Callum had known the silence was a setup.

He had known it the second it stretched past three seconds without Lux saying anything about the words dry, recovery, or Waylon, because Lux did not leave usable material lying around out of kindness. She preserved it. Aged it. Waited until it could do the most damage. By the time she finally started talking behind him, Callum had already resumed beating the eggs with the grim concentration of a man trying to look too occupied to be cross-examined, though the slow shake of his head gave him away before she got halfway through her witness-statement bullshit. “I didn’t design anything,” he said, pouring the eggs into the hot skillet and reaching for the spatula. “I said somewhere dry. That could mean under a tree. A bush. Existing natural infrastructure. Don’t turn one sentence into a building permit because you’ve got no respect for context.”

He heard how bad the argument sounded as soon as it left him, but there was no taking it back now, especially with Lux already crossing the kitchen behind him. Callum kept his eyes on the eggs when her arms slipped around his middle, although his free hand immediately covered one of hers where it rested against him. The contact pulled some of the defensive stiffness out of his shoulders before he could stop it, and he let out a quiet breath through his nose when her cheek settled against his back. “And for the record, I’m not on any committee,” he added, considerably less convincing with his thumb moving slowly over her knuckles. “I called a vet. That’s it. Everything after that has been an aggressive expansion of my responsibilities by management.”

Then she told him she liked cooking for him.

Callum stopped moving the spatula for half a second.

There were things Lux said that demanded an answer because she wanted one, and there were things she slipped into conversation almost sideways, tucked between jokes so neither of them had to stand under the full weight of the tenderness. He knew the difference. He also knew better than to drag the second kind into brighter light just because it got to him. His fingers tightened once around hers instead, and when she kissed the back of his neck, he turned his head slightly toward her without enough room to actually see her. “I know,” he said, quieter. “And I like when you cook for me.” His mouth pulled faintly at one corner. “Even when you decide seasoning is a creative medium instead of a measurable substance.”

He gave her hand another squeeze before she released him, then finally looked over his shoulder when she declared his cooking an honor and warned him not to burn the eggs. “You tell me you like taking care of me and then threaten my breakfast performance in the same breath.” He watched her retreat toward the cabinet, affection softening the complaint despite his best effort. “That house-angel ship didn’t sink, sweetheart. You set it on fire yourself, stood on shore, and criticized the color of the flames.”

The mismatched plates landed beside him, and Callum looked from them to Lux with immediate suspicion when she promoted him to leadership of both poultry and regional raccoon infrastructure. “No. Absolutely not.” He pointed the spatula at her before remembering there was egg on it and lowering it before he decorated the kitchen. “I am temporary structural support. That is my entire title. I’m not leading an era, chairing a committee, or accepting responsibility for municipal raccoon housing.” He turned back to the skillet and folded the eggs carefully. “And if anybody asks, I was coerced into all of this by a woman without pants.”

He heard Biscuit chirp behind him and glanced back long enough to see Lux already scratching beneath the cat’s chin. “Don’t encourage her,” Callum told Biscuit. “You’ve contributed nothing to this household except hair, food expenses, and several crimes we couldn’t prove.” Biscuit appeared completely unmoved by the accusation, which tracked with every interaction Callum had ever had with him. When Juniper finally accepted Lux’s invitation and moved closer with all the ceremony of visiting royalty, Callum snorted and returned to breakfast. “There she goes. Her Majesty has granted an audience. Everybody behave.”

He moved the eggs off the direct heat, then dumped the leftover potatoes into the second skillet with butter and let them start crisping. The domestic rhythm came easily once his hands had enough to do. He checked the toast, turned the potatoes, divided the eggs between the two plates, all while listening to Lux narrate the cats’ political positions behind him. The tension from the clinic call had not disappeared, but it no longer occupied the whole kitchen. Waylon was alive. He had eaten. Somebody competent was watching him. Until the clinic knew more, Callum could not fix anything by staring at the phone, and he knew that even if every instinct in him objected.

Then Lux said she had a new subject for the committee.

Callum closed his eyes.

“No.”

She had not even asked yet.

He opened them again and turned enough to look at her over his shoulder while she introduced the concept of nameplates. His expression stayed flat through little nameplates on the coop, but it shifted the second she got to the names. “Wait.” He lowered the spatula. “Stevie, Dolly, and Joan Jett?” He looked at her for a long second, then gave a reluctant nod. “Alright. Those are good chicken names.” The concession came without much struggle because denying it would have been stupid, and he still had some standards. “But that is not approval for decorative signage. I am approving the names. Those are separate matters, and I want that entered into whatever fake record you’ve apparently been keeping since yesterday.”

Callum turned back to the stove, scraped the potatoes around the pan, then frowned because he was already thinking about the damned nameplates. Not ornate ones. Nothing hanging loose where weather could knock them around. Small wood pieces would be easy enough. He had scrap cedar in the garage. Sand the edges, seal them properly, mount them directly instead of hanging them. Three names would not take twenty minutes.

His jaw tightened.

He could practically feel Lux sensing it from across the room.

“Don’t,” he warned without turning around. “Whatever you think just happened in my head, it didn’t.”

He plated the potatoes and rescued the toast before it crossed from browned into burned, then carried both plates to the table. He put Lux’s in front of her first, because that was habit, not evidence of anything, and nudged Biscuit gently away from the chair with his bare foot before taking the seat beside her. “And Biscuit doesn’t get a vote. He’s never paid taxes, he steals food, and I watched him lose a fight with a paper grocery bag last month. His qualifications are nonexistent.” He reached for his coffee, glanced at Juniper, and added, “She can abstain. At least she understands governance.”

Then Lux brought Waylon back into it, because naturally she did.

Callum stared at her over the rim of his mug while she reminded him about the dry recovery area and glass houses. “First of all, he’s injured. That’s different.” He set the mug down and picked up his fork, cutting into the eggs with more attention than the task required. “Second, I did not say we were building him anything. I said if they release him here, we make sure he has somewhere dry while his leg recovers. That could be something we already have.” His brow furrowed as he thought through the yard despite himself. “There’s space behind the old shed that stays mostly covered. Could put some straw back there, maybe brace that loose panel so nothing bigger can get through while he’s vulnerable.”

He stopped.

The fork hovered halfway to his mouth.

Callum looked at Lux.

“No.”

He knew that face.

“I’m thinking about predator risk. That is not the same thing.”

The argument lasted approximately two seconds before his own expression betrayed him. Callum dropped his gaze to his plate and finally took the bite, chewing while he considered how thoroughly the morning had gotten away from him. He swallowed, pointed his fork toward her, and narrowed his eyes. “You are not naming the recovery area. It is not a raccoon cottage, a Waylon wing, an outlaw hideout, or whatever else is currently happening behind your eyes. It’s the back of the shed with straw. If it even happens.”

He went back to his breakfast, but the corner of his mouth had already started betraying him.

“And the nameplates can be small,” he muttered after another bite. “Nothing dangling. Nothing with goddamn glitter. I’ve got cedar scraps in the garage, so I could make three that mount flat to the coop. You can paint the names yourself after they’re sealed.”

Callum froze again.

Slowly, he set his fork down.

He stared across the table at his wife, realization settling over his face with exhausted inevitability.

“I hate this house.”

