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Her head dropped to his chest, laughter warm against his skin. “Actually…”
He tensed. “Uh-oh.”
She looked up at him, feigning innocence. “How do you feel about me taking over the garage?”
He blinked. “My garage?”
“You don’t really use it for anything, do you?” she asked, already smug. “I mean, aside from brooding, punching things, and storing your tactical kettlebells?”
He scowled. “That is a sacred space.”
She arched a brow. “So that’s a no?”
“I have a pull-up bar out there,” he added darkly. “Pull-up bar. Sexy jock. Nothing else. Who needs a closet now?”
She narrowed her eyes, her voice a puff of air with a strangled sound. “So your plan is to distract me with flexing?”
“I have a proven track record,” he said, deadpan.
She traced a slow finger down his chest. “Can I pick out the jock?” She leaned in, her breasts rubbing against his chest, his skin that was suddenly hot, tantalizing lips hovering near his ear. “With all those confusing straps, I volunteer to help you into it.” Her breathing deepened, her mouth grazing his jaw, her hand sliding down to his already hardening cock.
Nash groaned, low and lethal. “Hmm. Out of it, you wicked woman.” He turned, rolling on top of her, settling his hips between her thighs. “That sounds like a fucking amazing plan to me.”
They didn’t speak for a while afterward. Just lay tangled, breathing. Somewhere between the second time and the second wind, Grace ended up with her arms folded on his chest, her chin propped on them, watching him with a lazy, catlike smirk.
Her gaze drifted over him, this man stretched out beneath her like a mirage come to life. The olive tone of his skin was still flushed from exertion, his muscles cut deep and fluid, as if he’d been carved from heat and stone. Black lashes curled against high, proud cheekbones. A straight nose. That jaw, taut and masculine, shadowed with stubble that would leave marks if he got aggressive again. She hoped he would.
He looked like he belonged to another time. Another kingdom. A desert prince with calloused hands and dangerous eyes.
“You are so devastatingly handsome,” she murmured. “All desert sheik...and that scent of yours...” She inhaled softly, as if it was still clinging to her skin. “I’ve never gotten it out of my nostrils. Or my blood.”
It was true.
His scent was this perfect storm of oud and heat, like smoked cedar, black cardamom, a trace of dark musk, and something richer. Older. Earthbound. Her pulse quickened just breathing it in. Every time he moved, it teased her, marked her. It had gotten into her clothes. Her sheets. Her memory.
She wondered if it would ever leave.
She hoped it wouldn’t.
Then, casually, like she wasn’t still unraveling for him, she asked, “So what are we doing today, besides recovering from cardiac sex?”
He chuckled, deep and slow. “No joke. You’re going to kill me.” He turned his head, eyes dark and half-lidded. “But before I expire, I want to take you to my favorite spot,” Nash said, brushing his knuckles down her arm. “Show you my stomping grounds.”
“I’d love that.”
“One thing I know for sure, Grace Harlan,” he murmured, breathless and grinning, “life with you will never be boring.”
He was right about that.
Happily ever after wasn’t quiet or polished or predictable.
It was hot sex up against the bedroom wall.
It was gut-deep laughter after the fallout, after the freefall, after the knee buckling love had caught them in its gravitational pull.
It was choosing each other, again and again, through the chaos, the scars, the silence… and the spark.
It was this.