Tell Me It’s Right (Sweetspire #1)

Chapter 50

Chapter Fifty

GRACIE—THREE MONTHS LATER

Well, it’s finally time.

I pushed it off for as long as I could, but there is no way I’m hitting the running trail out there today with snow flurries, wind, and twenty-degree weather.

It’s a little before 5:00 AM when I step into the apartment gym. I stifle a yawn as I grab a treadmill in the corner. One other person is on the opposite side of the small space doing dynamic warmup moves. I’ve seen her in here a few times when I’ve come at night for the weight section.

She smiles when I meet her eyes in the mirror, and I offer a smile back before increasing the treadmill speed to my warmup pace. It’s taken me a few months, but I’ve managed to get my miles under eight minutes for my longer runs.

Can’t wait to see Leo’s face when I beat him for the first time ever at the family turkey trot this year. I’ll never be able to do the distances he can, but he’s never been particularly fast.

By the time I’m showered and ready for the day, it’s nearly seven. I pack up my work bags, throw on a few extra layers to fight the cold, then brace myself for my walk to the coffee shop halfway between my apartment and Bezzels.

“Hey, Gracie,” says Kayla, the barista, as I step through the door and shake off the snow clinging to my jacket. “Usual?”

I blow on my hands as I approach the counter, trying to thaw them out. “Make it hot today, please.”

It’s a lot quieter in here today—maybe people heading out of the city early for the holidays. Or maybe their companies were a little more generous giving them the entire week off. No such luck for me.

I smile and drop some change into the tip jar as Kayla hands me my coffee, then slide into my usual table in the back corner, which is, thankfully, as far from the cold draft of the door as possible.

One by one, I pull my things out of my bag and set them on the table in my well-practiced routine—laptop, planner, notebook, pens. I set the timer on my phone so I don’t spend too much time in one area. I only have about an hour and a half before the day job—no time to get distracted.

I start with checking emails and DMs as usual, replying to current and prospective clients. Considering I just wrapped my largest project I’ve had to date last week, this doesn’t take long. Then I switch over to monitoring my ads, double-checking my calendar, due dates, invoices, and spreadsheets, before using the rest of my time for content creation.

Most of it is for my website and socials, trying to market the business and draw in new clients, but I do have a few lingering client pieces—mostly full-time influencers Marti introduced me to who don’t want to edit their own photos or make thumbnails for their videos. Those projects don’t pay much, but they don’t take much time either, and I’m not in the position to turn anything down right now.

My goal is to transition to mostly working with small businesses. I’ve only worked with a few so far. Liam’s shop, Consign Couture—the thrift shop Sloane introduced me to— and Body by Brittany—a personal trainer in my apartment who wanted to expand to offering online video memberships. But in the meantime, I’ll take all the additions to my portfolio and testimonials I can get.

And the extra income. I can’t say no to that. It’s the only way I can justify these daily overpriced coffees. Nearly every other penny goes toward my student loans and savings until I build a big enough safety net to feel comfortable quitting Bezzels. If I was still making what I was at Liam’s, I’d be a lot further along.

My fingers freeze over the keyboard.

It’s gotten to the point where I can go hours without thinking about him. Not quite days, but nearly. But sometimes a thought will creep in there and hit me like a punch to the stomach.

My gaze drifts to the date in the corner of the screen. My heart rate kicks up, and it isn’t from the caffeine.

“Gracie,” calls Kayla.

I blink, the rest of the shop coming into focus, then glance at the timer on my phone.

Shit.

“Thank you!” I wave at her, shove everything into my bag, and hurry down the street for work.

I end up driving to Jersey the morning of Thanksgiving instead of the day before to avoid the snow. Usually we do the turkey trot the morning of, but everyone agreed in the family group chat to push it to Friday since it looked like the storm would pass by then. When I pull into the driveway, I hesitate a moment before getting out, wondering if I somehow managed to end up at the wrong house.

An eerily identical, but clearly not my family’s, house.

Festive is not a strong enough word. Decorated doesn’t begin to cover it.

The house has been ambushed.

Autumn leaf garlands are wrapped around the porch railing, and little trios of fake orange and white pumpkins are arranged every few feet. Stained-glass turkeys hang from every single window in the house, along with white and orange twinkly lights.

I didn’t even know there were people who decorated for Thanksgiving, but if there are, I know without a shadow of a doubt it’s not my family.

