because she was soft, because this mattered more than hunger.

Then deeper, when the closeness answered.

His hand stayed at her neck.

The other moved from her calf to her thigh, not gripping, just anchoring her across his lap while the rest of him turned toward her fully. He felt the weight of her legs. The warmth of her breath. The soft shift of her body against his side as the room seemed to pull inward around them.

When he finally eased back, it was only enough to breathe.

His forehead rested against hers.

His mouth stayed close.

“I love our life,” he murmured. “But I’m allowed to want you to myself sometimes.”

His fingers brushed once through her hair.

“And so are you.”

Ollie Jr. made a low, offended groan from the floor.

Elliot closed his eyes for half a second.

“Not now,” he muttered. “Read the room.”

The dog sighed again.

Elliot’s laugh came out quiet against Iris’s mouth, helplessly warm.

Then he kissed her once more, shorter this time, smiling into it before he pulled back just enough to look at her.

“There,” he whispered. “No juice requests yet.”

A tiny pause.

His thumb moved once at her neck.

“Miracles everywhere tonight.”

Iris felt the first brush of his fingers in her hair before she fully processed the words.

The touch landed low at the nape of her neck, slow enough that her body reacted ahead of thought. A small pull beneath her ribs. A looseness in her spine she hadn’t realized she was still holding onto. The lamplight beside the couch warmed the edge of his shoulder gold, and she became abruptly aware of how long it had been since anyone had touched her like they had nowhere else to be.

Two days.

The phrase settled into her in pieces.

Not loud.

Not impossible.

Real.

Her breath caught softly against the space between them as the idea unfolded inside her chest with startling clarity. A hotel room. Silence. Morning light without cartoons already playing somewhere in the house. Him still asleep beside her because nobody needed cereal or help with shoes or emotional support after a bad dinosaur dream.

Something fragile opened in her so quickly it almost hurt.

Her fingers curled slightly higher into the hair near his ear before she could stop herself.

Then his eyes dropped to her mouth.

The movement was brief, but she felt it like heat crossing exposed skin. Her stomach tightened instantly, pulse shifting low and warm while her own attention flickered helplessly to his mouth in return. The room suddenly felt smaller. Softer. The air thicker with awareness.

And when his eyes lifted back to hers, she knew he’d felt it too.

The roughened low note in his voice sent another quiet wave through her.

Nobody asks for juice.

The laugh that almost escaped her dissolved before it fully formed because affection hit first. Deep and helpless and terribly fond. Of course that was how he’d say it. Of course he could make wanting her sound domestic enough to belong beside chalk stains and abandoned dishes.

His thumb brushed the back of her neck.

Her breath faltered.

The touch was barely there, but every nerve beneath her skin seemed to wake around it anyway. Heat spread slowly downward through her chest, her shoulders, the center of her stomach. She became acutely aware of how close his body was now. The weight of her legs over his lap. The solid warmth of him surrounding her from every side.

Repeatedly.

God.

The word landed lower.

Not crude.

Not teasing.

Certain.

Her lips parted before she meant them to.

The image arrived instantly against her will—his mouth on hers in quiet hotel sheets, nowhere to rush afterward, nowhere either of them needed to be. Her cheeks warmed harder, and she could feel the blush spreading before she could hide it.

Then room service.

The absurd specificity of it broke through the tension just enough that a soft breath of laughter escaped her mouth.

“Dangerous,” she murmured faintly, voice already thinner than usual.

But the humor barely survived the way he leaned closer.

The space between them narrowed slowly enough that she felt every inch of it disappear.

Her pulse climbed higher with each small shift.

The couch cushion dipped beneath his weight. The soft cotton of his shirt brushed her arm. Ollie Jr. gave a sleepy snort somewhere near the rug, distant now compared to the sound of Elliot breathing close enough to feel against her skin.

Then his nose brushed hers.

Light.

God, that almost undid her more than the kiss would have.

The tenderness of it hit somewhere unbearably soft inside her chest. Not rushed. Not hungry in the careless way exhaustion sometimes forced intimacy to become. Deliberate. Like he was giving her time to stay inside the moment instead of overtaking it.

Her eyes closed halfway on instinct.

Her hand moved from his hair to the side of his neck, fingertips settling there carefully as warmth climbed through her throat.

And then he kissed her.

The first touch of his mouth against hers pulled the air from her lungs so quietly she barely heard herself lose it.

Relief hit first.

Not because anything had been wrong before.

Because this felt like returning somewhere she hadn’t realized she’d been away from.

