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“Gregory,” he breathed, like he was saying a prayer.

I couldn’t speak. I could only nod, my forehead pressed against his, my breath coming in ragged gasps. He moved then, slow and deep, his hips snapping forward in a rhythm that stole the air from my lungs. Every thrust sent pleasure spiraling through me, sharp and sweet, until I was trembling, my body clenching around him.

And right at the end, he pulled back just enough to watch my face. His eyes were dark, intent, like he was trying to see straight into me.

I let him look.

I have spent my whole life building things for other people to look at. Arranging. Perfecting. Standing just off to the side of the thing I made, where nobody could get a clean sight line to me.

But here, in this bed, with nothing between us but sweat and sunlight and two years of missing him, I let Blaine Cauthorne see me. All of it. No armor. No artifice. Just me, coming apart underneath him, my face bare, my heart in my throat, my body clenching around his as I spilled between us.

It was the most terrifying thing I had ever done.

And I’d do it every day for the rest of my life.

* * *

We stayed like that a long time afterward.

The sun slid off the bed and crept up the wall. Somewhere outside a car door slammed. Rhoda called out to Harold about lavender in the garden, her voice carrying through the open window.

Neither of us moved.

Blaine had his head on my shoulder and his hand splayed over my ribs like he was counting my heartbeats. His breath was warm on my skin.

"Say something," he murmured.

"I haven't got anything to say."

"Nothing at all?"

"Not one thing." I got my fingers into his hair. "I've been lying here for twenty minutes and my head is completely empty. I don't believe that has ever happened to me before."

Blaine was quiet a moment. Then he turned his face into my shoulder, and I felt him smile.

"Good," he said.

I don't know which of us fell asleep first.

We'd barely slept in two days and it came for both of us at once, in the middle of the morning, in a bed we had no business being in, with birds chirping outside.

The last thing I remember is his hand moving on my ribs. Slower, and slower, and then not at all.

Then I went out like a light.

Chapter Thirty

Blaine

We slept most of the morning and woke up starving.

There wasn't anything to eat in the guest house. There was half a bottle of my father's wine and a jar of my mother's terrible honey. Gregory stood in front of the open cupboard as though something might materialize in it if he looked at it with enough conviction.

"We have to go up to the house," he said finally.

"I know." I sighed, bracing myself for my parents.

"They're all going to be in the kitchen."