Lux lowered her eyes to her plate because looking directly at him felt dangerous. Not because she was afraid of him, obviously. She was afraid of herself, which was a far more unpredictable and poorly supervised category. If she let herself meet that defeated, betrayed look on his face for too long, she was going to laugh, melt, climb halfway into his lap, or say something so openly sweet that both of them would need several minutes and possibly another cup of coffee to recover. Instead, she pressed her lips together, picked up her fork, and stabbed gently at the edge of her eggs like breakfast required her full concentration.

“You poor thing,” she said at last, voice soft with sympathy so fake it practically wore costume jewelry. She glanced up through her lashes, letting her mouth bend just enough to ruin the performance. “Trapped in a terrible home where women wear underwear on porches, cats speak over breakfast, and innocent men are forced by circumstance to make tasteful cedar nameplates for birds they have not yet met.” Her fork hovered over her plate as she considered him with grave concern. “Honestly, Cal, I don’t know how you carry on. The emotional burden must be immense.”

The thing was, beneath the teasing, her chest had gone warm in that helpless way he kept causing without even trying. He looked so wronged by his own generosity, sitting there with his fork down and the morning light catching in his messy hair, like the house itself had conspired to drag every soft part of him into daylight before he had been properly caffeinated. Lux wanted to make fun of him forever. She wanted to put her hands on either side of his face and kiss him until he stopped glaring at the life they had built together like it had personally committed fraud. Both impulses lived inside her at once, tangled and bright, and because she had some mercy left, she only leaned back in her chair and nudged Biscuit lightly away from the table with her bare foot when he tried to investigate the edge of her plate.

“And just so we’re clear,” she added, cutting into her toast with entirely too much poise for a woman in a tank top and underwear, “I did not name anything behind your shed. Yet.” She lifted one shoulder, careful not to make the sore one work too hard, and gave him a look of lazy innocence. “I was merely sitting here, minding my breakfast, being beautiful and supportive, while you developed several practical improvements for a situation that may or may not happen.” Her eyes brightened. “If the phrase outlaw hideout appeared in the kitchen air, that was your spirit trying to heal.”

Juniper brushed against Lux’s calf, then slipped beneath the table with cool, silent entitlement. Biscuit, denied access to the plate, flopped dramatically beside her chair like a Victorian child overcome by faintness. Lux looked down at him and sighed. “Nobody believes you,” she told him, reaching down anyway to scratch the top of his head. “You ate ten minutes ago. I watched you inhale breakfast like the bowl insulted your bloodline.” His purr started at once, low and shameless, and she could not stop herself from smiling as her fingers moved behind his ear. “See? This is exactly the problem. Men in this house act persecuted and then immediately enjoy being cared for.”

She did not clarify whether she meant Biscuit or Callum. That would have spoiled the fun.

Lux took a bite of breakfast and let herself hum softly before she could help it. It was good, annoyingly so, which meant she had to be strategic about how much satisfaction she showed. The eggs were soft, the potatoes crisp at the edges, the toast rescued at the exact point before bitterness, and all of it tasted better because he had made it while grumbling his way through another surrender. She swallowed, looked at him over the rim of her coffee, and let the approval show in her eyes before she covered it with a crooked smile. “This is decent,” she said, which in their language was not an insult and would not be mistaken for one. “For a man under extreme domestic duress, you’ve managed not to embarrass yourself.”

The tenderness tried to rise again, bigger this time, inconvenient and full. She looked at his hands around his fork, at the familiar shape of him in the chair beside her, at the cats orbiting them as though breakfast were a communal event and not a meal for two human beings who had already fed everyone else. This was what got her: not the grand gestures, not the hard-won declarations, but the small daily proof. He cooked. He worried. He made plans while pretending not to make plans. He threatened to deny every beautiful thing that came out of his mouth and then gave her the materials to build it anyway.

She reached across the space between them and touched two fingers lightly to the back of his hand, there and gone before it could become too serious. Not his wrist. Not anything that trapped him. Just a brief contact, warm and deliberate, the kind of touch that could pass as teasing if either of them needed it to. “You know,” she said, her voice gentler now, though she kept the smile in it, “for a man who claims to hate this house, you do spend a lot of time making sure every living thing in it has what it needs.”

That was almost too much. She felt it the second it left her mouth, felt the softness of it sitting there between the plates and coffee mugs and two cats pretending not to beg. So she rescued them both by pointing her fork toward the window and adding, “Which is rude, by the way. Very hard to maintain my mysterious art-wife persona when you’re out here being useful and emotionally suspicious before nine in the morning.”

Lux took another bite, giving him room to do whatever Callum did when something landed too close to the center of him. Grumble, look away, threaten to build nothing, immediately think through measurements anyway. She loved all of it with a ridiculousness that made her want to crawl out of her own skin and paint the walls. Instead, she let Biscuit shove his head against her shin and pretended the cat was the reason her expression had softened.

After a moment, she glanced toward the back window again. The porch steps sat in the morning light, the little bowls still visible, the yard beyond them full of unfinished things. The coop waited half-formed and stubborn, all wire and scrap and future trouble. Somewhere beneath or near the porch, Sawdust was deciding whether humans were a food source, a threat, or merely large awkward furniture. Somewhere across town, Waylon was in professional hands, alive enough to eat and cause two grown people in their kitchen to pretend they were being reasonable about him.

Lux rested her chin lightly in her palm and looked back at Callum with fresh mischief creeping in around the edges. “I do think, since we’re discussing house tragedies, we should talk about music for the hardware store trip.” She let the subject shift naturally, giving the morning a new, safer place to go. “Because if we’re picking out supplies for hens named Stevie, Dolly, and Joan Jett, I feel the drive deserves a theme. Something ceremonial. Something deeply annoying to you by the second chorus.”

Her grin widened as she reached for her coffee. “I could make us a playlist called Limited Agricultural Arrangement. Very tasteful. Starts with Dolly, gets progressively less respectful, ends with something loud enough to make the paint aisle nervous.” She paused, eyes narrowing with theatrical thought. “Or we go full chicken christening energy and you let me play whatever I want without muttering about my ‘sonic choices’ like you’re an old man writing a complaint to the radio station.”

The new topic loosened something in the room. It gave them somewhere to put the relief, the worry, the sweetness that kept threatening to spill over the edge of the table. Lux settled back, still stroking Biscuit with one hand while Juniper wound once around her ankle beneath the chair, and watched Callum the way she watched storms from the porch: entertained, affectionate, a little daring. He would argue because he had to. She would press because it made him smile when he thought she was not looking. And somewhere between the toast, the cats, the half-built coop, and the imagined soundtrack for a hardware run that had become absurdly important, the morning kept unfolding around them like something ordinary enough to trust.

“Before you answer,” she added, lifting her mug with both hands and peering at him over it, “remember that I am injured, under-caffeinated, and dressed in a way that greatly improves household morale. So if you deny me my poultry errand playlist, it may reflect poorly on your character.” Her smile went sweet, then wicked. “No pressure, though.”

Callum watched her lower her eyes to the plate and knew immediately that she was trying not to laugh at him. He would have preferred the laugh. The effort not to laugh had a smugness all its own, particularly when paired with that counterfeit sympathy about the hardships of living in a house full of half-dressed women, opinionated cats, hypothetical chickens, and apparently mandatory woodworking projects. He picked his fork back up and gave her a long look while she described his emotional burden, waiting until she finished before cutting into his potatoes. “Thank you. Finally, some recognition. Nobody talks about what it does to a man, waking up one morning and finding out he’s apparently the unpaid facilities department for an agricultural operation that does not currently possess agriculture.”

