The Weight of Wanting

The evening air outside the cabin was cool, carrying the soft scent of pine and wet earth. Inside, Gina and Dave sat by the fireplace, the glow from the flames casting flickering shadows across their faces. Between them, the tension simmered—not the sharp kind that came from betrayal or secrets, but the heavy silence that comes with wanting too much, too fast.

Dave handed her a glass of red wine. His hand brushed hers, and the contact sent a ripple down her spine. She accepted it with a soft "thank you," their eyes locking briefly before darting away like magnets afraid of colliding.

"So," he began, voice low, "this thing between us... it wasn't just a memory, was it?"

Gina's lips parted slightly. She sipped her wine to stall the answer.

"No," she admitted. "It was never just memory."

He looked at her again, this time holding her gaze. "Then what are we doing, Gina? Because I want to be in your life. Not just in fragments. Not as a ghost."

She turned toward him fully now. Her robe slipped slightly from one shoulder, revealing the edge of a delicate scar she never explained. Dave noticed, but said nothing. He had his own scars.

"I don't know if I can give you that," she said honestly. "Not the way you deserve it. My world... it's not just complicated. It's dangerous."

"I don't care," he replied quickly. "I've had fame, attention, crowds. None of it ever made me feel seen like you do. I'm not afraid of your world. I'm afraid of losing you again."

She swallowed hard.

"You say that now," she whispered. "But one day, the truth about me... it'll break something in you. I'm not who you think I am."

"You're Davina's mother. You're the only woman who's ever made me feel like my music meant something. You're everything I've been missing. That's who you are to me."

Her breath trembled.

"Dave... I want you. I always have."

The confession sat between them for a beat, then dissolved into action.

He leaned forward, brushing his lips over hers—slow, cautious, like he was tasting her for the first time again. She deepened the kiss, one hand gripping the edge of his sweater, the other sliding up the nape of his neck.

Their mouths moved in tandem, slow but intense. His hands cupped her waist, feeling the familiar curves beneath the silk robe she wore. She sighed into his mouth as his lips wandered to her jaw, her throat, the sensitive hollow just below her ear.

She let the robe slip from her shoulders, pooling silently at her feet. He followed its path with his eyes and fingers, reverent and hungry all at once.

He kissed down her collarbone, then lower, tongue grazing the swell of her breast. She arched toward him, fingers digging into his hair. He teased her nipple with slow, torturous flicks of his tongue until she gasped his name like a broken prayer.

Her hands tugged at his clothes with impatience—sweater, shirt, everything in the way. He stripped for her, eyes locked on hers the entire time. When he was finally bare, she traced her hands down the line of his torso, memorizing again what had never left her mind.

He knelt between her thighs, pressing kisses along the soft skin of her inner legs. When his mouth finally found her center, she cried out, hips lifting to meet him. He took his time, learning her again, responding to every twitch, every moan, every whispered plea. Her fingers curled tightly in the rug beneath her, her breath catching as he brought her to the edge.

And then he paused, just long enough to lock eyes with her. "I need you," he said, voice hoarse.

"Then take me," she breathed.

He slid into her with a deep groan, and she gasped, clinging to him as their bodies found the rhythm they'd once known so well. The fire crackled beside them, a backdrop to their breathless cries, the slap of skin, the gasps of rediscovered ecstasy.

It built slowly. No rush. No frenzy. Just a steady climb of touch and trust and trembling. He kissed her through her first orgasm, whispered her name through his second, and when they finally collapsed into each other, the silence was complete.

Her body trembled against his, and he held her tighter.

"I love you," he said into her hair.

Gina closed her eyes, heart thudding.

"I know," she whispered.

But even as she clung to him, wrapped in the safety of his arms, reality began to edge its way back in.

She wasn't just a woman in love.

She was a woman being hunted.

And this moment—this softness—was a brief exhale before the war began.