His kiss moved slowly enough that she could feel each shift separately—the softness first, the restraint in it, the patience. He kissed her like there was time for softness. Time to notice her. Time to let her answer instead of taking.

Her body melted further into him before she consciously decided to move.

The couch cushions sank deeper beneath their weight as she turned more fully toward him, her hand sliding farther behind his neck. The scratch of his jaw against her skin sent warmth skating across her nerves while his mouth deepened slowly against hers.

Her chest tightened hard.

Not from urgency.

From being wanted carefully.

His hand stayed at her neck while the other moved higher against her thigh, and the new point of contact sent a slow wave of heat through her stomach. Not grabbing. Not demanding. Just there. Holding her against him like he intended to keep her exactly where she was.

The room faded around the edges.

Lamplight.

Rain against the windows.

The distant hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen.

All of it softened beneath the steady warmth of his mouth and the impossible familiarity of his body turning fully toward hers.

She kissed him back deeper before she could overthink it.

Not tentative anymore.

Her fingers tightened slightly against the back of his neck as emotion rose unexpectedly fast beneath her ribs. Months of interrupted affection. Half-finished conversations. Exhaustion mistaken for distance. All of it seemed to ache briefly beneath the kiss before dissolving under the simple reality of him here with her now.

When he finally pulled back enough to breathe, she followed him instinctively before stopping herself at the last second.

Their foreheads rested together.

His breath moved warmly across her mouth.

She kept her eyes closed for one beat longer because opening them felt strangely vulnerable after that kind of closeness.

Then his voice reached her.

I love our life.

Emotion pressed against her throat immediately.

Because she did too.

God, she did.

The toys and noise and sticky counters and impossible schedules and Ollie asking seventeen emotionally devastating questions before breakfast. She loved all of it because it was theirs.

But hearing him say the rest cracked something open gently inside her anyway.

Want you to myself sometimes.

Her eyes opened slowly.

The vulnerability in his face caught her off guard harder than the words themselves. Not dramatic. Not guarded behind humor this time. Just honest enough that her chest physically ached around it.

His fingers moved through her hair.

And so are you.

The permission in it nearly wrecked her.

Not because he was granting her something.

Because she realized how long she had quietly denied herself the wanting in the first place.

Ollie Jr.’s offended groan split the silence.

The sound startled a helpless laugh out of her before she could stop it. The tension loosened instantly, warmth spilling through her chest while Elliot muttered toward the dog with exhausted affection.

Her smile brushed against his mouth before his second kiss arrived.

Shorter this time.

Still warm.

Still devastating somehow.

She kissed him back softly, smiling now too, the lingering taste of laughter between them making the intimacy feel even more dangerous in its gentleness.

When he pulled back again, his forehead still close enough to hers that she could see every tiny shift in his expression, the whisper hit her straight in the center of her chest.

No juice requests yet.

Her laugh came quieter this time.

Softer.

Her thumb brushed once beneath his ear before she answered, voice low enough to belong only to the couch and the rain and the sleeping dog at their feet.

“Give him thirty seconds.”

The smile lingered against her mouth for one more breath before emotion returned underneath it, fuller now, steadier.

Her fingers slipped slowly through the hair near his temple again.

“And for the record,” she murmured, eyes staying on his, “I’m extremely interested in irresponsible hotel-room room service.”

A tiny pause.

“Mostly because I want to watch you order pancakes like it’s a life-changing spiritual event.”

His laugh vibrated against her lips.

A low, wonderful sound that she felt right down to the marrow of her bones.
She didn’t let the space between them linger.

The sudden, overwhelming urge to be closer entirely erased the exhaustion that usually kept her pinned beneath the blankets at this hour.

She leaned back in.

Not hesitating.

Her mouth found his before the smile had even faded from his face, turning the soft, teasing brush of lips into something heavier.

Deeper.

He met her exactly halfway, his mouth opening against hers with a soft, urgent kind of hunger that hadn't been there a moment ago. The awkward angle of the cushions suddenly felt like an impossible barrier. She needed more than just his chest against her shoulder. She needed all of him.

She shifted her weight.

The friction of her jeans sliding against his felt impossibly loud in the quiet room as she pulled herself upward.

She heard his breath catch.

A sharp, quiet intake of air that sent a new, fierce flare of heat straight to the center of her stomach.

She moved over him smoothly, swinging one knee across his legs until she was resting fully on her knees.

Straddling his thighs.

The shift changed the entire gravity of the room.

She wasn't just resting against him anymore.

She was hovering over him.

