Page 91 of Echo: Line
She laughs, and the sound loosens something in my chest. "You're impossible."
"You love me anyway."
"Unfortunately." But she's smiling when she tilts her face up, and when I kiss her, there's no hesitation. No distance. Just us.
We make it to the bedroom without breaking apart. Her hands are already working at my shirt, and mine find the hem of her sweater. She winces when I start to pull the sweater over the healing wound, and I pull back.
"We don't have to?—"
"Yes we do." She pushes the shirt off my shoulders. "Doctor cleared me for physical activity. Said it would help with the stiffness."
"Pretty sure Willa meant stretching."
"This is stretching." She's working at my belt now, and the heat in her eyes makes my pulse kick. "Just a different kind."
We undress each other slowly, carefully. None of the desperate urgency from before. This is something else. A promise. A choice we're making together.
Her sweater comes off first, and I'm careful around the bandage still taped to her shoulder. The bruising has faded to yellow-green, but the reminder of how close I came to losing her tightens something in my chest. She catches my expression, cups my face with both hands.
"I'm here," she says softly. "I'm okay."
My jeans hit the floor, then her leggings. We're down to skin and scars and all the vulnerable parts we've been protecting. She traces the bullet wound on my shoulder, the knife scar across my ribs, the burn mark on my hip from Kabul. Her touch is gentle, reverent, like she's memorizing every mark.
"These don't scare me," she tells me. "They're part of who you are."
"They should scare you."
"Maybe." She kisses the scar on my shoulder. "But they don't."
I walk her backward to the bed, and she goes willingly. The late afternoon light slants through the window, turning her skin gold. She's beautiful like this—open, trusting, completely present. No walls between us anymore.
She guides me down onto the bed, and every nerve fires with awareness of her. The bandage on her shoulder catches my eye, a stark reminder of how close I came to losing her. But when she straddles me, there's nothing tentative in the movement. Her thighs bracket my hips, the heat of her seeping through the thin barrier of fabric still between us.
"I've got you," she says, and the words carry weight beyond the physical.
My hands slide up her thighs, feeling the play of muscle beneath soft skin, the way her breath catches when I reach the curve of her hip. "Always did."
She leans down, hair falling around us like a curtain, shutting out the world. The kiss starts slow—a brush of lips, the tease ofher tongue—then deepens into something that steals thought. I taste her, feel the small sound she makes against my mouth, the way her body responds when I grip her hips tighter.
When she pulls back, her pupils are blown wide, lips swollen from kissing. "Show me," she breathes. "No holding back. No walls."
So I do. My palms map territory I've claimed before but never like this—never with this kind of promise behind it. I trace the curve of her waist, the dip of her spine, learning which touches make her arch into me and which steal her breath. She rocks against me through our remaining clothes, and the friction sends fire down my spine, pooling as heat low in my gut.
Her hands work between us, stripping away the last barriers. When she takes me in hand, firm and sure, the air leaves my lungs in a rush. Then she's positioning herself above me, and the first contact—slick heat, impossible tightness—makes us both freeze for a heartbeat.
She sinks down slowly, taking me inch by inch, and I watch her face the whole time. The way her eyes flutter closed, how her lips part on a silent moan, the tension in her jaw as she adjusts to the stretch. When she's fully seated, she's trembling, and so am I.
"Okay?" I manage, hands steady on her hips even though every instinct screams to move.
"Perfect." She opens her eyes, and the heat in them could burn. "Don't you dare hold back now."
"Look at me," she says.
I do. Her hands brace on my chest, nails digging in slightly as she begins to move. The first roll of her hips is tentative, experimental, finding the angle. Then she shifts forward slightly and gasps, and I feel the way her body clenches around me in response.
"There," she breathes, and does it again.
I watch her—can't look away. Her hair falls around her face in a dark curtain, lips parted on shallow breaths, a flush spreading across her chest. Every movement sends sensation spiraling through me, but this isn't about rushing toward the edge. It's about watching her take what she needs, feeling her body learn mine.