Her claim that she had not named anything behind the shed earned immediate suspicion. “Yet is the problem word in that sentence. And don’t put outlaw hideout on me. I was listing examples of things you weren’t allowed to call it because I know you. Give you ten unattended minutes and there’ll be a little wooden sign back there that says Waylon’s Honky-Tonk Rehabilitation Center, and then you’ll tell me it’s not technically a sign because you distressed the wood.” His mouth twitched despite himself, and he took another bite before the expression could become anything she might classify as encouragement.

Biscuit’s theatrical collapse beside Lux’s chair distracted him long enough to save Callum from acknowledging how accurate his own prediction probably was. He watched Lux immediately reach down for the cat despite having just called him a liar, then snorted when she broadened the accusation to include the men of the household. “Leave me out of whatever psychological arrangement you two have. I don’t throw myself on the floor after breakfast and demand somebody scratch my head.” The second the sentence left him, Callum saw the opportunity he had handed her. His eyes lifted to hers. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to say, don’t.”

Her verdict on breakfast earned a slow look across the table. Decent. Callum knew exactly what decent meant from Lux when she had already taken another bite before delivering the review, and he had been married to her too long to require applause. “High praise. I’ll put it on the résumé under spite-based massage credentials and regional wildlife infrastructure. Maybe by lunch I’ll qualify for health insurance.” He reached for his coffee, still watching her over the rim when her fingers briefly touched the back of his hand.

What she said next stripped the easy answer out of him. Callum’s gaze stayed on her face for a moment before dropping to where her fingers had been, and he rolled the fork once between his own. Making sure every living thing in the house had what it needed sounded different when Lux said it that way. Bigger than feeding cats or reinforcing a coop or noticing when she was hurting. It stretched backward through years if he let it, and he had no intention of opening that particular door over breakfast. “That’s the job. You bring something into the house, you take care of it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a cat, chickens, or some half-dead plant you swear is dormant when anybody with eyes can see it’s been deceased since February.” His eyes returned to hers, quieter now. “And you’re included in that, before you decide I’m categorizing my wife with livestock. Though you are substantially harder to keep alive than Juniper. She has survival instincts.”

Callum followed her glance toward the window and caught sight of the porch bowls but no Sawdust. He resisted the immediate impulse to get up and check. They had seen the kitten that morning. She was moving well enough to hunt bugs, food and water were waiting for her, and crawling around after her every fifteen minutes would accomplish nothing except frightening her back under the porch. Callum forced his attention to his coffee instead, took another drink, and was almost proud of himself for leaving the matter alone until Lux announced that they needed to discuss music. “No, we don’t,” he said automatically, with the confidence of a man who had apparently learned nothing from the previous twenty-four hours.

He listened anyway. By the time she reached Limited Agricultural Arrangement, his fork had stalled halfway to his mouth and a short laugh escaped before he could kill it. “That is a terrible name. That sounds like a tax classification for people who own one goat illegally.” He shook his head, but the playlist itself earned more consideration than he wanted her to know. “You can make it, but there are conditions. Dolly’s fine. Stevie’s fine. Joan Jett is obviously fine, seeing as you already named a chicken after her. You can put whatever else you want on there, but I reserve the right to skip anything that makes me feel like I’m being held hostage inside my own truck. And if you deliberately pick something because you know I hate it, I get one veto. No appeal, no filibuster, and no invoking your constitutional rights.”

Her accusation about his sonic choices got another reluctant smile out of him. “I don’t sound like an old man writing to a radio station. I sound like somebody who occasionally wants the bass player to have met the drummer before they recorded the song. Some of your music sounds like four people fell down different staircases and somebody put reverb on it.” He knew exactly what that statement was going to cost him later, but he ate another bite anyway, prepared to stand behind it.

Then she presented her final negotiating position: injured, under-caffeinated, and dressed in a way that allegedly improved household morale. Callum slowly lowered his fork and looked at her. “The shoulder gets you sympathy, and the caffeine problem is being actively treated. The third item is irrelevant to playlist negotiations, and you know damn well it is.” His gaze slipped down despite every intention he had of keeping it on her face, lingered for one incriminating second, then returned to his plate. “Mostly irrelevant.”

Biscuit chirped beside Lux’s chair, and Callum pointed his fork at him without missing a beat. “And you stay out of it. I’m not getting outvoted by a cat who licks plastic.” He finished his eggs while the practical part of his mind started arranging the morning whether Lux called it a list or not. They needed to inspect the garage before buying anything, because he was not paying twice for hardware he already owned. Hardware cloth, hinges, a better latch, screws, possibly another length of cedar depending on what daylight revealed about yesterday’s work. Exterior paint could be priced. Priced. There was an important distinction there.

Callum caught Lux watching him and narrowed his eyes immediately. “I’m making the supply list. I’m not thinking about paint, so stop looking at me like that.” He stood with his plate and carried it to the sink, rinsing it before setting it aside. “Finish breakfast, then put pants on. Actual pants. We are going into town, and I’m not explaining your morale program to anybody at the hardware store.”

He braced his hands against the counter and looked through the window while she finished eating. Full morning light had reached the yard now, exposing every temporary board and crooked edge of the half-built coop, and his attention automatically started picking through what needed correcting. He could see where the hardware cloth needed to run, where he wanted the new latch, which piece of cedar he could probably salvage instead of replacing. Then something small moved beside the porch steps, and every structural thought disappeared.

Sawdust emerged cautiously near the food bowl, paused long enough to survey the yard, then lowered her head and began eating. Callum stayed where he was, watching until he was satisfied she was actually settling into the meal rather than grabbing a bite and bolting. The tension left his shoulders before he had any say in it. He glanced back toward Lux. “Your little criminal’s eating.” There was no point disguising the relief in his voice, so he did not bother trying.

He dried his hands and leaned back against the counter, folding his arms loosely while he looked at Lux. “So eat your breakfast, get dressed, and check the garage with me before we leave so we don’t buy shit I already own. You can control the music on the way there, but I still get one veto, so use your power responsibly, Rivers.” His eyes moved toward her phone on the table, and the thought of the clinic returned just as quickly. “And bring your phone. For the clinic, in case they call. If they say Waylon can be released back here, we’re discussing the shed situation before you buy anything.”

He paused, studying her with the specific suspicion reserved for a woman who could turn scrap wood and five unsupervised minutes into an entire aesthetic concept. “And when I say anything, I mean anything. No little signs, no decorative bedding, no outlaw-themed bullshit, and absolutely nothing with his name painted on it.” Callum pushed away from the counter and reached for his coffee, taking another drink before adding, “We give him somewhere safe and dry until he can manage on his own. That’s it. Temporary. Functional. Nobody gets emotionally attached to the raccoon.”

He lowered the mug and looked at her.

The silence lasted one beat.

Then two.

Callum’s jaw tightened as he heard himself.

“Don’t.”

By the time the warning reached her, Lux had already gone quiet in a way that was only partly mischief. She watched him from the table with her fork idle against her plate, chin tipped slightly, eyes resting on him like she had found something worth sketching and ruining in equal measure. The morning light caught the edges of him at the counter, all sleep-wrecked hair, bare legs, old T-shirt, and that stubborn line of tension he got when his own care had backed him into a corner. He looked annoyed with himself, which was adorable. He also looked like the kind of man who could worry over a half-wild kitten, a wounded raccoon, a woman’s sore shoulder, and a chicken coop in the same hour while insisting none of it was evidence of anything, which was unfairly attractive in a way she did not think society had adequately prepared her for.