Her knees sank into the couch cushions on either side of his hips, the solid, grounding heat of his body pressing up against the insides of her thighs. The intimacy of the elevation was dizzying. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to look except down at the man who was suddenly holding her waist like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

He let her take the space.

He always did.

His head tilted back against the backrest of the couch, exposing the long, strong line of his throat in the dim gold lamplight.
His eyes never left hers.

Dark.

Heavy.

Looking up at her with a quiet, devastating sort of reverence that made the air physically stick in her lungs. The exhaustion in his face was entirely gone, replaced by an undivided, absolute focus that made her skin burn everywhere his gaze landed.

She lifted her hands.

Her fingers were trembling—just a fraction—before she brought them down, settling both palms gently against the sides of his face.
His skin was terribly warm.

The faint roughness of his jaw scraped softly against the pads of her thumbs.
He leaned into her touch the second it landed.

A blind, instinctual surrender. He turned his face just enough to press a warm kiss into the palm of her hand, his eyes fluttering shut for a fraction of a second before they opened to pin her in place again. The simple, heavy trust in the movement anchored her entirely, wrapping around her heart until the only thing left in the room was the steady, drumming beat of his pulse under her fingertips.

The weight of his gaze was almost too much.

But she didn't look away.

She just leaned down.

The angle was entirely different now.

Better.

Commanding, almost.

Her mouth found his again, pressing down before he could even take a breath. He let out a low, rough sound that vibrated straight through her chest and settled heavy in her stomach.

His hands tightened instantly on her hips.

Anchoring her.

Pulling her just a fraction closer against the cradle of his thighs.

She deepened the kiss without asking permission, her thumbs sliding back into his hair as she parted his lips with her own. It wasn't slow anymore. The careful, deliberate softness from earlier was burning off entirely, replaced by something heavier.

Greedier.

He tasted like rain and exhaustion and something that was entirely, uniquely him. She felt his breath hitch into her mouth, his body shifting upward against the cushions beneath her to chase the contact, silently asking for more.

Her heart hammered a chaotic rhythm against her ribs.

When she finally pulled back, it was only by a fraction of an inch.
Just enough to breathe.

Her lips still brushed the wet heat of his with every syllable, her chest rising and falling hard against the solid wall of his.

"Let's practice for Nashville," she mumbled into the dark space between them.
The words were a secret.

A promise.

Her thumbs stroked the edge of his jaw, waiting for him to understand exactly what she was offering.

Elliot understood.

Not slowly.

Not after turning the words over.

Immediately.

The offer hit somewhere low and hot, beneath every patient thing he’d been holding in place all evening, and for one breath his body went perfectly still under hers. Not because he didn’t want it.

Because he wanted it enough that stillness was the only thing keeping him civilized.

Her mouth hovered over his, close enough that the warmth of her breath moved against his lips. Her thumbs were still at his jaw, soft and deliberate, and the slight tremor in them did something vicious to his self-control. Not fear. Not hesitation. Want, threaded through with the vulnerability she had been handing him all night in pieces.

His hands tightened at her hips.

Once.

A controlled pressure.

Then his palms slid slowly up her sides, feeling the shape of her through soft fabric, the heat of her body gathered over his lap, the way she held herself above him like she had finally decided not to ask permission from her own exhaustion.

God.

He lifted his head just enough that his mouth brushed hers without fully kissing her yet.

“Yeah,” he murmured, rough and quiet. “We can practice.”

That was all he gave her.

Everything else went into his hands.

He pulled her down to him.

Not hard enough to startle her. Not careless. Just certain. His mouth found hers with more heat this time, the last of his careful restraint giving way under the pressure of her knees braced on either side of him, her hands in his hair, her weight finally letting him feel exactly where she was.

The kiss deepened fast.

His fingers spread at her back, one hand dragging up between her shoulder blades while the other stayed low at her hip, keeping her close enough that the space between them stopped being theoretical. He felt her inhale against him, felt the shift of her ribs, the way her body answered before either of them had time to make it into language.

His head tipped back into the cushion as she kissed him, and he let her have the angle for half a second.

Let her take.

Let her lead.

Then the sound she made into his mouth—small, half-swallowed, barely there—went straight through him.

His hand slipped into her hair.

Low at the back of her head.

He held her there and kissed her deeper, slower now, not softer. Slowness with teeth under it. Slowness that let him feel the drag of her lower lip between his, the warmth of her mouth, the faint catch in her breath every time his thumb pressed at the base of her spine.

The room narrowed to contact.

Her thighs around his.

The couch creaking softly beneath the shift of their weight.

