I smiled and popped off the bed, dispatching my jeans and panties. “Better?” I asked, setting a knee back on the mattress. I didn't wait for an answer before I took him in my hand, his skin so smooth and hard against mine. Again, our blissful history swirled in my mind, the untold times we’d done this together.
He clamped his eyes shut and knocked his head back on the bed. I stroked him. Firmly, but not too hard, and all I could think about was how I wanted to make him happy, but more than anything, I wanted to feel him. Inside me. This was everything I’d thought about that morning we had breakfast. Everything I'd fantasized about over the last few weeks. Everything I would've killed for after I left Ireland, when I had to lie in my bed at night and try to sleep, all while my brain wouldn't stop remembering the magic of every moment with him.
I didn't bother asking if he had a condom. I opened my bedside table drawer and plucked one from the box. I rolled it onto him. One step closer to what I wanted. And then I stretched out next to him. Goosebumps dotted my arms. There was nothing else holding us back. No more clothes between us, no more space, no more distance. The universe had pulled me back into the arms of the only man my heart wanted the way my lungs wanted to breathe.
He pushed my hair from my face and kissed me deeply, then eased me to my back and climbed on top of me. We didn't talk. We didn't need to. We both knew what the other wanted. That was a very special brand of knowledge—when words become extraneous. I closed my eyes and pulled his smell into my nose—salt and soap and sunshine. There was no other way to describe it or just how easily that perfect smell took me back to our other time. When I had found hope and joy in the simplest things. When I knew what it was like to be happy.
But I wouldn't live in the past. Not today. Thinking like that did a lot of damage to a person, and it ruined the present. I opened my eyes and kissed his forehead. I studied every line, every new, tiny crease around his eyes. This was exactly what I'd wanted so badly the other morning. To have him weigh me down and make me remember that this was the here-and-now.
He thrust inside exactly as he'd done so many times, but now was different. I felt both whole and vulnerable. We were one again. Something I'd thought would never happen. I'd been convinced the Eamon chapter of my life was over, that he and I were never meant to be.
And now it felt as though my once-hidden second act with Eamon was just beginning.
On Monday morning,I called Summer and took a personal day. In nearly eight years at NACI, I hadn't taken a single day off. I was the person who scheduled a dentist appointment at lunch so I wouldn't miss work. But Eamon was already making me do things I would never do. We'd spent all day Sunday naked or half-dressed, in bed or in the shower. I'd even gone to bed with wet hair.
Summer was as shocked as I was when I called. “I hope everything's okay.”
“Everything's great.” Eamon was in the bathroom, so I could contain my enthusiasm without worrying that he might think I wasn't ridiculously happy right now. I didn't want to gush to my boss or give any details about how I might be having sex all day long. Not professional. “I have some things I'd like to get done around the apartment. Stuff I've been putting off.”
Eamon was standing in the doorway now, completely naked, leaning against the jamb and listening. Good God, my sister was right. I was a lucky bitch. I patted his spot on the bed next to me.
“You have more than enough days, so I'm not worried about it,” Summer said.
“And everything will be okay with you-know-who?”
“Oh, Miles? Don't worry about him. I'll take care of him. We'll miss you, of course, but enjoy your day. I'll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes. Absolutely. See you then.”
Eamon climbed into bed while I ended my call and rolled to my side, placing my phone on the bedside table. “Your hair's a very sexy bird's nest,” he said, kissing my neck and pressing his long body up against my back.
Would I ever grow immune to Eamon's touch? Would I ever get to the point where this wasn't pure bliss? “So you're telling me you like things that are a complete disaster.”
“The more disastrous the better.”
“And you're happy with the sheets the way they are right now?” I kicked at the covers. Everything was twisted up—the duvet, the top sheet. Even the fitted sheet kept popping off the corner closest to my head, which was driving me crazy.
“Hadn't even noticed there was a problem.” He pressed a single kiss to my cheek. “That's how happy I am to be here.”
I rolled to my back and peered up at him. If my hair was a disaster, his wasn't much better, but he pulled off the disheveled look perfectly. The man could've walked into a photo shoot at that very moment and he would've had no problem. “I’m happy you're here, too.”
“It's amazing, isn't it? Being together again after all this time?”
I smiled, smoothing his hair back from his face. “It really is. I keep having to remind myself that this is really happening. I woke up in the middle of the night and I flipped on the lamp for a second just so I could make sure it was really you.”
“Expecting someone else?”
I slapped his arm playfully. “No.”
“You really did that?”
“I did.”
The way his face lit up was so beautiful. It made it hard to breathe. “I must've been tired to sleep through that.”
“You outdid yourself yesterday.” Just saying it made me hungry for more of him. I had once thought this was a feeling you could only have in your teens or twenties. Now I knew I'd been wrong.
“The sex is even better now. How is that possible?”