She could have made a joke immediately. Several were available, all of them mean enough to be funny and soft enough to count as affection. Instead, she let herself look at him for one extra breath, because sometimes wanting him started nowhere obvious. Not with his mouth or his hands or the body she had known for years and still occasionally had to pretend not to stare at in inconvenient places. Sometimes it started with him making sure Sawdust ate, or saying Waylon needed somewhere dry, or putting breakfast in front of her without ceremony while acting like being careful was just another kind of work. It made her chest hurt first, then made the hurt turn warm, then lower, then less easy to laugh off.

“Baby,” she said at last, voice mild enough to be suspicious, “I have not said one word about emotional attachment to the raccoon.” She set her fork down neatly, because if she kept holding it she might point with it and that would ruin the slow, dangerous pleasure of what she was doing. “I have been sitting here in silence, eating your very respectable breakfast, witnessing your personal journey with incredible grace. If your conscience is making noises, I need you to take that up with her directly.”

Her mouth curved, but she kept the smile smaller than he deserved. Too much, too fast, and he would retreat behind irritation, and she was in no mood to chase him there. Lux took another bite of potato, chewing slowly while her eyes stayed on him, enjoying the fact that he knew perfectly well she had more to say and hated waiting for it. The potatoes were crisp, buttery, better than she intended to admit out loud, and the eggs had gone soft and warm on her tongue in a way that made her deeply resent how competent he was at nearly everything he pretended not to care about. She swallowed, lifted her mug, and let herself look him over with lazy appreciation from behind the rim.

“I will say,” she added, “there is somethin’ deeply compelling about a man drawin’ hard boundaries while actively plannin’ humane shelter solutions before nine in the mornin’.” Her eyes dipped for one slow, deliberate second, taking in the old T-shirt and the bare skin below it with no shame whatsoever, then returned to his face. “Very rugged. Very responsible. Very inconvenient for my ability to behave.”

There it was, the turn in her own voice, subtle but unmistakable. The kitchen did not change around them, not really. The cats still occupied the floor with the entitled peace of creatures who had already been served. Her plate still sat in front of her, half-finished coffee nearby, sunlight brightening over the counter and the sink. But inside Lux, the morning tilted, tenderness slipping into something more electric. She felt the shift like a match catching under her ribs, small and bright and not at all interested in errands, hardware, or whether she owned acceptable pants.

She finished the last bite on her plate with exaggerated innocence, then stood slowly enough to make the movement feel like a choice rather than a transition. Biscuit looked up as if her rising might concern him, and she nudged him lightly aside with her foot. “Relax,” she told him, her attention still angled toward Callum. “This is not about you, which I know is difficult for your brand.” She picked up her plate and mug, carrying both to the sink with the unhurried confidence of someone who had decided exactly where the next few minutes were going and did not feel the need to announce the destination.

The water came on cool over her fingers, splashing softly against ceramic. Lux rinsed the plate first, then the mug, taking more time than the task required while she let him sit with the shape of her mood. Through the window, she could see the yard bright and unfinished, the porch steps, the bowls near them, the half-built coop waiting like evidence of a future that kept arriving whether Callum approved or not. She should have been thinking about supplies, clothes, the clinic calling back, the many small practicalities lined up beyond the kitchen. Instead, she watched the water run over her hand and thought about his mouth against hers upstairs, warm with coffee and sleep, and how easy it would be to make the morning forget itself for a while.

She turned off the water, dried her hands on the towel hanging from the oven handle, and finally looked at him fully. The softness had not left her face, but she let the mischief sharpen around it, let him see the change because hiding it would have been less fun. “You know,” she said, leaning one hip against the counter near him, “I was fully prepared to go upstairs and put on actual pants like a respectable member of the errand-going public.” Her gaze dropped again, slower this time, not coy enough to be accidental. “Then you had to stand there being all competent and morally conflicted about woodland recovery logistics.”

She stepped closer, close enough that the warm air between them thinned. One hand found the counter beside him, not trapping him exactly, just creating a little pocket of space where the rest of the kitchen could stop existing if it had any manners. Her other hand lifted to the hem of his shirt, fingers catching there lightly before smoothing over the fabric at his stomach. “That kind of behavior has consequences,” she murmured. “You cannot just worry about vulnerable creatures, make me breakfast, talk about making things safe, and expect your wife to remain focused on denim.”

Lux rose onto her toes and kissed him before the sentence could turn too sweet. The first touch of her mouth was gentle, almost teasing, but she did not pull away quickly. She let it deepen by degrees, coffee-warm and deliberate, her fingers curling in his shirt as if she were testing how much persuasion the old cotton could survive. She loved the familiar shape of him under her hands, the heat of his body, the way wanting him always felt layered over all the years they had already lived inside each other’s lives. This was not new, and that was precisely what made it dangerous. She knew where to soften. She knew where to press. She knew how to make a kiss feel like an invitation and an accusation at the same time.

When she drew back, it was only far enough to speak against his mouth. “I’m gonna go upstairs,” she said, voice lower now, still threaded with that bright, wicked humor that kept things from becoming too bare too fast. “I will, in theory, look for pants.” Her thumb moved once beneath the edge of his shirt, brushing warm skin in a small, intentional sweep. “But I am easily distracted, and you are currently very distractin’.”

She let that settle between them, then kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, just beneath it, each touch unhurried and light enough to make him decide whether he wanted more. She did not tug him. She did not beg. Lux had never needed to beg when she could lure, and she had always preferred the game when both of them knew exactly who was winning. Her hand slid up his chest over the thin shirt, pausing where she could feel his breathing shift beneath her palm, and she smiled against his skin.

“Now,” she whispered, “you can stay down here and think very serious thoughts about screws, hinges, raccoon ethics, and whatever tragic pants-based expectations you have for me.” She kissed the side of his neck, slower this time, then eased back just enough to meet his eyes. “Or you can come upstairs with me and supervise the outfit selection personally.”

The last words came out sweet, almost helpful, which made them worse. Lux stepped backward before he could get too comfortable with her close, fingers trailing briefly over the front of his shirt before she let go. Her heart was beating faster now, but she kept her face lazy and pleased, all wicked patience and bare-legged confidence. She turned toward the doorway, then glanced back over her shoulder, hair falling messy around her face, tank still twisted from a morning that had already become something else entirely.

“I mean, since you’re so concerned about community standards,” she added, smiling like trouble had put on perfume and wandered into the kitchen, “you should probably come make sure I choose somethin’ appropriate.”

She did not wait long enough to make it easy on him. Lux left the kitchen with a slow, barefoot step, passing Biscuit where he had planted himself near the threshold like a witness to scandal. “No commentary from you,” she murmured down at him, though her smile stayed aimed behind her. The stairs waited beyond the hall, and with every step toward them, the day’s errands slipped a little farther down the line. Hardware could wait. Paint could wait. Even actual pants could wait, at least long enough for Callum to decide whether he wanted to keep pretending breakfast had been the most urgent thing in the house.

Callum did not follow her immediately. Mostly because he had some dignity left, and he intended to preserve whatever scraps remained after dark plum, Waylon, chicken nameplates, and the deeply unfortunate revelation that his wife had apparently discovered a direct connection between wildlife rehabilitation and wanting to drag him upstairs. He stayed against the counter for three full seconds after she disappeared into the hall, arms folded, jaw set, staring at the empty doorway as though refusing to move quickly enough might somehow change the fact that every nerve in his body had already followed her.

