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I nod, unraveling quickly as I fuck myself with my fingers. “Yes. God, yes.”

“Louder.” His voice strains. “My name. Say my name.”

Lightning pleasure cracks through my veins as I arch my back, crying out with my orgasm. “Tate. Tate. Oh my⁠—”

“Fuck. Yes. So beautiful. So—Ah, fuck.” His body convulses, jaw tight as he paints the glass with his cum. His head thumps against the screen as he releases a choppy breath.

I slump against the mirror, body slick with sweat and arousal.

Our heavy eyes meet.

Well, that happened. Again.

Tate drags a hand through his hair, his cock soft and heavy. “You can wear my shirt for bed. Let me finish up in here, and you can get ready.”

Is he…dismissing me? No. It’s something else, and I don’t have the energy to dig into whatever’s going on in his head.

“Okay.” I hop down, fix my dress, then head back into the bedroom.

A few minutes later, Tate appears and we trade places. Is he regretting what we just did? I spend longer than necessary brushing my teeth and scrubbing off what makeup I can with the cotton pads and hand soap. Naked, I trace my fingers over the soft cotton of Tate’s shirt hanging on the back of the door. His heady scent takes over my senses as I slip it over my arms and do up the middle three buttons.

With a few centering breaths, I emerge from the bathroom. The lights are lowered and Tate lounges in the middle of the bed, eyes up at the ceiling as he taps his fingers on his stomach. He’s in just his boxer briefs. When he spots me, he sits up, smiling softly. Swinging his legs over the bed, he pats the mattress.

“I’ve warmed it up for you.” With a look I can’t decipher, he takes a pillow and the throw blanket and drops them on the small couch.

“You’re sleeping there?”

There’s a hint of hesitancy, like he wants to dive onto the plump mattress with me, but his voice of reason is talking sense to him. “As tempting as it is…” he drawls lazily. “No. Considering we’ve broken our rule multiple times now, I’m trying to maintain some degree of self-control.”

I watch in slight amusement as he squeezes onto the two-seater couch, his six-foot frame almost folded in half.

Not wanting to be the one who caves and demands he sleep with me, I quickly get under the covers. It’s warm where he lay minutes ago. Soon it’ll go cold. Like the bedsheets at home slowly losing his peppermint and bergamot scent.

Even without uttering a word, his presence fills the room. I’m hyperaware of his eyes watching me from the corner.

I think back to Margot’s comments about our aura and compatibility. It’s never been an issue, but where we’ve failed is communicating outside of the realms of our sexual chemistry.

Not being able to see him makes my next question a fraction easier. “Do you ever think about what would’ve happened if we’d stayed in Canyon Pass?”

When he doesn’t answer, I presume he’s asleep until he finally speaks. “Do you want the truth?”

“It’s better than a lie.”

He exhales. “We’d be married, living down the street from my mom. I’d probably work at the steel yard still, and maybe you’d teach or work at the post office. I think we would’ve been happy at first, but you would’ve grown to hate it and probably resented me.” There’s no bitterness. He says it matter-of-factly.

I sit up. “I wouldn’t resent you.”

There’s rustling from his side of the room. “Isn’t that what’s happening now? I don’t blame you. I veered us off track and away from the future we had planned. I might as well have moved us back to Texas. Both scenarios have the same outcome.”

The bedsheets crumple in my fists. “You’re wrong. I don’t resent you, Tate. I miss you. Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, I love you in both scenarios because you’re the person I come home to? I resent the choices you made without discussing them with me.”

He’s silent.

“All I want is you. All I’ve ever wanted is you.” My chest aches as the words I’ve wanted to speak for the last few weeks are finally set free. “We were never supposed to end up here,” I croak. “I’ve had my future planned out with you since we were sixteen. It never looked like this.”

His gravelly voice bounces through the room. “From the moment Momma brought you home for dinner, I knew you’d be mine. You telling me my fly was down just confirmed it.”

My laugh is wet.