I climb out of the car with my store-bought pie and tilt my head to the side, taking in the twinkling acorn-shaped lights surrounding the front door. Where does one procure acorn lights?

Judging by the number of cars in the drive, not everyone is here yet.

At least, there’s one noticeable truck missing.

Or is it? Maybe he’s not planning on coming at all.

We didn’t get into the details of what would happen today, and we haven’t exchanged a word since all those months ago. I didn’t realize how much I was counting on him being here until that sinking feeling in my stomach hits.

What if he doesn’t come?

Am I supposed to reach out?

Will he?

Snapping myself out of it, I hurry and let myself through the door.

The inside was not spared either. Every inch of space is covered in lights, turkeys, acorns, pine cones, pumpkins, and leaves. Even the entryway rug has been replaced with an orange-and-white-checkered runner.

“Mom?” I call.

“Oh, Gracie! Hi, honey! Kitchen!”

The house is about a million degrees, so I shrug off my vest and leave it on the entry bench. I hadn’t thought ahead enough for today’s outfit, so I’m wearing the same sweater, skirt, and boots combo as last year.

I grimace as I round the corner and take in the kitchen counter. Seems everyone else decided to bring a pie too.

Mom smiles with an oven mitt on each hand. “Oh, that’s perfect! We don’t have an apple one!”

The decorations continue in here. I’m afraid to look in the dining room.

I eye my mother as she pulls a casserole from the oven. Is this her doing? Some kind of eccentric midlife crisis?

“Okay, place settings are good to go! You did say nine, right?”

The clack of her high heels proceeds her entrance, but then there she is—Liam’s stepmom. In my house. On Thanksgiving. Looking like she just stepped out of a Hallmark movie in a burnt orange jumpsuit and wide-brimmed hat.

“Yes, nine!” Mom smiles as she whips off the oven mitts. “Gracie, you’ve met Christine, right?”

I force my jaw shut. “Uh, yeah.”

“I hope you don’t mind that Liam let us tag along,” says Christine.

My brain doesn’t know what word to latch on to first.

Liam.

Us.

So he is coming. I don’t know quite what to make of the nerves that buzz around in my stomach like insects at the news.

I do the mental math. Nine people? Mom, Dad, Leo, Keava, and I make five.

Her, Liam, and…

“The house down the street has a blow-up turkey!” Liam’s little brother Casey skids around the corner, his socks sliding on the wood floor. He barely acknowledges anyone else in the room, his eyes locked on his mom. “Why didn’t we bring one of those?”

Christine pats his head. “Next year.”

Ah, so they’re responsible for the house looking like a craft store. I should’ve known.

My eyes dart the way Casey had come, but there’s no one else there.

“Christine had a wonderful idea,” says Mom, drawing my attention to her. “Everything that’s safe for you to eat is on a white plate. The red ones have meat.”

I eye the spread covering every inch of the kitchen, my heart warming at the number of white plates. It seems there are two versions of everything.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say quietly.

“Oh, I had plenty of help! Now can you start carrying these into the dining room? We’re starting in twenty minutes!”

Christine and I get to work laying the dishes along the runner in the center of the table. Every time I head to the kitchen for another plate, by the time I make it back, she’s rearranged everything I brought in the previous trip. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye as I set the final bowl of cranberry sauce down.

I’ve never spent much time around her, and definitely not alone. I don’t know if I’ve ever realized how young she is. She looks far too expensive and polished to be in this house. And as far as I know, despite Liam’s love for Casey, he and Christine have never been close. So why ? —

“Casey’s father and I are getting a divorce,” she says without looking at me.

I freeze.

“I don’t speak with my family. Casey and I were going to spend today at the hotel we’ve been living out of, until Liam…well, I hope you don’t mind that he invited us.”

“Of course not.”

The entire house reverberates as the front door bangs open and several sets of feet kick off shoes in the entrance. “We’re back! We’re back!” calls Leo. “Crisis averted!”

I glance sideways at Christine. “Crisis?”

She smirks. “Your brother forgot the alcohol at home.”

Alcohol. Thank God.

“Not sure you have enough there, man.”

My body does a full reset at the sound of his voice.

Someone scoffs. “This whole case is just for him.” Is that Asher?

“Excuse me,” I murmur before hurrying in the opposite direction of the voices and slipping into the bathroom.

