Page 48 of In the Long Run

GEN

‘I thought you weren’t getting back until later?’ I say when the front door to our cottage opens and Knox steps inside, his uniform rumpled and shadows under his eyes. He’s been out field doing whatever it is the Army does when they go out bush.

I love it when he comes home in cams. The uniform does things to me, I can’t help it.

I’ve seen Knox in everything – and my favourite, in nothing – but there’s something about how he wears his cams. Because he’s supposed to look nondescript.

Just another person in the same clothes as everyone else.

That’s the whole point of a camouflage uniform, right?

But my man? He’s always going to stand out in a crowd.

He offers me a small, private smile. The kind that says so many things despite only being a tiny curl of his lips.

Like how happy he is to be home. That he’s been thinking about me.

And it fills me with joy. I spend a lot of time like this these days.

So happy I could burst. Other things that make me inordinately happy about Knox’s uniform?

The crown on his rank slide. The blocky stitch of his name tag.

The ridiculous bucket hat that makes me picture for a fleeting moment what he might’ve looked like as a little school kid.

Or, sometimes, what our kid might look like.

If they’re anything like our niece, Mia, they’ll have the whole family wrapped around their tiny finger.

‘You’re staring again,’ Knox drawls, as he carries his pack into the lounge room. Humour wraps around each of his words, sending a fuzzy feeling through my body. He was only away for two weeks but, God, I missed him.

I push to my feet, setting my laptop on the maple coffee table. ‘Can’t a girl admire her boyfriend?’

Knox pulls me close and his arms wrap around my body. Mint clings to his breath from the gum I bet he chewed on the drive home. It mixes with the salty tang on his skin. ‘Missed you,’ he murmurs, low and husky, his lips dancing across my neck.

‘Me too.’ I slide my hands down his back, squeeze his ass and bury my face in his chest. ‘Hungry?’ I ask, as he tips my face towards his.

‘Not for food.’ Heat lingers in his eyes. ‘Just need to grab a shower first. I didn’t stop at the base. Wanted to get home to my girls as quickly as possible.’

His girls.

RIP to my ovaries. Poor things are basically just confetti these days.

He’s talking about little Opera Cake Halliday-Watson, our four-month-old schnauzer. There’s nothing small about her personality though.

‘I see how it is,’ I tease, eager for more of his easy smiles. He’s given me thousands of them over the last two years, but I’ll never get sick of them. ‘You missed her more than me, didn’t you?’

Knox’s grin widens and mischief surrounds us like a cocoon. One I fully intend to climb inside and refuse to leave for thirty-six hours and even then, only because I hate missing Croissants and Kilometres.

‘No.’ He’s being unconvincing on purpose. For a man who worried about putting down roots, he sure has adapted to his new/old life in Melbourne with an ease that makes me want bigger … roots. I stifle a giggle at the double meaning, but it must come across as a grimace because Knox frowns.

‘What’s going on in that mind of yours?’ Knox asks, pressing our foreheads together. ‘You know I’m joking, right? You’ll always be my number-one girl.’

I kiss him deeply, sucking on his bottom lip just long enough to make him groan, teasing us both before pulling back to roll my eyes.

He’ll be riled up from being away – God knows I am – but if I can push his buttons a little bit, our reunion will be even more explosive, more fun. And these days, we’re all about fun.

‘I bet you tell her the same thing,’ I say. ‘She’s sacked out. We went for a walk earlier.’

‘Even better.’ Knox walks backwards, never letting go of me. He doesn’t stop until we’re in the ensuite, the plush carpet of the master bedroom under my feet replaced with the cool tile. ‘Because I want all of your attention right now.’

I arch a brow at him. ‘Because I’m the pup-obsessed one out of the two of us.’

Knox releases me and folds his arms across his chest. ‘How many dog beds have you bought her?’

My mouth twists to the side as I consider my answer, because he’s got me here. What’s wrong with one for each room of the house? Now that my bookkeeping business is in its very solvent era, I can afford these things again. Hell, I was able to put up my share of this cottage’s deposit.

‘A few,’ I concede, trying to smother my smirk. It doesn’t work.

‘And how many does she need?’ Knox’s eyes heat.

I don’t need a mirror to know my expression matches his. He nudges the door shut with his foot and starts unbuttoning his shirt. Better figure out what I want to say before I lose the ability to speak. I settle on the thing that I know will make him happiest.

Luckily, it’s also the thing that makes me the happiest. ‘I love you.’

‘And I love you.’

Pushing his hands out of the way, I take over unbuttoning his shirt, letting the thick cotton fall to the floor. His khaki undershirt clings to his chest in a way I plan to mimic once we’re in the shower. And then in our bed for the rest of the night.

The next few minutes are a blur of undressing and stumbling under the water together, our limbs already tangled and bodies pressed together. I busy myself soaping up Knox’s chest and arms, loving the way the bubbles glide over all his dips and ridges.

‘Halliday?’ Knox nips at my neck when my hands drift lower.

‘Yes, babe?’ I curl my fingers around his cock, watching his chest rise as he sucks in a deep breath.

It’s such a simple nickname. Not at all the one I thought he’d like the most, but if there was one word that could bring Knox Watson to his knees, I think it might be this one.

But only when I say it. Because while our life here is filled with all the good things – from Eugene and my family and our friends and Croissants and Kilometres and little Opera – the love that we share will always be the best thing that’s ever happened to either of us.

And I don’t need Knox to tell me that, either.

I see it every day. It’s there in the way he pulls me close in bed, curling around me protectively.

On all the runs where he could go faster but he stays by my side.

The way he gets overly invested in every contestant’s story who appears on The Great British Bake Off because he knows it’s my favourite show of all time.

‘I really missed you,’ he says.

‘Wanna show me how much?’

He has me up against the tiles in one motion, my legs winding around his waist, our lips almost touching. ‘I’ll show you forever if you’ll let me.’

It steals my breath when he says things like this to me so freely. Because he’s the guy who believed he didn’t deserve a forever. Just like I thought maybe a great love wasn’t going to happen for me.

I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.

I nod, and Knox plunges inside me.

And then we do what we do best.

We let our love take over until I’m crying out his name, my hands in his hair, his thumb on my clit. And when I come, he tells me over and over again how beautiful I am, his thrusts speeding up, the feel of his skin against mine.

‘One more,’ he growls, almost begging, a hand plucking and rolling my nipple as he pushes me straight back up to the top. ‘I want to come together. Can you do that for me, Halliday?’

I nod, my head tipped back against the shower tiles. Steam dances in the space between our bodies, mixing with the hot water. Blinking against the onslaught of pleasure Knox is stoking within my body, I moan loud enough to make me happy that we no longer share walls with anyone else.

That this place is just ours.

That he never moved back to Brisbane and we’ve worked hard to choose each other every day.

That we’re going to be together forever.

Knox buries his face in my shoulder as he comes, and I fall apart around him, knowing that I’ve never been so safe, so loved.

And when I can speak again, I say, ‘Welcome home, babe.’