Page 77 of The Best Shot

He looked strong and still and a little undone, in a way I didn’t think he would have chosen for himself. The lamp found the angle of his jaw, the ridge of his collarbone, the place where the sheet crossed his hip. My pulse jumped.

I shot.

I circled the edge of the bed. Found a lower angle. Came back up.

I wasn’t thinking about him as him, not exactly. I was thinking about light and line and what the frame was doing.

But he kept coming through anyway.

The dry humor that lived in the corner of his mouth. The quick mind he didn’t bother showing off. How decent he was, loyalty built so deep into him it barely looked like a choice.

I saw all of it through the lens, and for once the camera didn’t give me any distance.

I felt him watching me watch him.

My skin felt tight under his shirt, the cotton dragging.

Then I lowered the camera.

The room went quiet enough to hear the trees shifting outside and the old house groaning softly as it settled.

Hale hadn’t moved.

He was still looking at me.

I was looking back.

He sat up slowly, took the camera from my hands, and set it carefully on the nightstand.

I let him.

I moved to the edge of the bed, close enough to feel the heat of him, and his hand came to the back of my thigh, warm and sure, pulling me in.

I bent one knee, then the other, sliding onto his lap, straddling him, chest to chest.

He reached for the hem of my shirt and pulled it up over my head in one smooth motion. Cool air hit my skin, then his gaze, moving over me like he was framing me now.

Then his mouth was on mine, his hands at my waist, my fingers in his hair. The sheet I’d spent ten minutes arranging went off the side of the bed, and neither of us reached for it.

By the time he was inside me, we were both bare, skin to skin. The fit of him stole the air from my lungs. Full, deep, almost too much. He made a rough sound low in his throat, hands gripping my hips as I started to move.

The bed creaked softly beneath us.

The lamp threw warm gold across white sheets and dark wood and the black window beyond.

For a while I stopped thinking in words at all. Just the slick slide of skin, the grip of his hands, the way his breath hitched when I rolled my hips just right.

Afterward, I lay with my cheek against his chest, his arm heavy and warm around me, the sheet tangled somewhere at my waist.

His breathing slowed.

Mine followed.

Outside, the trees shifted in the dark, and somewhere in the house old wood gave a soft settling creak. The camera sat on the nightstand, lens pointed at the ceiling.

His hand moved once, slow, up my spine.

“Hale.”