Page 90 of Stolen for Keeps
Eventually, I got to work on making the bed, smoothing the fitted sheet into place while Noah unfolded the top one. We moved together as if we’d found a rhythm no one had taught us. And maybe that’s what beginnings were.
“Okay,” I said, my hands on my hips. “Which side is yours?”
He glanced at the bed, then back at me. “Left.”
I raised a brow. “Why?”
“Closer to the door. That way, if a burglar breaks in, I get taken out first.”
“How noble.”
“Also, it’s the side closer to the bathroom.”
I rolled my eyes. “There it is.”
“I’m practical,” he said, grinning as he grabbed the pillows. “And you…what? Need the right side so you can roll over and ignore the world?”
“Exactly,” I said, tossing him a pillow. “You’re learning.”
We smoothed, fluffed, and adjusted. At one point, I climbed up onto the mattress to fix the corner, and when I turned around, Noah was just watching me, pillow still in hand, his smile lazy and full of something close to affection.
“What?” I asked, though my voice had dropped.
He shrugged. “Just thinking this bed might be the best thing I’ve ever bought.”
The bed was made. Reko gave it one full circle, assessed it, then huffed and padded out of the room. Apparently, our craftsmanship didn’t meet his canine standards.
Noah and I stood in the doorway, side by side, staring at our handiwork.
I nudged him lightly. “So, what now?”
He glanced at me, then at the bed, then back again. “I guess we share custody.”
“Of the bed?”
“No.” He turned to face me fully, something softer playing at the edges of his mouth. “Of the future.”
Before I could breathe it in, he kissed me. There was none of the teasing he usually tossed in to make me laugh. This was hunger, straight from the source. His hand found the side of my neck, his thumb grazing just under my ear as if to tell me,you’re here, I see you, I want all of you.
He slid his hand under my shirt, brushing the curve of my breast. I gasped into his mouth, and he made a noise, low, like a man losing the last of his patience.
I was already undoing his belt when he stopped.
“We’ve just made the bed,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to nod toward it. “Look at it. It’s art. Be a shame to ruin it.”
“Noah!”
Before I could shove him onto the mattress anyway, he caught my wrist. “I have a better idea.”
He scooped me up in one fluid motion, his mouth finding mine again, and carried me out of the bedroom. His kiss didn’t break, not once, even as he moved through the door and out into the beginning of sunset. The Sundown wasn’t just aname. It was the land, the sky, and the way the day ended (or started) around us.
Reko padded behind us, paused at the top of the porch steps, then turned around.
“He’s gone fully domestic now,” I whispered against Noah’s jaw as he descended the steps.
“He knows what we’re up to,” Noah said, then suddenly spun, lifted me higher, and caught me so I straddled his hips.
By the time he laid me down on the grass, I was already aching for him. He took off his flannel and spread it out, inviting me to roll onto it. Then he lowered himself onto me.