The voices continue, muffled behind the door, punctuated with the occasional laugh. My hands tremble as I fill them with water in the sink, focusing on the cold against the inside of my wrists.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about this day. Dreamed about it.

Had nightmares about it.

Three months is a long time. A lot can happen. A lot can change. I know I’ve changed.

It’s longer than we were together in the first place, though it doesn’t feel like it. That summer feels like it lasted forever.

But I’m not na?ve. The distance, the time, the no contact—it could have given him clarity. Made him realize he was just swept up in the moment with me.

He could have changed his mind by now.

He could have moved on.

And it would be my own damn fault because I asked for this.

I stare at my reflection for a moment, but only a moment, before shoving the door open without giving myself a chance to think about it.

“What is tofurkey ?” Casey asks.

“Turkey without the turkey,” Leo says as he reaches across the table to load his plate with gravy.

Casey’s nose scrunches as I pull a piece of the offending dish onto my plate. “Then what is it?”

“Mostly tofu,” I say.

His nose scrunches further.

Unsurprisingly, no one else touches the dishes made for me. That is, until Liam clears his throat, rises slightly out of his chair near the opposite end of the table, and slides a piece onto his plate too. Which, now that I’ve gotten a better look at it, is nearly identical to mine. He hasn’t taken any of the regular dishes.

I meet his eyes for the first time tonight as he sits down.

And suddenly there’s no one else at the table. There’s no one else in the room. He doesn’t smile as he holds my gaze, but the look in his eyes softens, and it does criminally unfair things to my stomach.

“Liam, Asher, you guys staying for the game?” my dad asks around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the dynamic between Liam and his brother seems…different now. I guess Asher’s presence here in the first place is a testament to that. He’s never spent holidays with us before. It shows in the way he carries himself—smiling and laughing along with everyone else, but with a hint of discomfort in the tension in his shoulders, like he’s somewhere he doesn’t quite belong.

“Act civilized!” Mom swats Dad’s arm with the back of her hand. “We have company!”

“I want to watch!” says Casey.

“You like football, Casey?” asks Leo.

Casey nods vigorously.

Christine leans over and murmurs in my ear, “He has never once sat through more than ten minutes of a game.”

I press my lips together to hold in my laugh.

The conversation quickly devolves into compliments for Mom’s cooking, and it doesn’t take long for people to finish their plates. Or to go back for seconds, and thirds… It’s all so damn good that even I can’t help myself from piling more on my plate despite my stomach screaming at me that it can’t take any more.

Leo clears his throat and glances around the table with an uncharacteristic nervousness as he lays his hand over Keava’s on the table.

“We actually have something we want to tell you all.” He glances sideways at his wife, and she gives him a supportive nod.

My eyes widen in realization as Leo opens and closes his mouth a few times, like he’s fighting for the words.

“We’re having a baby,” Keava cuts in with a laugh. “I’m due in June.”

The table erupts with noise, and Mom all but breaks down in tears as she hurries to embrace Keava.

I give it a few minutes for everyone else to complete their fawning before rising from my chair to give Leo a hug.

“Good thing I’m not camping out in your basement anymore then, huh?”

“Are you kidding?” says Keava. “I would’ve killed for the babysitting help.”

“Oh, I still have first dibs on babysitting.” I hug her next. “Congratulations.”

I slip into the kitchen as Dad starts some monologue about the first Collins grandchild, not sure why the smile I’m forcing feels so heavy. I get to work rinsing the dishes in the sink just to have something to do with my hands and try to shake off this weird feeling clinging to me.

“Here, I got it.” Liam slides in on my right and takes the stack of plates to load in the dishwasher.

“Thanks,” I murmur, probably too quietly to hear over the surrounding chaos.

He says nothing else, and neither do I. This is the first moment we’ve been alone today, and it has adrenaline coursing through my body as if I’m about to jump out of an airplane. Somehow he went from the person I was the most comfortable around to making me so nervous I feel like I’m about to be sick. I can’t tell if it feels the same for him—if he’s feeling much of anything at all right now. His expression is normal, calm. We work in silence as I rinse each dish then hand it to him.

It’s so hot in here from the oven being on all morning, and standing this close to Liam isn’t helping. God, I feel like I can’t breathe. And every time I feel him look at me, the tightness in my chest gets worse.

