Page 62 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

He kisses me then, slow at first and then not slow at all, like whatever leash he's been straining against all evening finally snaps. I feel the difference immediately, the usual patience replaced by a hunger that's rawer, more urgent, his hands finding my waist and pulling me flush against him like the space between us has become unbearable. I kiss him back just as hard, matching that same urgency because I feel it too, some instinct telling me to hold on tighter tonight than I ever have before, even though I can't fully explain why.

We make it to the bedroom without either of us quite remembering the walk there, clothes falling away between kisses that don't stop long enough for either of us to catch a full breath. He backs me toward the bed slow, in no hurry now that we're finally alone, and every step forward comes with another kiss, jaw, throat, the line of my neck, like he's decided to take the scenic route through every stretch of skin he can reach before we even get horizontal. By the time the backs of my knees hit the mattress I'm breathless, and it isn't the short walk from the kitchen that did it.

"Rafe." It comes out half laugh, half plea, and he goes still, something wicked and warm both at once flickering across his face.

"Something funny?"

"You're stalling."

"I'm savoring." He says it low, dead serious, and lowers me back onto the bed with a care that undoes me more than urgency would, following me down until his weight settles over me and every last bit of space between us disappears. "There's a difference."

I never manage the comeback, because he kisses me again before I can find one, and whatever I had to say dissolves somewhere between one kiss and the next. His hands move over me slow in some places and almost desperate in others, and every time his mouth finds new skin I feel that same restless need in it. I arch into him, chasing more of whatever this is, and he laughs low against my throat, a rough, private sound I feel more than hear.

"Patience," he murmurs.

"You first."

That gets an actual laugh out of him, short and surprised, and just for a moment the tension in his shoulders eases into the easier warmth of the man I know in daylight, before it tips right back into the same hunger from a minute ago, deeper this time, like the laugh only cleared the way for more of it.

"Rafe." It's barely a whisper, more air than word, and his head comes up to search my face, something stripped bare in his expression that I've only glimpsed in pieces before tonight.

"I need you," he says, low and rough. "Don't know how else to put it."

"Then stop trying to put it into words."

He makes a sound against my throat that isn't quite words either, something caught between wanting and grief, and I know exactly what it means without him having to spell it out, because the same feeling is climbing up through my own chest. Whatever's pulling him three states away, whatever's costing him this much to carry by himself, I can't fix it tonight. But I can give him this much, everything I've got, for as long as he needs to hold onto it before he goes.

When he finally settles fully into me, none of it moves the way our first nights together did, careful and unhurried and full of question. Tonight there's a hunger underneath it instead, close to desperate, both of us grabbing for each other like proximity is the only thing that might actually help. I hook my legs around him, pulling him closer still, and he groans my name into my collarbone, rough and low, like it's the one steady thing left in his hands. The pace we settle into catches fast and never really slows, both of us reaching for something too big to put a name to, every ragged breath he lets out against my skin winding the same tightness higher in my chest.

"Don't look away," he murmurs, forehead pressed to mine, and I don't know if he's talking about tonight or something bigger than tonight, so I just answer the only way that means anything, keeping my eyes locked on his through all of it, even when everything in me wants to shut them against how much it's asking of me.

"Not going anywhere," I tell him. "Not tonight. Not ever, if I get any say in it."

His hands tighten at my hips like the words landed somewhere he wasn't braced for, and whatever restraint he'd been holding onto slips looser after that, faster, less measured, both of us racing toward release with none of the caution that opened the night. My name breaks out of him again, rougher this time, and I hold on through it, matching him for every second of it, until there's nothing careful left in either of us at all.

We come apart together within a breath of each other, his voice breaking around my name the same instant mine breaks around his, both of us shaking through what's left of it, and once it finally quiets he doesn't loosen his hold, doesn't shift away, just pulls me in tighter against his chest like letting go might cost him more than he's ready to give up tonight.

Afterward we lie tangled together in the dark for a long while, in no hurry to move, his arms banded around me tighter than usual, one hand moving slow and unhurried over my hip like he's cataloguing every curve of me by touch instead of sight. I press my palm flat against the old scar riding his ribs, a habit my hand's picked up on its own by now, and he covers it with his own and holds it there against his heartbeat, like the proof of it matters to him every bit as much as it matters to me. We don't say much for a while, just breathing each other in, his pulse easing bit by bit beneath my palm until it settles into something steady and familiar.

"Whatever happens out there," he says quietly, into the dark, "just know tonight was real. All of it."

"I know it was." I press my lips to his shoulder, tasting salt and warmth. "You don't have to say goodbye like this is the last time, Rafe. You're coming back."

"I am." He tightens his arms around me anyway, like some part of him needs the reassurance more than the words do. "Doesn't mean part of me isn't scared."

I don't ask what he's scared of. I just hold on, matching my breathing to his until both of us finally go quiet, and somewhere in that quiet, wrapped up in him with the ache of tomorrow already sitting in my chest, I fall asleep before I mean to.

Morning comes too fast and too gray, and by the time I get the twins up and dressed, Rafe's already loaded his bag into the truck and is standing in the driveway in the thin early light, looking like a man bracing for something bigger than a flight.

"You'll call when you land?" Eli asks, uncharacteristically quiet, standing close enough to Rafe that their shoulders almost touch.

"First thing. I promise."

"And you'll be back before the weekend?"

"You'll have me back before you've even started missing me." Rafe crouches down to Eli's height, steady despite whatever's clearly sitting behind his eyes this morning. "You're in charge of the second first aid kit while I'm gone. Big responsibility."

"I can handle it." Eli says it with such total seriousness that Rafe's mouth twitches toward something almost like a smile, and for a second the tightness around his eyes eases.