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He lowers it. “You don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I take one step closer, then another. His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, and the willow goes down on the table.

Good.

I stop in front of him. Neither of us speaks. The workshop smells like cut willow and wood and the faint dampness that always clings to the materials stacked here.

Locke waits, leaving the next move to me.

I reach for him first, resting my hand against his chest over the woven willow that has become so familiar beneath my palm. The rhythm under it is already faster than it should be for a man who was just bending willow. He keeps his gaze on mine.

Rising onto my toes, I kiss him. His hands settle at my waist, and he answers without hesitation, careful at first, the way he’s been careful with me since the morning he asked before he touched my hair.

Then I press closer, and careful goes somewhere else.

One of his hands leaves my waist and slides up into my hair, tilting my head the way he learned in my kitchen, and the kiss turns deep and slow and hungry. That low, rough sound moves through his chest again, the one I haven’t stopped thinking about since the kitchen, and this time I answer it. My fingers curl into his shirt and hold on.

When I draw back, neither of us moves away. His forehead comes down to rest against mine. His breathing is as uneven as mine.

“You asked me something in my kitchen,” I say. “Later.”

Every small leaf along his throat lifts. “Yes.”

“Now is later.”

It’s his line. He said it to me on the porch back when he was still saving up questions and refusing to let me put them off. From the way the rhythm jumps under my palm, he remembers.

“Locke, I want more.”

He goes very still. “How much more?”

“I don’t know yet. We’ll figure it out together.”

“Okay.” The word is calm. His hands aren’t. The one in my hair slides down to join the other at my waist, and they tighten once, then make themselves let go, as if he’s handing the next step back to me.

I take his hand.

“Come with me.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Locke

I follow slightly behind Rachel as she leads me out of the workshop, turning off the lights and closing the door behind us.

I stay beside the door and try to understand what just happened. I knew she wanted me before she kissed me. I knew it yesterday when she pressed closer instead of moving away, and when she put my hand back on her hip after I let it fall. I knew it in the interview room when Mara asked about her and Rachel sat quietly while I answered.

But the kiss in the workshop changed the shape of what comes next. Rachel didn’t tell me how far we were going or ask me to promise anything beyond the next choice.

We’ll figure it out together.

I like that more than knowing the answer because it means neither of us has to decide the whole night before we take the next step.

Rachel waits a few steps away. When I reach her, she takes my hand.

For two days I’ve wanted to do this where people could see us, but now there’s nobody here except us, and the first thing she chooses is my hand. I close my fingers around hers and walk with her the few paces toward the screened porch.