“And you should have known I didn’t want anyone else.” My voice splinters apart, my heart going with it. “You should have known that you were it for me, from the night we met. I would have done anything to fix it, but you wouldn’t fight for me. You said you would, and I believed you, Wyn. And I understand why you couldn’t. But I haven’t forgiven you for breaking my heart.”
His hand scrapes into my hair, his mouth burrowing against my neck. “Good,” he says. “Don’t forgive me. Stay mad at me. Don’t get over me.”
“And I’m mad at you for not coming to me tonight,” I say.
He tilts my chin, kissing the other side of my throat, whispering softly, “I would’ve made it to you eventually.”
“You packed your bags,” I say.
He laughs jaggedly into my skin, his hands going back to my thighs, hoisting me up snug against him. “It was bullshit,” he says. “I was trying to convince myself it would be best if I left you alone. The sad thing is, I actually believe it, Harriet. But I wasn’t going to. I was on my way to find you when you got here. How do you think I answered the door so fast? Why do you think I was already hard, Harriet?”
A pleasant shiver climbs my thighs. “Maybe you were doing a crossword,” I say.
He kisses the soft skin under my ear. “I couldn’t leave you alone. I’ve never been able to.”
“You’ve left me alone for five months,” I point out.
“You blocked my number,” he says, his fingers tightening on me through the thin sheet. “Or else you’d know that’s bullshit too. It wasn’t one unsent text message that Parth saw, Harriet. It was the ones I’d sent you too. The ones you didn’t reply to.”
My heart flutters up through my esophagus, a giddy canary catching a breeze of cool air. His calloused hands turn my face up to his, and he kisses me deeply, coarsely.
My nerve endings light up in concentric circles that reverberate outward. Cellular fireworks. Neurological Ferris wheel spokes. My hands sift into his hair, and he flips us onto the bed, the twin sheet falling over us as gently as snow. He shifts his weight back long enough for me to slough his shirt off, then stretches himself over me again, our mouths colliding, his knee dipping between my thighs. His hands roll heavily over me. My nails scrape over his warm back.
He kisses down my sternum, sneaks his tongue under the fabric, follows it with his teeth. I cry out from the relief and the simultaneous need. We arch closer. His hand works behind my back, finds the clasp for my bra, and after a brief struggle, he’s pulling it away from me, tossing it out of our way, and our chests are finally pressing together, mine flattening under his. He groans. His palms move heavily over my chest, cupping, lifting me to his mouth.
The bed creaks as we move together.
He shifts onto one elbow, his other hand grating down my ribs and waist until it reaches the side of my underwear. He jerks them down my hip, and his hand skims my thigh. “I miss hearing you,” he whispers against my ear. “All the little sounds you make.”
Just by saying it, he’s coaxed out a few more.
“We should fight more often,” I say.
“I agree.” He jerks my underwear down over my other thigh. I reach for the buttons of his pants, and his head lolls against mine on a groan as I slip my hand into his waistband.
“Did you find condoms?” I whisper.
“Before dinner.” He fishes a strip of three out of his pocket and tosses them beside us. “I’ve been carrying them around all night, like some fucking teenager hoping to sneak into the bathroom at prom.”
“If I’d known,” I say, “we could’ve skipped the fight entirely.”
He grabs my thigh and places it against the outside of his hip. “Please don’t leave,” he says in a low grate. “When this is over, don’t go sleep in another room. Stay with me all night.”
“I won’t leave,” I promise, sliding his pants down, kissing the jut of his hip.
His arm straps around my low back, and he rolls us again so that I’m on top of him. He lifts his hips enough to push his briefs down, and then I fold over him, nothing separating us now. Nothing has ever felt so blissfully good as this simple contact. He grasps my hips, sliding me over him, our breath shallowing. He pulls my wrists above his head, stretching me over him, and drags his parted lips, his tongue, over my chest.
I search through the bedding for the condoms, tear open the first one, and work it onto him. As I lift up, he takes hold of my hips, his eyes heavy and dark, guiding me onto him. His head tips back, a throaty sound emanating from him as I rise up and sink lower. He feels so familiar, so right, but after all this time, strangely new.
Our movement is slow but urgent, so intense I keep forgetting to breathe for a second too long, like nothing else is quite so necessary for my survival as this. His hands are careful on my jaw, his lips soft on mine, his tongue skimming into my mouth almost tentatively until I can barely take any more gentleness, any more restraint. I’m tired of him holding back any piece of himself.
When I tell him so, he flips us over one more time, my arms pinned above my head. Sweat slicks our skin as we become feverish, wild. I bow up under him, meeting his rhythm, trying not to come apart, not yet. I say his name like it’s a spell.
Or a goodbye and I love you, a promise.
I just know my heart agrees: You, you, you.
* * *
? ? ?
WE LIE IN a sweaty heap, Wyn toying with one of my curls, his lungs lifting and lowering me like a boat on a tide. “Do you forgive them?” I whisper.
“Honestly,” he says, “I was having trouble being mad. I know they shouldn’t have lied, but . . . I don’t know. It’s felt worth it. To be here. To see you.”
“To me too,” I whisper, holding him a little tighter. Then, after another minute: “Do you think they’ll forgive us?”
“Yes,” he says.
“You didn’t think about it,” I chide.
“I didn’t need to,” he says.
I lift up to peer into his eyes. “How are you so sure?”
“More Hank wisdom,” he says. “Love means constantly saying you’re sorry, and then doing better.”
I smile, let my fingers play across Wyn’s chest. “He did okay with you, Wyn Connor. He’d be proud.”
He wraps his arms tight around me. “I’m glad you think so.”
Within minutes, I’m asleep, dreaming of a sunlit pine forest, the warm wood of a table beneath me, the smell of clove everywhere. And I know this place, even if I can’t name it. I know that I’m safe, that I belong.
33
REAL LIFE
Saturday
WYN LEFT THE drapes and windows open last night, and now the room is cold and bright, salt wafting in on the breeze, and bringing with it the distant squawk of herring gulls. My body feels like melted ice cream, in the best way. Bits of last night glance over my mind: hands fisting into bedding and hair and skin, ragged whispers and pleas.
And then everything that came before.
The fight. The rest of the week. Everything with Wyn.
That today is the last day of our trip.
The pleasant soreness gives way. Now I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus, then backed over and hit one more time at an angle. Wyn is fast asleep, one arm still draped over my ribs and one corner of his mouth lifted. My chest aches at the sight.