Then Biscuit looked up at him.

Callum lowered his eyes to the cat. Biscuit sat near the threshold with his tail curled around his feet, wearing the blank, judgmental expression of an animal who had witnessed considerably more than he had been invited to witness and intended to remain professionally neutral about it. Callum pointed toward him. “Not a fucking word.”

Biscuit blinked.

“Exactly.”

He pushed away from the counter, collected Lux’s abandoned coffee mug on instinct, realized halfway to the sink that she had already rinsed it, and stopped with it in his hand. That irritated him more than it reasonably should have. She had cleaned her plate, cleaned her mug, kissed him senseless against the counter, threatened to go upstairs without pants, and then walked away like she had completed a perfectly normal sequence of household tasks. Callum put the mug down harder than necessary and scrubbed one hand over his face.

“Goddammit, woman.”

There was no heat in it that belonged to anger. That was the problem.

He checked the stove because apparently some functioning part of his brain remained committed to fire prevention, made sure everything was off, then glanced through the window one last time. Sawdust was still near the porch. Good. The food bowl had her attention, the yard was quiet, and nothing outside required him for the next ten minutes. Probably twenty. He refused to calculate beyond that because doing so would make this feel scheduled, and Callum Rivers was not scheduling whatever the hell Lux had just started against the kitchen counter.

By the time he reached the stairs, he could hear her moving around above him. A drawer opened. Something bumped softly against the floor. Callum put one hand on the banister and started up, slower than the impulse driving him, partly because his back reminded him on the third step that Lux’s massage had not performed an actual miracle and partly because he knew her. If he came charging upstairs like a seventeen-year-old who had never seen a woman in his life, she would dine on that satisfaction until Christmas.

He reached the bedroom doorway and stopped there.

Lux had made it as far as the dresser. That appeared to be the full extent of her commitment to respectable public attire.

Callum leaned one shoulder against the frame, folded his arms, and looked at her without bothering to disguise what the sight of her did to him. “This is interesting.” His voice came rougher than it had downstairs, sleep mostly gone from it now. “Because from the kitchen, I got the impression there was gonna be some serious outfit selection happening up here. Community standards. Public decency. Whole civic responsibility angle.”

His gaze moved deliberately toward the open drawer before returning to her. “I don’t see a lot of progress.”

The smile threatening her mouth told him everything he needed to know, and Callum shook his head. “No. Don’t look pleased with yourself. You lured an injured man up a flight of stairs under false pretenses.” He pushed away from the doorway and crossed the room, unhurried now that he had decided there was nowhere else he particularly needed to be. “That’s fraud, Lux. Possibly elder abuse, depending on how dramatic I feel like bein’ about the fourteen months you’ve got on me.”

He stopped in front of her, close enough that the joke lost some of its room to breathe. His hands settled at her waist, easy and familiar, and for a second he simply looked down at her. That was where she always got him. Not the flirting. Not the deliberate little invitation downstairs. Not even the fact that she was standing there looking like she knew exactly what she had done. It was Lux herself beneath all of it, sleep-mussed and bright-eyed and impossible, the same woman who had spent half the night worrying about a raccoon and half the morning making his reluctant compassion into a criminal case.

“You’re trouble,” he murmured.

His thumb moved once along her side. “Actual, measurable trouble. I could document it.”

Then he kissed her.

The kiss started with considerably less patience than hers had downstairs, though it softened almost immediately when his hand came up to cradle the side of her face. Callum knew her too well to mistake urgency for a reason to rush everything. He let himself stay there instead, mouth warm against hers, the other hand holding her securely at the waist while the hardware store, the coop, the paint aisle, and every other useful plan he had arranged for the morning temporarily lost jurisdiction.

When he drew back, he kept her close. His forehead rested against hers, his breathing a little less even than it had been when he entered the room. “For the record,” he said quietly, “this does not mean you won anything downstairs. Waylon is still temporary. The coop is still a limited agricultural arrangement. And dark plum is still under review.”

His mouth brushed hers again, brief this time.

Then his eyes opened and found hers.

“And you are absolutely wearin’ pants to the hardware store.”

A beat passed.

Callum’s mouth pulled slowly at one corner.

“Eventually.”

Lux let the word hang in the quiet of the bedroom, savoring the low, raspy gravel of his voice and the solid heat of him pressing against her front. She had known he would follow her. The agonizing five minutes she had spent waiting by the dresser hadn't been wasted—she had deliberately bypassed her stack of practical denim, tossed three perfectly respectable shirts onto the floor just to make it look like a legitimate wardrobe crisis, and strategically dabbed her favorite amber-vanilla oil at the base of her throat. She had been holding a sheer lace bralette, debating exactly how ridiculous she wanted to be, when she heard the heavy, reluctant thud of his boots on the stairs. Now, with his hands warm on her waist, the bralette was forgotten somewhere on the rug.

"Eventually," she echoed, her voice dropping into a breathless, amused purr. She slid her hands up the broad, cotton-clad expanse of his chest, her fingers curling into the collar of his faded tee. "That's a mighty big word for a man who claims he’s sufferin’ from elder abuse, darlin'. I'm just tryin' to accommodate your frail state. Takes time to pick out pants that won't scandalize the good people at the hardware store."

She tilted her head back, letting the morning light catch the triumphant gleam in her eyes. The fact that he was trying so valiantly to maintain his gruff, responsible facade while literally holding her against his own was the most intoxicating thing in the world. It sent a hot, heavy pulse pooling low in her stomach, an electric thrill that only Callum could pull from her so effortlessly.

"And as for your agricultural arrangements," she murmured, tracing a slow, deliberate line down the center of his chest with one fingernail, feeling his muscles flinch beneath the cotton, "I didn't hear a hard 'no' on the plum paint. I just heard a man who knows exactly what color he's buyin' today and is just real mad about it."

She didn't give him the chance to argue. Lux stepped closer, eliminating the last fraction of space between them until the thin fabric of her black tank top brushed flush against his shirt. She let her hands map the familiar, muscular slope of his shoulders, feeling the residual tension from his battle with the scrap wood and the wildlife rescue the night before.

Slipping her arms around his neck, she deliberately pressed the soft swell of her breasts against his chest. She knew exactly how the friction of her cotton underwear felt against the worn flannel of his boxers. The sharp intake of his breath was a victory sweeter than any argument she could have ever won downstairs in the kitchen.

"You talk a real good game, Cal," she whispered against his jaw, pressing a damp, open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive skin just beneath his ear. She felt the heavy swallow in his throat and smiled against his pulse point. "But you're standin' up here in our bedroom, lookin' at me like I'm a full-time job you're lookin' forward to dreadin'."

Her hands trailed down his back, smoothing over the warm muscle beneath his shirt until she reached the dip of his lower spine. She remembered exactly where he was hurting, her thumbs finding the tight, bruised knots she had coaxed with lavender oil a few hours ago. She applied just enough pressure to make him groan, a wicked little smile curving against his neck. She was absolutely merciless when she had the upper hand, and right now, she had both hands full of him.

"Tell you what," Lux murmured, her drawl softening into something dark and honeyed. "Since I'm such a menace to your morning schedule, maybe I should just put on my overalls and leave you to your peace and quiet. Let you go fetch those cedar scraps all by yourself so you ain't distracted."

She made a grand show of trying to pull away, executing a slow, agonizing slide of her body against his. It was a complete bluff, and they both knew it. Her hips shifted, dragging deliberately against him, sending a wicked thrill straight down her spine when his grip instantly tightened on her waist to aggressively anchor her in place.
"That's what I thought," she whispered, her lips brushing the rough stubble at the corner of his mouth.

