I Always Will

Mountaintop

Author's Note: If you can imagine the Civil Wars singing a song much like You Say, except the song is not a Christian song but a song celebrating the spiritual aspect of human love, then you'll be on track to imagining the song R&R write in this chapter. Incidentally, I do believe this chapter is my favorite in the entire book. It's the end, essentially. The remaining chapters are just the gravy I know you all love...

Riley

I sit on the side of the bed, fully dressed, watching Row sleep. Despite all the chaotic spirit in her, she's gorgeously vulnerable in her sweet peace. It always shocks me, how much more she looks like her sister in slumber. But as soon as I wake her, I know she'll growl in defiance at the early hour and be my spectacular heathen once more.

I brush a long, dark, silken tendril from her face and kiss her cheek. Her cheek, because once when I woke her before dawn, she actually bit me for it. She swears she didn't mean to, but I've no great desire to repeat the experience.

She moans but doesn't stir. I kiss her other cheek.

"Wake up, darling."

Her body tenses, and she takes that involuntary gasp of waking breath that I find so adorable. Like she's super-charging for the day. She cracks one eye, twitches a smile at me. Then she opens the other, casting a suspicious look around the dark room.

"Fuck, Riley!"

She flounces over on her stomach and buries her head beneath the pillow. I reach beneath the covers and pat her ass. "Look, I'll happily come back to bed. You're the one that insisted on this dawn surprise, whatever it is..."

She throws the pillow to the floor and rolls over again. She's smiling now. "Right. Sorry. I forgot for a second." One expressive hand winds through the air toward me, making contact with my t-shirt. She fists it in her hand and draws me down to her, her head tilting up to press a soft kiss on my lips. "Happy Not-Dead Day."

I snort. She coined that phrase last year on the first anniversary of my car accident. "Happy Divorce-Sucked-Let's-Never-Do-That-Again Day," I reply.

Her eyes fly open, and she makes a sound of disgust, popping me very lightly in the mouth with a swift hand. "Never, ever say the D-word to me, Riley!"

I grab the offending hand, and the other, and pin them above her head. "Sorry, let me properly apologize." I kiss her thoroughly. After about ninety seconds, I'm moving to breach her legs with a knee, but she breaks the kiss.

"Get off me," she laughs.

"Really?" I'm surprised. I can't remember the last time Row actually denied me sex.

She grabs my head, kisses me roughly. "Yes, really. We can make love anytime, but right now we've got somewhere to be!"

She rolls away and dances to the en suite.

Somewhere turns out to be the middle of mountainous nowhere, forty-five minutes above Asheville. When Row drives us down a gravel road to a gate with a lock, I frown. "I think this is private property, Row."

"It is. We have permission to be here," she smirks, turning off the car and holding up what looks like some kind of medieval iron key inscribed with initials. They are so ornate, and her flash of the key so brief, I can't make them out.

I raise my eyebrows. "Where did you get that?"

"From the owner," she replies cryptically.

"Whom would be?" I growl a little bit. Despite all my growth, I'm still me and always will be. I like to be the one in the know. Row's really doing a number on me with this little "Not-Dead-Day" surprise.