I sketched patterns on his pecs with my fingertips. My toes traced the length of his calf, feeling the hair move one way and then the other.
His arm tightened around me. ‘I don’t want you to leave.’
‘I don’t want to leave,’ I said. ‘But…’
‘But the sun’s coming up.’
‘Yeah.’
We didn’t move. His heartbeat was steady under my ear.
‘One of us is going to have to make the first move here,’ I said.
‘It’s going to have to be you,’ he replied. ‘I’m not strong enough.’
‘Did I wear you out that badly?’ I teased, nuzzling my nose into the side of his neck.
His fingers were gentle as they feathered over my hair. ‘You know that’s not what I mean,’ he said quietly.
I exhaled into his skin. The lump in my throat was beginning to develop again. How much could one person cry?
‘But also, yes,’ he said. ‘You did wear me out. You’re an animal, Cece.’
God, he was perfect. How was he so nice and so hot and so good in bed? You never found all three, not together.
I sat up. ‘Good,’ I said, trying to keep my tone light and breezy as I leaned down to peck him on the lips. ‘My plan was to ruin you for all other women.’
‘It worked,’ he murmured, his hand closing around the back of my neck and pulling me back for another kiss.
It took everything in me to pull away, before either a) we had sex again, or b) I started crying. ‘I really need to go,’ I said, snagging my bra from the top of the lamp and putting it back on.
‘I’ll take you back,’ he said, sitting up. ‘Where did you throw my shirt?’
‘No,’ I said.
He looked at me, hurt.
I exhaled. ‘You can’t go back to the Convent with me. Some of the other girls get up and do yoga and Pilates early. I can probably pretend that I’ve been out walking or watching the sunrise or something, but if they see you and me together…’
He was still looking at me with that puppy-dog expression. He was so beautiful, sitting there tangled in the bedsheets, his hair rumpled from sleep and my fingers.
So let them see, the dream version of that beautiful man would say to me.
‘But you don’t have any shoes,’ the real one said.
The lump in my throat was growing again. ‘I’ve managed twenty-six years without you carrying me places,’ I said, turning away and stepping into my underwear so he couldn’t see the tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure I can make it a few hundred metres.’
‘All right,’ he said quietly behind me, and that knife in my heart – my ridiculous, treacherous, hopeful, foolish heart – twisted a little deeper.
I gathered my clothes together (How had my pyjama pants ended up halfway up the stairs that led to the deck?) while he got up and rummaged through a drawer. ‘At least take these,’ he said, handing me a pair of thick black socks. ‘I don’t want you to freeze.’
‘All right.’
I reached out and took the socks, but he didn’t let go of them. Instead, he used them to pull me closer, right into his chest.
‘Dylan,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said, his voice raspy. ‘I know you have to go. But…’