Once the bulk of the work is done and people start drifting to the couch, Liam tilts his head toward the back door. Oh God, this is happening now. I nod and step onto the patio first, desperately breathing in the cold air.

The noise fades to the background as the door closes behind me, and I pace away from the view of the windows and shake out my hands, trying to calm myself. I crane my head back as a few flurries find their way to my cheeks. It’s barely snowing now, just some stray flakes swirling in the breeze.

Christine decorated here too, though it’s not as gaudy as the front of the house. Orange string lights are wound around the railing and a few of the trees in the yard. It makes everything glow. Even I have to admit, something about it feels magical and warm.

The chatter inside doubles in volume as the door opens again. His footsteps crunch softly through the snow as he makes his way toward me. Wordlessly, he drapes his jacket over my shoulders.

I turn to meet his eyes. I don’t know what I expect to see there—indifference, discomfort.

Anything but this soft warmth. Like nothing happened. The way he looked at me before.

I curl my fingers around his jacket and pull it tighter around me. “Thank you.”

He bobs his head once and steps up beside me against the railing, not quite touching me but close enough it makes me ache that he’s not.

“How are you?” I ask. “How’s the shop been doing?”

He cracks half a smile. “Promise I haven’t screwed up all your hard work yet. How have you been? How’s the job?”

I bump his shoulder with mine. “I know you’re being modest. I’ve seen how well it’s doing.”

“Ah, so you’ve been stalking me.” He grins like he’s genuinely delighted by this. “And I happen to know things have been going pretty well for you too. At least based on your website and the reviews.” He tilts his head. “And all the additions to your portfolio.”

My chest warms, melting away a layer of the nerves. He’s been keeping tabs on me too. “Oh, so now who’s the stalker?”

His grin widens, but the amusement in his eyes fades. “But how have you been, really?”

Embarrassment tinges the tops of my ears as I remember the last time we talked—when I was a sobbing, blubbering mess. “A lot better. The day job still sucks, but my business is growing every month, so I’m hopeful about where it could go. I’ve made some friends. Gotten into a routine. It’s good.”

“I’m glad,” he says softly.

I turn toward him and lean my side against the railing. “You skipped my how are you doing question.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and blows the air out of his cheeks. “Good. Learning how to delegate more. Promoted one of my artists to help manage the shop so I don’t have to be there every day. Shop is turning a profit now.” He winces and scratches the back of his neck. “Started going to therapy.”

Half a dozen follow-up questions are on the tip of my tongue, but I bite them back, not sure if it’s my place to ask anymore. “I think that’s great, Liam,” I say instead.

He squints in the distance and clears his throat. “I don’t know if you heard about Christine and my dad.”

“She mentioned they’re getting divorced.”

“Casey’s taking it pretty hard. So I’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”

I nod slowly, the pieces clicking into place. He told me months ago that Casey had started getting into trouble. Who knows how long things were tense in that house before they actually filed?

“Are you, um, have you been seeing anyone?”

My stomach does a somersault. “No,” I say quietly. “I’m not seeing anyone.” I hold his eyes, wanting to know— needing to know—but I can’t bring myself to ask. Because this is what I’ve been afraid of all day. The wrong answer will break me. If he’s already moved on, if the time apart has changed his perspective, and now when he looks back at that summer, what we had has been reduced to some fleeting, exciting fling. Just a stepping stone to help him get back out there after Hailey.

I swallow hard and look away.

“Me neither.”

My head snaps to look at him, the relief enough to choke on.

Neither of us says anything for what feels like a long time. We just take each other in. He’s lost a bit of his tan, and he must have cut his hair recently. The dark waves barely brush his ears now. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. If I look different to him now. If he’s spent more nights than not with me in his dreams the way I have, wondering if my brain has started to lose all the little details of him.

“Are you happy?” he asks. “In the city?”

There’s more weight to his question than the simple words imply. This is the chasm between us.

Because I want him back. That’s never changed. But I can’t help but wonder, would it feel any less like limbo than it did before? Long distance with no end in sight? A relationship broken into bits and pieces—a few hours here, a weekend there—never quite fitting into each other’s lives completely? Because it’s about more than just the physical distance between us now. It’s the directions our lives are heading. The lifestyles we want to lead. If those will ever align again.

I meet his eyes, and I’m frozen, unable to lie to him. My voice comes out small. “I am. Are you happy?”

