“I love you,” Fox said thickly, still rocking her side to side. Holding on to her like a life preserver in the middle of the Bering. “Oh my God, I love you so much, Hannah.” He burrowed his face into her hair, starved for closeness to her, this incredible person who somehow loved him. “I thought you left,” he said, lifting her off the floor and walking toward the bedroom. “I thought you left.”
“No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.” Her arms tightened around his neck. “I love you too much.”
As he laid her down on the bed, tears leaked from his eyes, and Hannah reached up, wiped them away, along with her own. “What happened to you giving me time to pull my head out of my ass?”
“Six hours seemed like more than enough,” she whispered up at him.
Happiness rushed in, crowding him from all sides. And he let it. Let himself accept it and think of all the ways he could give happiness to her in return. For the rest of his life. Every hour, every day.
Fox covered her with his body, both of them groaning against each other’s mouth, sliding and writhing muscle on curves. “We can find a place in between here and Seattle. That way if you get a job in the city, we cut the commute in half for us both.” He unfastened her jeans and pushed a hand inside, watching her eyes go blind when his fingers tucked into her panties and found her. There. Pressing between her seam of flesh and rubbing with increasing pressure. “Does that work for you?”
“Yes,” she gasped when he slowly worked his middle finger inside, drawing it in and out. “Mmmm. I like that idea. W-we can find out who we’ll become together. Without everyone around all the t-time.”
Fox nodded, took his time tugging off her jeans and panties, eventually rendering her naked while he remained fully clothed on top of her, pressing her down into the bedclothes. “Whoever we become together, Hannah,” he said, mouth roaming over hers, fingers reaching down to lower his zipper. “I’m yours and you’re mine. So it’s always going to be right.” His throat started to close as he pushed inside her, those thighs of hers jerking up into the perfect position. “I didn’t know what right felt like until you,” he choked out. “I’m holding on to the good you give me. I’m holding on to you.”
“I’m hanging on to you, too, Fox Thornton,” she murmured unevenly, her body propelled up the bed on his first drive, eyes glazing. “Never letting go.”
“I’m in for the good, bad, and everything in between, Hannah.” He pressed his open mouth to the side of her neck and pushed deeper, deep enough, close enough to feel her breathe, and rejoiced in it. “Decades. A lifetime. I’m in.”
Epilogue
Ten Years Later
The smooth voice of Nat King Cole filled the interior of Hannah’s Jeep as it bumped along the snowy road. Her headlights caught the falling flakes, twilight giving the sky a purplish-gray glow, towering pines creating a now-familiar pathway on either side of her—a pathway home to her family.
After ten years of residing in Puyallup, it was hard to believe she’d ever lived in sunny Los Angeles at all. And she wouldn’t trade it for all the records in Washington.
Her eyes drifted to the rearview mirror, where she could see shopping bags filled to overflowing with elaborately wrapped presents in the backseat, and contentment swept through her chest, so intense it brought tears to her eyes. There would never be anything better than this. Coming home to her family on Christmas Eve after four days on the road. She missed them so terribly, it cost her quite an effort to drive slowly, carefully on the winter road.
When her house came into view a minute later and her tires crunched to a stop in the driveway, her heart started to beat faster. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney of their log-cabin-style home, sleds—man-sized and child-sized—leaned up against the wall by the front entrance. A Christmas tree twinkled in one of the many windows. And when her husband walked into view with one of their daughters slung casually over his brawny shoulder, a laugh filled with yearning and love and gratitude puffed out of her in the quiet car.
They’d more than made it work, hadn’t they? They’d made a life happier and filled with more joy than either of them could have expected.
A decade earlier, Fox and Hannah went to Bel-Air to pack her things. She could still remember the zero-gravity feeling of that trip. The lack of restraint that came with their commitment to each other, every touch, every whisper heightened, given new meaning. And yet, on the verge of what felt like true adulthood, they’d both been scared. But they’d been scared together, honest with each other every step of the way, and they’d become a formidable team.