“You’re staying.”
“I’m staying.”
He kisses me again, and this time there’s no restraint left. His hands slide from my face to my waist, pulling me flush against him. The sound I make when our hips connect is one I’ll be embarrassed about later, but can’t bring myself to care about now. My fingers find the hem of his shirt and pull. He breaks the kiss long enough for me to drag it over his head before his mouth is on my neck, my collarbone, the spot below my ear he discovered weeks ago and has been weaponizing ever since.
“Upstairs,” I manage, and my hands are already at his belt.
“Upstairs,” he agrees, but neither of us moves. His teeth graze my shoulder where my shirt has slipped, and my back hits the hallway wall, and his thigh pushes between mine, and the pressure—God, the pressure—makes my hips roll involuntarily.
“Peter.” His name falls out of me on a breath, making his grip tighten on my hips, fingers branding the skin above my waistband.
His forehead drops to my shoulder. “If you say my name like that, we’re not making it upstairs.”
“Then don’t make it upstairs.” I pull his face to mine and kiss him hard, pouring into it every single thing I’ve been too scared to say—I love you. I think I’ve loved you for a while. I’m terrified of how much I need you. Please don’t go back to Toronto, please stay, please, please, please—and he groans against my mouth and lifts me.
My legs wrap around his waist, my back is still against the wall, and his hands are under my thighs, holding me like I weigh nothing. The strength of it, the ease… I will never not be destroyed by the ease with which this man handles my body.
“Changed my mind,” he breathes. “Upstairs. I want you in my bed. All night.”
The way he says it,my bed. All night, it’s not about logistics. It’s a statement. A claim. Not of ownership, but of belonging. He wants me in his space, in his sheets, in the place where he sleeps and wakes up and exists most privately.
“Then take me there.”
He carries me upstairs while I’m kissing his neck, tasting the salt on his skin, feeling the muscles in his shoulders work as he holds me. When he sets me down at the foot of the bed, we’re both breathing hard, and there’s a moment, a single, suspended moment, where we just look at each other.
His chest is bare, and his hair is mussed from my hands, and his mouth is swollen, and he’s looking at me like I’m the answerto a question he’s been asking his whole life. And I think—with a clarity that cuts through every defense I’ve ever built—I want you to see all of me. Not the version I’ve curated. Not the version that’s palatable.Allof me.
I pull my shirt over my head. No performance, no tease. It’s the simple act of removing a barrier, and his expression shifts from want to reverent and almost pained, telling me he understands what this is.
“You’re so beautiful.” His voice cracks, just barely, and I feel it in my ribs.
“Shut up and come here.”
He closes the distance in one step. We’re skin-to-skin, his chest warm against mine, his hands sliding up my back with a gentleness that contradicts the urgency of his breathing. He unclasps my bra with a deftness that makes me huff a laugh against his mouth.
“You’ve gotten good at that.”
“I’m a fast learner.” He drags the straps down my arms slowly, watching them fall, and then his hands are on me, and my laugh dies in my throat, replaced by something raw and needy.
He lowers me onto the bed. The sheets are cool against my back, and he’s above me, braced on his forearms. And the weight of him—the solid, grounding realness of him—makes my eyes burn.
What if he does leave?
What if he comes back and doesn’t want me anymore?
What if he meets someone else? Would he bring her here?
“Hey.” He brushes the hair away from my face, and his thumb traces the line of my cheekbone. “Where’d you go?”
“I’m here.” I pull him down, wrapping my arms around his neck and forcing myself to focus on this moment, not on the what-ifs. “I’m right here.”
He kisses me slowly. Thoroughly. Like we have all night, which we do. That’s the whole point, that’s what’s different, there’s no clock running down, no need to leave before the intimacy becomes too real. I am staying in this bed, in this house, in this man’s arms, and the freedom of that decision is so overwhelming, I arch into him to feel more of his skin against mine.
My hands go to his belt again, and this time I get it open. He lifts his hips to help me push his jeans down. Then it’s just his boxers and my shorts and too much fabric between us. He solves the problem with an efficiency I deeply appreciate—button, zip, down my legs, gone—and then his mouth is on my stomach, trailing lower. My fingers are in his hair, and the sound that comes out of me is not one I’m capable of controlling.
“I’ve been thinking about this for days,” he murmurs against my hip. “Been thinking about the night I came back early. You were wearing my sweatshirt. It took everything in me not to?—”
“Peter. Less talking.”
