Chapter 15: Nobody Sleeps Alone

The storm reached the house before they did.

Rain came sideways across the porch, and the wind pulled at the screen door hard enough to bruise Signe's hand.

Dane got the key in the lock, and they fell inside together, soaked and laughing.

The laughing stopped in the hall.

He shut the door behind them, and the noise of the weather dropped to a roar on the other side of the wood.

Signe stood with water running down her back and looked at him.

He stood with his hands at his sides, waiting.

"You said you were done being careful," she said.

"I am."

"Then stop standing there."

He crossed the hall in two steps and took her face in both hands.

The kiss was not slow this time.

It had three years in it.

She met every bit of it with her fingers in his wet hair and her back against the wall.

He lifted her without effort, and her legs went around him.

"Bedroom," she said against his mouth. "Mine. Not the guest room, not ever the guest room."

"Yours," he said.

He carried her up the stairs, kissing her the whole way.

In her room the lamp was off and the window flashed white, then dark.

He set her down and she pulled his jacket off his shoulders.

It hit the floor with a wet slap.

She went for his shirt next, and her hands shook, and he covered them with his own.

"Signe."

"Don't tell me to slow down."

"I wasn't going to." His voice had gone low and rough. "I was going to say your name. I want to say it every time."

"Then say it."

"Signe."

It went through her like heat through cold hands.

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