He gives me a small smile. “I’m getting there. Is this still…” He gestures between us. “Is this still something you want to talk about?”

There are so many things I’m desperate to say to him right now. How much I’ve missed him. How good it is to see him. How sometimes, on the harder days, I curl up in one of his T-shirts even though it stopped smelling like him months ago.

But even now that we’ve hit our deadline, I don’t know what to say because so much has changed, but so much hasn’t. I don’t feel ready to come home yet. The homesickness is still there a lot of the time, but the city has grown on me too, just like everyone said it would. There are so many parts I would miss if I left.

And my mom was right about a lot of things. I don’t think I would’ve been able to come as far as I have in such a short period of time without being a little selfish. All of my time, all of my focus, has been on me. And now that I know what that feels like…well, I don’t know if I’m ready to give that up. If it would even be possible for me to have both.

If this new version of me is someone Liam would want anymore.

Because there’s something else my mom said that’s been playing on repeat in my mind for months.

He is never going to leave this town.

He might wait around for you to come back, but he won’t move forward into this new phase of your life with you.

But none of that logic does anything to extinguish the bone-deep ache inside of me that I’ve never felt for anything other than him.

Laughter inside draws our attention to the window.

“Liam!” calls Casey. “ Liiiiam! ”

I wave a hand in front of my face. “It’s okay. It can wait.”

A troubled line deepens in his forehead as he searches my face, but he nods and takes a step back.

He’s nearly to the house by the time I find my voice. “Liam?—”

“Gracie—” he says at the same time, pausing a pace from the door. His jaw works like he’s arguing with himself over his next words. He settles on: “You look beautiful.”

My fingers tighten around his jacket, not ready to let it go yet. I stare at him, silently, desperately, because there is nothing I can say right now that would be fair. Nothing that will ease this gaping hole in my chest that’s my own doing.

It’s stupid, what I’m feeling. Selfish. Unreasonable. This is what I wanted. This is what I chose. And I don’t feel any closer to having an answer for him than I did months ago.

But seeing him in person, if I made any progress over the last few months, it’s long gone now.

His footsteps crunch through the snow, harder and faster this time.

I barely have a chance to pull in a breath before he has my face between his hands, and then he kisses me.

My hands fist in his shirt. I stumble back a step, and he follows, his body caging me in against the railing and his hips pressing into mine. I all but moan as his tongue sweeps into my mouth.

I can’t stop. I kiss him back just as desperately, both of us barely coming up for air. I’ve imagined touching him, feeling him, tasting him a thousand times since we last spoke, but it’s nothing in comparison to the real thing.

I trail my hands everywhere I can reach—his face, his hair, his neck, his chest, his arms, like I need to feel every part of him before I can convince myself this is real. That it’s not just another dream.

I don’t know how I end up in his truck, if he initiates or I do. It’s parked far enough back on the property that it’s shrouded in shadow from the surrounding trees and I can barely hear the music from the house once we’re inside.

This is a bad idea.

We should stop.

We should be talking.

I say none of these things as I push him onto his back and climb onto his lap in the back seat. He grips my hips and stares up at me with parted lips, his chest rapidly rising and falling with his breath. I bring my lips to his before he can say it either. He groans into my mouth as I grind against him.

Nothing, nothing has taken the edge off missing him but this. And maybe it’ll hurt more after, but I think I’m desperate enough to take that risk.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he breathes. His fingers tangle in my hair as he deepens the kiss and takes over control. Holding my back with one arm and my head with the other, he flips us so I’m on the seats and he’s crouched over me in the small space. I keep my legs wrapped around his waist as his mouth finds my neck, my jaw, my collarbones.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he asks in a voice so rough and low that I feel it down to every cell in my body.

Liam Brooks kisses me like he was made for it. Like it’s the one thing he knows how to do and he’s spent his entire life perfecting it. He’s an expert in exactly how to touch me, exactly what to say to make me burn, exactly how to make the rest of the world turn off.

“Gracie, I need you to tell me if you want me to?—”

“Don’t stop,” I pant, my hands shaking as I unfasten his belt. “Please, God, don’t stop.”

His lips crash against mine before I can finish the sentence, and he shoves my skirt up to my waist. We both frantically try to pry my tights down my legs, but we keep bumping into each other in the small space. My head hits his collarbone, and his chin clips the top of my shoulder. My knee knocks beneath his ribs, and his other hand gets caught in my hair as he tries to balance himself against the seat.

