"And I know this started in a crisis, and I know all the reasons it should be?—"
"Emily." This time it stopped her completely. "I'm not looking for reasons, excuses or justifications for us."
She looked at him and blinked slowly.
"I know what this is," he said. "I've known since I met you at The Rusty Crab, it was confirmed in the parking lot. The reasons you're naming aren't things I'm concerned about. They're things you need to say out loud so you can hear them and decide they'renot enough to walk away from what you want." He held her gaze. "Are they?"
She thought about it. Genuinely. Held it up and looked at all its sides.
"No," she said.
"Okay."
"Okay," she said. "So. What now?"
"Now," he said, "I'm going to start taking care of you. Properly. And you're going to tell me when something is too much and when something isn't enough and we're going to figure out what this looks like specifically for us and not anyone else." He paused. "And you're going to stop apologizing for what you need."
She absorbed that. "That last one might take some work."
"I'm aware. I'm patient."
"You're going to have to remind me sometimes."
"That," he said, "is something I'm very prepared to do. Even if it means another trip over my knee."
She looked at him for a long moment. The porch light, the stars, the solid specific reality of him in the chair next to her.
He moved off the chair and sat next to her. His arm came around her. Not careful, not tentative. Certain. He squeezed her shoulder and she rested her head on his.
She exhaled.
It was nothing like the books. It was so much more than the books. It was a porch swing under the magnificent Colorado night sky, Clover snoring and his arm around her and the feeling, the specific complete feeling, of being somewhere she was supposed to be.
"Hi," she said softly, to nothing in particular.
She felt the low rumble of something in his chest. Not quite a laugh but close.
"Hi," he said.
They sat there for a long time before he kissed her. His hand moved from her shoulder to her jaw, tilting her face up toward his in the dark, and she felt the intention of it before his mouth touched hers.
When he kissed her, it was nothing like the kisses they’d shared throughout the week.
This was an absolute claiming. He was making a statement that couldn’t be denied.
His mouth covered hers fully, one hand cradling her jaw and the other pulling her in at the waist, and she felt the whole focused weight of him in it. She felt everything. It was an end of his patience combined with everygood girlthat he’d praised her with. It was every ounce of sexual chemistry they’d been feeling and the emotional connection at once, delivered without rushing, thorough and certain and devastatingly specific to her.
She made a sound she hadn't planned. He swallowed it.
His thumb traced her jaw while he continued to kiss her, slow and deliberate, and she gripped the front of his cut with both hands and held on. He kissed her like he had all the time in the world. Like he intended to do this properly and nothing in the world was pressing enough to interrupt. No one better interrupt.
She pulled back for air.
He let her breathe for exactly one second and then kissed her again, deeper this time, his hand sliding into her hair, fisting behind her head, and she felt the warmth of it move through her from the point of contact outward, down her chest, into her stomach, all the way to her hands still gripping his cut.
When he finally lifted his head they were both breathing differently.
"Emily," he said. Low. Into the small space between their mouths.