The lamplight turning the side of her face warm when he pulled back just enough to look at her.

That was almost worse.

Her mouth was parted.

Her eyes darker than they had been a minute ago.

Her hair slightly mussed from his fingers.

His chest pulled tight around the sight of her, desire and tenderness colliding so hard he nearly forgot where they were.

Then Ollie Jr. huffed from the rug.

Elliot’s eyes flicked down.

The dog was still collapsed in dramatic exile, one eye cracked open like he’d appointed himself morality officer.

Elliot stared at him for one flat second.

“Absolutely not,” he muttered.

Then he looked back at Iris and lost whatever small fight remained.

His hands settled at her waist again, stronger now, and he shifted forward beneath her. The movement pressed them closer, and the heat of it stole his breath before he could hide it. His jaw tightened. His thumbs flexed against her sides.

He bent and kissed the corner of her mouth.

Then her jaw.

Then the soft place just beneath it.

Each kiss slower than the last, open-mouthed and warm, his breath dragging over her skin as he worked his way to the side of her neck. He felt her pulse there before he kissed it. Felt the quick flutter beneath his mouth.

His hand at her back tightened.

Not enough to hurt.

Enough to tell her he felt it.

Enough to tell her it was doing something to him.

The sound that left him was low, almost swallowed against her skin. He dragged his mouth back up to hers before it could become anything too revealing, kissing her like he could put the sound there instead.

Her fingers shifted in his hair.

That nearly finished him.

He broke the kiss with a sharp, quiet breath, forehead dropping briefly to her collarbone while he fought to gather what little discipline he had left. His hands stayed on her. He couldn’t quite make them let go. One palm moved slowly over her thigh, up to her hip, then back again, like his body needed proof she was still there.

When he lifted his head, his eyes found hers.

The humor had burned down into something darker.

Still warm.

Still him.

But stripped of the easy gentleness he usually kept between them and the edge of what he wanted.

His thumb brushed the hem of her shirt where it had shifted slightly at her waist. Barely skin. Barely anything.

It still sent heat up his arm.

He leaned in again, mouth brushing hers as he spoke.

“Bedroom,” he said, voice rough. “Now.”

A beat.

Then, because he was still Elliot, because even half-undone he knew exactly where they were and who was asleep down the hall, he added against her lips, “Before our dog files a report.”

He didn’t wait long enough for the joke to cool the air.

His hands slid under her thighs, and he stood with her.

The motion was smooth but not effortless; she was warm and real and fully in his arms, and the sudden shift pulled a quiet breath from him. He held her tighter on instinct, one arm locked beneath her, the other firm at her back.

The couch cushion rose behind him.

Ollie Jr. lifted his head.

Elliot looked down without moving away from Iris.

“Stay.”

The dog’s ears perked.

“I mean it.”

A tail thumped once.

Elliot narrowed his eyes, then turned with Iris against him, her legs still around his waist, her hands still close enough to ruin him if she decided to touch him again.

Which she did.

Her fingers brushed the back of his neck, and his stride faltered for half a second.

He caught it.

Barely.

“Sweetheart,” he warned under his breath, but the word had no force in it.

Only heat.

Only the thin remains of control.

He carried her down the hallway slowly enough not to make noise, close enough that her body brushed his with every step. The house felt suddenly too quiet around them, every small sound sharpened—the low creak of the floorboard beneath his heel, the whisper of fabric where her knees held him, his own breathing turning less even the longer her mouth stayed near his neck.

He passed Ollie’s cracked door and slowed automatically.

Not stopping.

Just listening.

Small, even breaths from inside.

Safe.

Asleep.

The strip of light stayed steady across the floor.

Elliot moved on.

The second they reached their room, he nudged the door open with his shoulder and stepped inside, the darkness there softer, cooler, waiting. He set her down only when his knees touched the edge of the bed, but he didn’t step back. Didn’t give the space a chance to widen.

His hands stayed at her waist as her feet found the floor.

For one second, he just looked at her.

Really looked.

At the woman who had spent the whole night loving everyone else through mess and fear and tiny disasters, now standing in front of him with her mouth kissed soft and her eyes still on his.

His chest tightened.

Then his hand came up to her cheek, rough thumb brushing once over the heat there.

“Missed you,” he said.

Not polished.

Not enough.

But true enough that it scraped on the way out.

Then he kissed her again.

Harder this time.

No couch angle.

No dog audience.

No careful balancing act between tenderness and practicality.

Just his hands pulling her in, her body meeting his, the bedroom door half-open behind them until he reached back blindly and pushed it shut.