We eat, and the afternoon opens up a conversation unlike one I’ve ever had before.
Ronan asks real questions: what I liked doing before, where I grew up, what Theo was like as a baby, and waits for the full answer each time. I find myself saying more than I plan to, but it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere it shouldn't. Just two people talking while a dog fails to catch fish.
Time passes slowly. We're on our backs looking up at the sky, and Boots has given up and fallen asleep in the grass. The sun is warm on my face, and I cannot remember the last time an afternoon felt this long in a good way.
"I keep waiting for it to get weird," I say.
"Is it?"
"No. That's what's weird."
He turns his head. I turn mine. He reaches over and tucks a strand of hair back from my face, slow, his thumb just grazing my cheekbone, and every nerve I have goes very quiet and very awake.
I roll toward him and kiss him. He makes a low sound, and his hand comes to my waist and pulls me in.
Giving in feels right. Easy.
His hands move over me like the afternoon is endless, which it nearly is. I get his shirt off and run my palms over his chest, his shoulders, the muscle of his back, and he lets me look, lets me take my time, which is its own kind of thing — being allowed to just look without it becoming something I owe.
"Tell me what you want," he says.
The old reflex fires:whatever you want, I don't mind.I've said some version of that so many times it's practically automatic. I catch it.
"Touch me," I say. "Here." I take his hand and put it between my legs.
He does exactly that, his fingers moving against me through my jeans first, slow and deliberate, watching my face the whole time. I stop trying to keep my expression neutral. I let him see it.
"Still good?" he says.
"Very good. Don't stop."
He gets my jeans off and touches me properly — his fingers sliding through my pussy slow, no rush — and I make a sound that surprises me more than it surprises him. He doesn't comment. He just does more of it.
He takes his time. His thumb works my clit while his fingers push inside me, deep and steady, watching my face the whole time, and I stop trying to manage what he sees. I let him look. His fingers curl and I gasp and grip his shoulder and he keeps the pressure exactly there, reading me, until I come around his hand — hard, my whole body clenching, his name catching in my throat before I can stop it.
I lie there with my eyes closed for a moment while the afternoon hums around me.
He kisses my jaw. Doesn't say anything.
"Come here," I tell him.
I pull him over me and get his jeans open and wrap my hand around his cock and he makes a rough sound against my neck, low and genuine, the first time I've heard him lose composure. I like it more than I expect to.
He pauses, weight braced above me, looking at my face.
"Still good?"
"Get on with it," I say.
He almost smiles. Then he pushes inside me, slow, giving me time to open around him, and I exhale hard and dig my fingers into his back and think:oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like.
He's big and he knows it — takes his time, lets me adjust — and then he starts to move and it's deep and steady and exactly right, his weight on me something I want pressing down instead of something I'm managing, and I wrap my legs around him and stop thinking at all.
I feel it everywhere.
I finish before he does, clenching around him, and he feels it and his rhythm breaks. He presses his forehead to my temple and follows hard and quiet, his whole body going still and then loose against me.
The river keeps going. Boots is still asleep in the grass, completely unbothered. The sun is lower now, the light gone amber, and I lie there looking at the sky and feel — like myself. Not the old version, not trying to get back to her. Just a woman on a blanket by a river whose body is entirely her own.
