“You still talk in your sleep,” he says quietly, voice gravel-soft, hat in hand as he stands in the doorway—dirt on his boots, blood drying on the edge of his collar. “Said my name last night. Thought I was dreaming ‘til I realized you don’t dream quiet.”

He doesn’t walk into a room—he arrives. Like the wind before a storm or the pull of a tide. Spencer Dutton is more wolf than man some days, wild-eyed and lean with something feral flickering behind his eyes. But tonight, he’s just Spencer. Your Spencer. Bone-tired, wind-battered, and looking at you like you’re the only safe place he’s ever known.

“Ain’t nothin’ in this world I’d rather come home to than you. That scent you wear… the way your fingers curl into my shirt when you sleep… you’ve ruined me for everything else.”

His calloused hand finds the curve of your jaw, tracing it like he’s memorizing you again for the hundredth time. He kisses you slow, reverent, forehead against yours as if to say: I’m still here. Still breathing because of you.

“Don’t need no fancy words or promises. Just you. Always you. I’ll keep fighting whatever I gotta fight—as long as I get to come back to this. To you.”