Lux let her hands drift to the hem of his t-shirt. She gripped the worn cotton and pulled it upward, letting her knuckles drag across the hard, lightly furred plains of his stomach. The easy domesticity of the morning was burning off like summer fog, leaving behind the raw, consuming hunger that always sat just beneath the surface of their banter.

She pushed the shirt up his chest, and when he obligingly lifted his arms to strip it over his head, she tossed it carelessly toward the dresser. The sight of his bare chest, broad and scarred and deeply familiar, made her breath hitch. She flattened her palms against his pectoral muscles, feeling the hard, frantic thud of his heart against her skin, loving the physical proof of how badly he wanted her.

"You're gonna have to do better than 'eventually,' mister," she teased, though her voice had lost its playful edge, replaced by a thick, heavy need. She backed up a single step, her hands trailing down his sides, catching the flannel waistband of his boxers. "Because right now, I ain't convinced you have any interest in leavin' this house at all."

Without breaking eye contact, Lux reached for the hem of her own tank top. She crossed her arms, gripped the fabric, and pulled it over her head in one fluid motion, letting it drop to the floor to join the graveyard of discarded shirts. The cool morning air washed over her bare skin, but the heat radiating from Callum's gaze was like a physical brand. She stood before him in her black cotton panties, utterly unashamed, reveling in the dark, dilated look taking over his eyes.

She hooked her fingers into the waistband of his boxers, using the leverage to pull him forward. Walking backward until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress, she tumbled downward onto the tangled sheets, pulling him right down with her. The old mattress gave a familiar groan under their combined weight, sinking them into the messy nest of blankets they had abandoned earlier.

Lux tangled her legs with his, shifting her hips until she was settled perfectly beneath him. She arched into his heat, a soft gasp escaping her lips as the solid weight of him pressed intimately against her through the thin barriers of their remaining clothes. The playful tease of the morning had fully ignited into a searing, desperate ache that demanded immediate attention.

"Come here," she demanded softly, her fingers tangling in the dark hair at the nape of his neck to pull his mouth down to hers. When their lips met this time, it was entirely consuming. She opened for him instantly, her tongue sweeping into his mouth to taste the dark roast coffee and the intoxicating, entirely unique flavor that was just him.

She rolled her hips upward, seeking friction, seeking him. Her hands roved over his shoulders and down his back, carefully avoiding the most tender spots in his lower spine while still fiercely grounding him to her. The contrast of his rough, calloused mechanic's hands sliding over her soft skin, slipping beneath the elastic of her underwear to possessively cup her bare hip, sent fireworks exploding behind her eyelids.

"We ain't gettin' to the store till noon," Lux panted against his mouth, her nails lightly scraping down his spine as she guided his hips to grind exactly where she needed him most. "And you are absolutely gonna buy the plum paint. But right now... you're gonna show me exactly how you plan to manage my morale."

Callum had intended to have an answer ready when she repeated eventually back to him. Something dry. Something that reminded her he had only come upstairs to supervise the alleged search for pants and that the hardware store still existed regardless of whatever criminal enterprise she was conducting beside the dresser. Instead, Lux curled her fingers into the collar of his shirt and started talking about accommodating his frail state, and every useful thought he had managed to carry upstairs scattered. His hands tightened at her waist. “You are fourteen months older than me,” he reminded her, voice already rough enough to undermine the argument. “So if anybody in this marriage needs accommodations, sweetheart, it ain’t me.”

The plum paint should have been safe territory. He had opinions there. Arguments. A perfectly defensible distinction between considering a color and purchasing it. Then her fingernail traced slowly down his chest and Callum’s stomach tightened beneath the cotton, his eyes dropping briefly to her hand before returning to her face. “Under review,” he corrected, though there was considerably less conviction behind it now. “I said under review. You don’t get to rewrite the minutes because you’re standin’ there half naked.” A beat passed as his gaze moved over her again. “That is an abuse of negotiating conditions.”

When Lux moved flush against him and wrapped her arms around his neck, Callum’s hands slid around her waist without hesitation. His breathing changed when her mouth found the skin beneath his ear, and his head tipped slightly before he caught himself cooperating far too obviously with the attack. Her accusation that he looked at her like a full-time job he enjoyed dreading earned a low sound somewhere between a laugh and a warning. “You are a full-time job. No benefits, terrible hours, management’s hostile.” His fingers spread against her back, holding her closer despite every complaint. “Been here a long damn time, though. Apparently turnover’s low.”

Then her thumbs found his lower back.

Callum’s eyes closed, and the groan escaped before pride could intercept it. “Jesus, Lux.” He caught her wrists loosely when she threatened to abandon him for overalls and cedar scraps, but she was already starting that slow retreat against him. The instant she tried to pull away, his hands returned to her waist and stopped her. There was nothing subtle about the reaction, and the satisfaction in her whisper made his jaw tighten. “Don’t get smug. You started this downstairs before I’d finished one cup of coffee.”

Her fingers found the hem of his shirt, and Callum lifted his arms when she pulled it upward, letting her strip it away without interrupting the moment to pretend he objected. The shirt landed somewhere near the dresser. Her palms spread over his chest, and he looked down at her with the last of the teasing gradually disappearing from his expression. There were still things waiting for them downstairs. A kitten on the porch. A clinic call sometime later. Hardware and cedar and three nonexistent chickens who had somehow taken over his entire weekend. None of it vanished. It simply stopped being the most immediate thing in the room.

Lux’s challenge about eventually made his mouth twitch. “You’ve been trying to keep me from leaving since breakfast.” Then she pulled her own tank over her head, and whatever clever addition Callum had intended died unfinished. His gaze stayed on her without apology, familiar with every inch of the woman in front of him and no less affected because of it. He let out a slow breath and shook his head once. “And somehow I’m the one accused of manipulation.”

Her fingers hooked into his waistband and pulled him forward. Callum followed until the backs of her knees found the mattress, catching himself with one hand when she brought him down with her. The old bed complained beneath their weight, and a short laugh escaped him against her mouth before she pulled him into another kiss. His hand found her waist, the other braced beside her as he kissed her back with all the restraint she had spent the last ten minutes deliberately dismantling.

When Lux announced that they were not reaching the store until noon and attempted to attach the plum paint to the same decree, Callum drew back just far enough to look at her. His breathing was uneven, hair falling forward from where her fingers had been in it, and there was something almost offended in the look he gave her. “Absolutely fuckin’ shameless,” he murmured. “You’re negotiating paint right now?”

His forehead dropped against hers for a second, and then the laugh finally got him, quiet and helpless and warm between them. Callum turned his face and kissed along her cheek before finding her mouth again, one hand sliding securely around her side as he settled closer. “Noon’s optimistic,” he murmured against her lips. “And the paint is still under review.”

Her demand about morale earned a different look.

Callum lifted his head enough to meet her eyes, the humor still there but softened by something heavier and more familiar. His thumb traced once along her side. “Your morale’s been suspiciously high all morning, Rivers.”

He kissed her again before she could answer, slow at first and then deeper, letting the rest of the argument disappear into something neither of them needed to narrate. Whatever happened to the morning schedule after that was between them, the closed bedroom door, and a hardware store that would survive perfectly well without the Rivers household for another hour or two.

The chickens could wait.

So could the goddamn plum paint.

