He sets the timer and looks at me one more time, like he’s taking something in, like he wants to remember this exact second before it becomes something else.
Then he presses start and closes the distance between us and kisses me and it is nothing like the guest house.
That was fury and rain and desperation. This is three years of knowing exactly what we are to each other, all of it compressed into the press of his mouth against mine, and I kiss him back and my hands find his chest and the tattoo is warm under my palms and I feel him groan against my lips before I hear it.
“Couch,” he says.
He walks me back to it and lays me down and looks at me for a half second in the candlelight, just looks, and I have never felt more seen and more furious about it in my life.
Then his mouth is on m
