The Taste of
Ash and Coffee

The night Hopper came home, his hands still carried the memory of rough rope and the taste of ash. Joyce didn't ask how he survived the Russian prison. She just needed to feel his heartbeat under her palm, to press her mouth to the scars that mapped his body like a confession. He kissed her with the desperation of a man who had counted his final days, and she answered with the same raw hunger, guiding him through her darkened bedroom with a tenderness that bordered on worship. Their bodies moved together in the quiet dark — every touch a promise, every shudder a release from months of silence and fear. Afterward, tangled in her sheets, Hopper admitted he didn't know how to be soft anymore. Joyce's answer was to press her lips to the hollow of his throat and show him exactly how they would learn.