Lux melted into the mattress, letting the heavy, consuming heat of his mouth dictate the new rhythm of the morning. The quiet, helpless sound of his laugh moments ago still vibrated warmly in her chest, a private victory that tasted like dark roast coffee and absolute surrender. She loved him like this—stripped of his practical defenses, pinning her to their sheets, entirely focused on the very distraction he had been complaining about since breakfast.

She answered the demanding sweep of his tongue with a hungry slide of her own, arching her spine just enough to bring the soft swell of her breasts into firmer contact with his bare, calloused chest. The contrast always made her head spin: the rough texture of his skin against hers, the undeniable strength in the arm caging her in, paired with the exquisite, careful way he handled her.

"Can't blame a girl for taking pride in her work, darlin'," Lux murmured against his lips, her breath mingling with his as she finally addressed his earlier accusation about her morale. "Takes a lot of dedication to keep a grumpy mechanic properly motivated. I consider it a civic duty."

She shifted her hips, a slow, deliberate tilt that dragged the damp cotton of her panties exactly where the ache was settling low and heavy in her stomach. The groan she pulled from him was an immediate reward, sending a hot thrill straight down her spine.

But Lux wasn't ready to let him completely take over just yet. She trailed her hands down the lean, hard lines of his ribs, hooking her fingers into the elastic waistband of his boxers. With a firm downward tug, she pushed the worn flannel past his hips, freeing him. The heavy, rigid heat of him strained upward, hot and pulsing against her stomach, a physical testament to exactly how thoroughly she had wrecked his morning schedule.

Without breaking the dark, dilated gaze holding hers, Lux brought her hand up between them. She held his eyes as she deliberately dragged her tongue across the center of her palm, pooling her saliva there with a slow, wicked kind of promise. The air in the bedroom seemed to completely evaporate as she reached back down, her wet palm wrapping firmly around his thick, aching length.

The sharp, fractured hiss of his breath was a sound she could have bottled. He was entirely rigid under her grip, his pulse hammering a frantic, heavy rhythm against her skin. Lux tightened her fingers just a fraction, her thumb finding the sensitive, smooth ridge at the tip, and began a slow, agonizingly deliberate stroke. She coated him in her slick warmth, feeling his hips instantly buck upward into her hand in an involuntary search for more friction.

"You talk entirely too much about hardware and cedar for a man in your current predicament," Lux whispered, her drawl thickening into something dark and syrupy as she dragged her hand up and down his shaft. She leaned up to catch his bottom lip between her teeth, biting down gently while her hand maintained its punishing, slick rhythm. "Ain't you supposed to be fixin' up a raccoon sanctuary right about now?"

She felt the tremor rack his massive frame, his control fraying beautifully under her touch. Every time she slicked her hand down to the base and pulled back up, she watched the muscles in his jaw lock. She was completely merciless, pouring every ounce of her affection and her fiery, teasing nature into the way her hand worked him closer to the edge.

But she wanted more than just this angle, craving the absolute power of entirely consuming him. Lux released her grip, ignoring the immediate, breathless sound of protest rumbling in his chest. Placing both of her hands flat against his pectoral muscles, she exerted a gentle but firm pressure, silently demanding that he yield the upper hand. Careful of the bruised muscles in his lower spine she had massaged last night, she guided him to roll over onto his back, sinking into the rumpled quilt.

With Callum flat against the mattress, Lux crawled over him, her bare knees straddling his heavily corded thighs. The morning light caught the wild tangle of her hair and the triumphant, predatory gleam in her eyes as she looked down at the rugged, capable man she had successfully reduced to a desperate, beautifully pliant state.

She let her gaze sweep over the broad expanse of his chest and the sharp lines of his hips, savoring the way his chest heaved with uneven breaths. He spent so much time taking care of everything—the house, the cats, stray wildlife, her—that taking him apart piece by piece felt like the most profound act of love she could offer him.

She didn't stay seated for long. Lux moved backward, trailing her fingernails lightly down his stomach as she lowered herself between his spread legs. She settled her weight on her heels, leaning over him until her dark hair fell like a curtain on either side of his hips, creating a private, shadowed world just for the two of them.

"You said management was hostile, Cal," Lux murmured, her voice a breathless purr that ghosted directly over his straining heat. She pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his inner thigh, feeling the instantaneous, electric jerk of his muscles beneath her lips. "But I think you're about to find out that the benefits package is highly negotiable."

She opened her mouth and took him in, sinking down over his slick, pulsing length. The low, guttural noise that tore out of his throat was pure music. Lux swirled her tongue around the heavy ridge, drawing him deeper into the hot, wet suction of her mouth, completely devouring him.

She set a devastating pace, bobbing her head in a rhythmic, agonizing slide while her hands gripped his thighs, anchoring him to the bed so he couldn't escape the sensory overload. Every time she pulled back, she made sure to drag her lips along the sensitive underside, only to take him deep into her throat again. She reveled in the way his hips snapped upward to blindly meet her mouth, loving the taste of him, entirely lost in the absolute power of having him at her mercy while the chickens, the paint, and the rest of the world faded into absolute nothingness outside their window.

Callum felt her go pliant under his mouth and chased it, the kiss turning slower and hungrier as her laugh from a minute ago still sat warm against his chest. He kept her pinned the way she’d wanted him, one forearm braced beside her head, the other hand spread low at her waist so he could feel every small shift she made against the sheets. The morning light cut across the rumpled quilt and the scatter of her hair, and he used it the way he used everything else in that house: to keep track of what was in front of him.

When she arched and brought her breasts up against his chest, his breath left him in a rough sound against her mouth. The contrast hit him the same as it always did—her skin too soft against the work-roughened plane of his, the weight of her answering him instead of slipping away. He dragged his tongue along hers and answered the press of her body with more of his own, settling heavier between her thighs without meaning to, like his spine had forgotten it was supposed to be careful.

“Civic duty,” he muttered against her lips, the words scraped and amused and already half wrecked. “That’s a hell of a way to dress up sabotage, Lux.” His mouth found hers again before the sentence could get any cleaner. He felt the tilt of her hips and the damp cotton drag exactly where he was already hard, and the groan tore out of him before he could swallow it. His fingers tightened at her waist, not pulling her off, just holding on as his hips answered that slow grind with a short, involuntary roll.

Her hands went down his ribs and he felt every inch of it. When her fingers hooked his waistband he lifted just enough to let her shove the worn flannel down his hips, a low sound catching in his throat as the cool air hit him and then her stomach did. He kicked the boxers farther down his thighs himself, impatient now, the heat of him trapped between them, pulsing against her skin like it had a schedule of its own.

He didn’t look away when she brought her hand up. His eyes stayed on hers, dark and blown, watching her lick her palm with that unhurried wickedness that always meant he was about to lose an argument. The second her wet hand closed around him his whole body went rigid. The hiss punched out of him sharp and broken, his forehead dropping toward hers for a second before he caught himself. Pulse hammered against her grip. His hips jerked up into her fist without permission, chasing the slick heat she’d put there.

“Jesus—Lux—” It wasn’t a warning so much as wreckage. Her thumb found that sensitive ridge and stroked, slow and mean, and his jaw locked hard enough to ache. He tried to keep still and failed in small, helpless increments, the muscles in his stomach jumping every time she slicked down to the base and dragged back up. When she bit his bottom lip he made a raw sound into her mouth and kissed her messier for it, one hand leaving her waist to fist in the sheet beside her head.

