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SAGE
“So…we meet again” Sage said as she looked at the shower. It still had six shower heads of various sizes and heights.
She knew this because she'd stood in front of the panel on her very first morning in this cabin — post fever, barely upright, still half-convinced she was dreaming — and stared at it like it was a spaceship.
Six shower heads. Multiple settings. Rainfall. Mist. Steam. Massage. Pulse. Fucking pulse!
She thought about it sometimes. Late at night in bed when her brain followed her body somewhere warm and inadvisable, or — okay, fine — maybe every time Cal Meridian opened a door for her, or cooked her food, or sat with her looking at a sunset. And she got a lungful of pine and woodsmoke and something that was just fundamentally him.
She thought about that one shower head at that one specific height and one specific angle and then she thought about other things very quickly.
It’s not that she didn’t understand it.
She knew that because of her childhood, anything physical was ugly and repulsive. How could they not be?
But over the last few weeks…that changed. Not suddenly. But slowly as if her body and soul began to see that there was in fact something beautiful and joyous in a sunset or shared meal with the man she was pretty certain she loved.
Not a girly crush or passing obsession. But true, soul deep, scared the fucking shit out of me love.
She had absolutely no idea what to do. She just knew that she felt safe with Cal. She felt cherished. She felt a peace she had never known and never thought she would know. She felt worthy…and maybe even a little…beautiful.
And he probably thought of her like a daughter. Thanks daddy she thought sarcastically. Paused as she considered “Daddy” and then thought, Yeah…probably best not unpack that.
She pressed her face against the tiles as the hot water fell on a body she was learning not to hate and thought of him. The scars. The arms. The way his jaw worked when he was trying not to smile. The gray eyes that caught the morning light and looked at her like—
Like….She swallowed.
Like she was something worth looking at.
Like she was something he was actively choosing not to think about, and failing because of her.
Her!
She'd been onto him since the lollipop at the clinic. His whole face changed and oh… he looked at her for just a second that specific way. Mmmm…She loved his reactions and collected them with the enthusiasm of an avid treasure hunter.
She replayed the scene in her room just now. The absolute wreckage of it — solid oak, and the industrial lock bear had insisted she had to feel safe, built to keep things out — and Bear standing in the hallway in nothing but those black boxers like he hadn't just walked through a wall to get to her. Looking at the door with his head tilted, those massive arms crossed over the broad plane of his barrel chest, the map of scars across his ribs and shoulders catching the morning light, and she had stood there beside him and tried very hard not to visibly drool. And just when she almost had it under control.
That was kind of fun.
She pressed her face into the spray and made a sound that was partly a laugh and partly something else entirely.
Cal Meridian.
Seven foot four, three hundred and fifty-some pounds of former Navy SEAL and walking natural disaster, standing barefoot in her hallway looking at a door he'd broken down for her and declaring it fun.
And then he grinned and she cursed whatever happened to him that drove that grin away. And she was humbled because she thought that maybe…maybe that grin was happening more and more because of her.
Sage Thompson.
Oh shit.
She was in love. Shit shit shit.
What was she supposed to do now? Admit it? Ask him out? She’d never been on a date. Never even been done anything that was of her own free will.
This is so stupid! What the fuck should I do? Tell him?
Yeah right…Excuse me, Cal? Yeah, you’re the love of my life and I wanna have your babies. I know I’m eighteen and come with massive baggage. But I fell in love with you the moment you prayed for me and called me your friend…You don’t mind do you?
