Page 43 of Pucked Up

I finished with his wrist and moved to his hand, working salve into the callused palm and between his knuckles. His fingers were powerful but surprisingly elegant—a craftsman's hands, capable of both destruction and creation. Hands that had split wood and carved a wolf.

"Thank you."

I glanced up, catching his gaze in the dim light. What I saw wasn't the fearsome enforcer or the wounded man in exile, but someone new—or perhaps someone who had been there all along, buried beneath layers of armor and expectation.

"For what?" I asked.

"For not letting me hide."

The simplicity of the statement caught me off-guard. I closed the salve tin and set it aside but kept my hand on his, maintaining our connection.

"That's not what this was about," I said softly. "Breaking through your walls by force."

"I know. It was about being let inside."

The insight surprised me—not because it was wrong, but because it was so precisely right. He'd understood what I'd barely articulated to myself.

Outside, the wind had picked up again, whistling through the pines that surrounded the cabin. Inside, the room had grown cooler as the fire in the main room died down, but neither of us moved to stoke it or retrieve more blankets.

The chill was clarifying, a counterpoint to the heat we'd generated. It kept us present, anchored in the reality of this remote cabin and the unexpected connection we'd forged within its walls.

As I glanced toward the window, I realized that what we'd discovered wasn't about pain or control at all. It was about translation—finding a language to bridge the gap between Micah's isolation and my search for authenticity.

Through each calculated touch and each boundary explored, we'd begun writing something new. It was neither his story nor mine alone, but something shared. Something real.

The vocabulary of bruises and boundaries had given us what words alone couldn't: a way to read each other's truths without looking away.

Chapter thirteen

Micah

Iwatched Noah stretch and roll his shoulders in his borrowed flannel—my flannel—as he headed for the couch after dinner. His eyes tracked me when he thought I wasn't looking—quick flickers of assessment measuring the distance between us like checking ice for hairline fractures.

Our fire sputtered, flames receding into glowing orange coals. I added another log, watching as it caught reluctantly, bark blackening at the edges.

"I can get that," Noah insisted.

"I've got it."

He nodded once and settled in. I crossed to the cabinet where I kept my whiskey, a bottom-shelf brand that burned too much going down. For me, it was two fingers, no ice. Without asking, I poured a second glass and set it on the coffee table where Noah might claim it. Or not.

The liquor warmed my palm through the tumbler. I didn't drink, only watched how the firelight caught the rim, amber against glass.

Something was building in my chest—pressure against my ribs that felt like words trying to claw their way out—the ones I'd barricaded behind walls of muscle and bone for years.

Noah watched me. "Planning to drink that," he asked, "or just warm it up?"

I shrugged. "Haven't decided."

The couch dipped as I settled beside Noah, close enough for our body heat to mingle but far enough that we didn't touch. He smelled of laundry detergent and wood smoke, the soapy scent clinging to my clothes.

Minutes stretched between us, measured in the soft pop of burning pine and the occasional sigh of wind through poorly sealed windows. I stared at the fire, seeing something else entirely—fragments of memory flickering like the dying flames.

Noah spoke. "You looked like you were somewhere else just now."

I blinked. "Thinking."

"About?"

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