Page 61 of Bear Naked Truth
Hadn’t given her up.
She stepped closer, her boots soft against the weathered boards. Every inch of her trembled—not with fear, but with something she’d spent her whole life denying: belonging.
As her shadow passed over him, he stirred.
His eyes blinked open, groggy at first. Then they landed on her.
And held.
“Hey,” she said, voice rough and windburned from the walk, throat thick with regret and something dangerously close to hope.
He didn’t speak.
Just blinked once.
She stepped closer, heart fluttering.
“I, um… I think your porch invited me back.”
His lips twitched, not quite a smile. “Stubborn thing. Porch never did listen to me.”
They stood like that—words not enough, silence not too much.
Then she lowered herself into the chair beside him—her chair—and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them like a shield she no longer had the strength to hold.
“I didn’t mean to stay gone so long,” she whispered.
Dorian tilted his head, watching her. “Wasn’t timing I was worried about.”
She looked down, voice catching. “The woods whispered. Told me to go home. Figured that was either emotional manipulation or a cosmic nudge.”
He nodded. “Could be both.”
She laughed, small and broken.
And then silence. Not cold. Not awkward. Just quiet.
She turned toward him slowly. “I saw what you did. With the chair.”
He shifted, the motion slow and stiff from sleep. “Didn’t do it for thanks.”
“I know.” She looked down again, fingers twisting in her scarf. “I ran because I didn’t think I deserved it. Any of it. You. The house. That garden. A life.”
He stayed quiet.
Autumn reached over and touched his hand, light as a whisper.
“But I want to,” she said. “I want to try.”
Dorian’s fingers closed around hers. Strong. Steady.
“I’m still here,” he said simply.
Her eyes burned.
And somewhere behind them, inside the house, the fireplace crackled to life on its own.
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