I nodded, because whatever I said would be a lie. No one is truly sure when they step past a line that could burn homes down. But the nod felt like permission, the way a match meets a wick.
He covered my hand with his, and then, without warning, he turned, drew me into his arms and kissed me.
It was not tentative. It was a thorough, claiming kiss, one that said he’d been memorizing me in small pieces and was finally ready to read the map out loud. His mouth was firm, authoritative, and his hands were everywhere—resting at the small of my back, cupping my face, threading into my hair. For a dizzy second I only existed in the heat of that contact: the press of his body, the way his beard rasped the skin at my jaw, the scent of him—soap, wood smoke, something bitter-sweet I wanted to inhale