“Sanctuary’s still there,” he got out, voice gone low and frayed. “Raccoons ain’t goin’ anywhere. You, on the other hand—” The rest broke off when her grip tightened another fraction. His hips bucked again, chasing her hand like he hated how much he needed it.

Then she let go.

The sound that left him was immediate and unpretty, a short, breathless protest rumbling out of his chest as the sudden absence of her hand left him straining and stupid with it. Her palms pressed flat to his pecs. He felt the demand in it and went with her, careful of the bruised pull along his lower spine as he rolled onto his back and sank into the quilt. The mattress took his weight. Morning air hit his chest. He looked up at her as she crawled over him and straddled his thighs, and for a second he just breathed, uneven, watching the light catch in her hair and that triumphant look she wore when she’d gotten him exactly where she wanted him.

He didn’t reach to take the control back. One hand found the outside of her thigh and stayed there, thumb stroking once over warm skin, the other braced against the mattress like he needed the purchase. His chest rose hard under her gaze. He let her look. He’d spent years putting things back together with his hands; lying there while she took him apart felt like the only honest answer he had.

When she moved backward he followed her with his eyes, stomach tightening as her nails trailed down. His thighs opened for her without being asked. The curtain of her hair dropped around his hips and shut the rest of the room out—paint cans, chickens, the half-finished run, all of it gone the second her breath ghosted over him.

The open-mouthed kiss to his inner thigh ripped a visible jerk through him. His muscle jumped under her mouth, a sharp inhale cutting across his teeth. “Hostile,” he managed, wrecked and almost laughing, “is a generous word for what you’re doin’ to my morning.”

Then her mouth took him and thought left the building.

The sound that tore out of him was low and guttural, punched from somewhere deep in his chest as the hot, wet suction closed around him. His head dropped back into the pillow, then lifted again because he couldn’t not watch. One hand found her hair and gathered it back without forcing her, just keeping it out of her way, fingers shaking once against her scalp. His other hand gripped the quilt hard enough to wrinkle it.

She swirled her tongue around him and took him deeper and his hips snapped up before he could stop them, a blind, helpless lift into the heat of her mouth. “Fuck—Lux—” Her name came out wrecked. Every drag of her lips along the underside pulled another rough sound out of him. He tried to keep from thrusting and failed in small, broken increments, thighs tense under her hands, the bruised base of his spine forgotten in favor of the unbearable slick rhythm she set.

He watched her take him and let her have it, chest heaving, control gone to pieces in the shadowed space she’d made between his legs. The rest of the morning could wait. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Lux felt the exact moment the last of his legendary, stubborn restraint completely fractured. The deep, guttural sound that tore from his chest wasn’t merely a physical reaction; it was the sound of a man losing a war he desperately wanted to lose. It was the white flag raised by a husband who spent his entire life holding up the sky, fixing broken things, and carrying the weight of the world on his broad, calloused shoulders. Hearing him come completely undone in the shadowed, intimate space she had claimed was the most intoxicating, absolute power she had ever wielded.

The scent of him was overwhelming—a heady, dark blend of clean morning sweat, faded soap, and the raw, heavy musk of his arousal. It filled her senses, narrowing her entire universe down to the frantic, hammering pulse beating beneath her lips. Her hands remained firmly anchored on the thick, heavily corded muscle of his thighs. With every involuntary jump, every violent tremor of his legs, she felt the physical proof of her influence, grounding him to the mattress even as she spun him into absolute chaos.
She didn't just want him to surrender; she wanted him entirely consumed.

Lux dictated the rhythm with a dark, territorial kind of tenderness, setting a devastating, punishing pace. She knew exactly how to dismantle Callum Rivers. Every time his hips snapped upward in that blind, helpless rhythm, chasing the wet heat she offered, a fierce, possessive thrill shot straight down her spine. The contrast of his rugged, capable strength being reduced to nothing but raw, desperate need beneath her was a drug she could never get enough of.

His hand in her hair was heavy, the slight shake in his rough fingers communicating everything his wrecked voice couldn't. He didn't push or direct her; he just held on, his knuckles tangling desperately in the soft strands of her hair like she was the only thing keeping him from spinning off the earth entirely.

She loved him fiercely when he was gruff and practical, but she worshipped him like this. Placed exactly where she wanted him, entirely at her mercy.

She pushed him further, pouring every ounce of her adoration into the slick, agonizing drag of her mouth. The air in the bedroom grew thick and stifling, the late summer heat amplified by the friction between them. He was a live wire beneath her, the tension in his massive frame drawn so incredibly tight she could practically feel it humming against her skin.

The storm finally broke over him with a sudden, violent intensity. Callum’s breath hitched, his chest expanding as his massive frame went entirely rigid under her grip. The white-knuckled hold he had on the rumpled quilt tightened as the devastating wave finally crashed, pulling a ragged, scraped groan from the very bottom of his chest. He arched into her, shattering beautifully, entirely wrecked, and Lux held him firmly through every violent shudder of the aftermath, taking every last drop of his surrender.

She didn't rush the retreat. As his breathing fractured into rough, uneven exhales, she slowed her pace, ensuring he knew she wasn't abandoning the glorious wreckage she had just created. She pressed soft, lingering, wet kisses to the damp, heavily muscled inside of his thigh, tasting the salt and sweat on his skin, marking him as entirely hers.

A profound, heavy quiet settled over the bedroom, broken only by the sound of his labored breathing and the distant creak of the house settling in the morning sun. Lux shifted her weight, slowly pulling herself up from the shadowed space between his legs. She mapped her way up his body with the same unhurried, predatory reverence she had used to take him apart.

Her bare thighs dragged over his hips, the friction drawing a low, exhausted sound from his throat. Her lips brushed the sharp, defined line of his hip bone. She pressed a warm kiss to the dip of his stomach, feeling the erratic jump of his muscles as he desperately tried to catch his breath. When she reached his chest, she didn't stop until she was completely draped over him, her bare skin flush against his sweat-slicked chest, their legs tangling seamlessly together.

Callum was still lying flat on his back, one heavy forearm thrown over his eyes to block out the sharp morning light. His chest was heaving beneath her, his heart hammering a frantic, unsteady rhythm directly against her breastbone. Lux rested her chin on his damp pectoral muscle, a warm, incredibly fond smile breaking across her face as she looked at the beautiful disaster she had made of her husband.

She reached up, her fingers lightly tracing the faded edge of a scar near his collarbone, perfectly content to lie there in the heavy, languid gravity of their shared bed. The playful, teasing energy from the kitchen had burned itself out, leaving behind a deep, resonant hum of absolute devotion and heavy satisfaction.

"You know," Lux drawled softly, her voice dropping into a raspy, satisfied purr. She kept her fingers moving in a lazy, soothing circle over his racing heart. "For a man who was so dead-set on preserving his dignity downstairs... you sure do put on a spectacular show when you let it go."

She felt the slow, rumbling vibration of a breathless laugh start deep in his chest before it ever reached his lips. He didn't move his arm from his eyes, but his free hand slid up her back, the rough callouses dragging possessively over her bare spine until his palm settled heavily at the nape of her neck. It was a familiar, anchoring touch, pulling her just a fraction closer, pressing her flush against the residual heat of his body.

"Consider my morale permanently managed," she murmured, pressing a soft kiss directly over his heartbeat. She shifted her weight, making sure not to put any pressure on his aching lower spine, but keeping herself impossibly close. "But just for the record, darlin'... we are absolutely buyin' the plum paint."