“He’s going back to LA,” I say.
He nods. “What about you?”
Nathan’s question holds several unsaid others. He wants to know if I’ll be okay, if I’ll have to endure nights down the hall from my ex-fiancé. There’s more, though. He’s feeling out what I want my future to look like.
My eyes leaving his, I glance to the house above us. “I’ll have to move properly eventually,” I say, “but for now, I might stay here for a while.”
“Tell me when you want me to leave,” Nathan says. There’s no hidden spite in his voice, only understanding. “I would never want to impose.”
I look right into the ocean blue of his eyes. “I think we have unfinished business first, don’t you?”
He pulls me to my feet, which puts us very close together. His free hand finds my hip. If his eyes were the ocean before, now they’re the midday sun sparking off the waves. I feel like I’ve never seen him this happy. Not when we’ve written something he’s proud of, not when his publishing dreams started to come true.
I lean forward, pressing a kiss to his lips, marveling to myself. I get to do this now. It feels unreal, or half real, like I’m on the edge of a fairy tale. The dizzy expression on Nathan’s face says he knows the feeling. Holding onto his hand, I lead him into the house.
We pause in the living room. When his eyes find mine, I only smile. I’ve felt lucky on plenty of occasions for what a wonderful writer Nathan is. For how he pushes me, fills in for me, inspires me. I don’t know if I’ve ever let myself feel lucky for what a wonderful man he is. I let myself now. Facing me, he’s like I’ve seen him on countless other mornings, looking comfortable in his white polo and gray shorts, watching me intently.
His voice is low, unsure. “Do you want to write?”
I laugh. It’s comical how much we’re not on the same page right now. While his eyebrows crinkle in confusion, he starts to smile. I nod to answer his question, saying nothing. There’s something charged in the warmth of the room, static electricity stored in soft fabric. He releases my hand to pick up the pages he was editing this morning then sits on the couch.
Looking at him, I revel for a moment. For the first time in years, I know exactly what I want.
Stepping up to him, I put a hand on his pages. “No,” I say, pushing the pages to the side. “Not like that.”
I climb into his lap. My movements are slow, deliberate, showing him exactly what I mean. He takes me in, his expression greedy, his eyes lightly shocked in the best way. Like this is a fantasy he’s kept even from himself. Heart pounding, I place my hands on his chest, feeling how firm he is. Warmth spreads through me. My limbs melt, my breath catching. When his hands slide up my thighs, skimming over skin and under my shorts, I feel the tremor in his touch, and suddenly every inch of me wants to shiver in this heat. Our eyes locked together, I lower my lips with obvious intention.
We collide, waves crashing, striking the shore—his hand rising swiftly, instinctively, up my back, pressing me to him while I kiss him. He leans into me, his mouth meeting mine. His other hand moves to hold my hair from falling forward. I grind my hips into his, where he’s hard, unmistakably and urgently. Feeling light-headed, I pull back from the kiss to focus on his belt buckle.
He watches me. “I have a feeling we’re about to become very unproductive.”
My fingers fumbling the cool metal, I laugh. “Sorry our book was late, Liz. We were having vigorous, frequent sex.”
He lifts my shirt over my head. I raise my arms with the same sort of instinct I feel driving his every movement. I want the garment off, nowhere near us, immediately. He uses the opportunity to press one quick kiss to my lips. “Don’t even joke about it,” he says.
“About what? Our book being late?”
“The other part.” His hands dig into my hips.
“Do I seem like I’m joking?” I reach my hand down between us, watching his eyelids flutter closed while he lets out his breath, his grip on me tightening. “I’m not.”
While I touch him, his mouth moves to my neck, causing me to arch my back into the contact. His fingers slide to my stomach, then sink lower, stroking me over the fabric of my shorts. I close my eyes. Knowing it’s Nathan’s fingers slowly undoing me, Nathan’s lips meeting mine, feels like fiction—the kind you read with a hand between your legs, not the kind you get to taste on your tongue.
We pull back, panting and flushed. The mood shifts suddenly, like storm clouds opening up, the humidity splitting into rain. Gone is the humor, replaced by need. I stand up. While his stare drinks me in, I undo the button of my shorts, letting them drop to the floor.