I let out a laugh as he finally manages to get the tights off, and by the time he positions himself over me, we’re both completely out of breath.

He slides his hands from my hips to my ribs beneath my dress, and I hiss.

“God, your hands are cold.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” He readjusts on the seat, then glances around the truck, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “I don’t know if this…”

“Don’t say it.”

“Hold on.” He wedges his arm around the front passenger seat and hits the control for the seat to move forward as far as it can. He lowers to his knees in the cramped space, grabs my hips, and pulls me to the end of the seat.

I sigh and let my head fall back against the seat…but his touch doesn’t come.

I prop myself on my elbows to see him breathing into his cupped hands. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure my hands aren’t cold!”

My laugh starts small—just a breathy giggle, but it builds uncontrollably, and then Liam is laughing too, and God, his laugh is so fucking contagious. I’ve missed it. I’ve missed it so goddamn much.

Even after moving the seat, the angles are all wrong for what he’s trying to do, so he leans over me again, his lips brushing mine as he murmurs, “Get on your hands and knees for me.”

I don’t know what it says about my current desperation that I do it without hesitation. And Liam sure as hell doesn’t hesitate before pushing my skirt up, grabbing my legs with both hands to spread my thighs wider, and then his tongue?—

“Oh my God,” I moan.

He devours me like a man starved, and I dig my fingernails into the seat just trying to hold on.

“As much as I love hearing you,” he breathes against the back of my thigh as he works a finger inside of me, then a second. “I need you to be quiet for me this time.”

I blink, almost having forgotten where we were. A wave of ice rushes over me at the thought of anyone in my family…

“I’m keeping an eye out. You’re okay.” He dives back in, but not before murmuring, “As if I’d ever let anyone but me see you like this.”

I let out a hiss through my teeth to keep from moaning as his tongue works agonizingly slow and firm circles against my clit while his fingers curl inside me. It’s going to become blatantly clear how embarrassingly desperate I’ve been for this in about thirty seconds if he keeps it up.

But sensing it—because of course he does—he backs off, then I feel his touch leave me completely. I look at him over my shoulder as he rifles through his pants pockets, then the truck center console. If he can’t find a condom, I think I’m far gone enough at this point to say fuck it. But then he locates his wallet, and the crinkle of foil tearing fills the quiet.

“It’s a damn shame I can’t take my time with you the way I want to right now.” He leans over me until his chest presses against my back as he lines himself up with my entrance, his lips brushing my ear as he says, “You sure about this?”

The words feel heavier than every time he’s asked me before, but I know without a doubt that my answer would be the same, no matter which meaning I chose.

“Yes,” I gasp.

He pushes inside slowly, inch by inch, and it steals what little air was left in my lungs. He presses his forehead to the center of my back with a muffled groan as he holds on to the seat above my head for balance with one hand, the other winding around my hips to rub my clit.

I whimper as he gradually picks up his pace, his thrusts slow and deep. I’ve never taken him like this before and didn’t realize how different it would feel.

“You doing okay?” he whispers.

“Much…much better…than okay,” I manage between gulps of air.

I can feel his smile as he kisses the back of my neck, then my cheek.

“You feel better than I remembered. If that’s even possible.”

His fingers keep the same pace, but he drives into me harder, faster, and I squeeze my eyes shut, my nails probably leaving behind marks in his seats as I helplessly careen toward the edge.

“Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed about making you come again?” he murmurs.

I duck my head between my shoulders, desperately needing to move more, but there’s no room, so my hands scramble against the seats. Liam’s hand falls on top of mine, holding it there.

“Have you touched yourself since you’ve been gone?” he rasps.

Every breath in my lungs is like fire, each growing shorter and faster.

“Have you?” he demands.

“Yes.”

“And what did you think about while you did?”

He thrusts into me harder, deeper, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out.

“You,” I all but whimper.

He grabs my chin between his thumb and pointer finger, turning my face to meet his. His eyes burn into mine. “Only tell me that if it’s the truth.”

“It is.”

His mouth lands on mine as every last muscle in my body coils to its breaking point, and he swallows every sound I make as I fall apart in his arms. I feel it the moment he finishes too, his body slackening against mine, and for a moment, only our ragged breaths fill the car.

He doesn’t move, not at first. He just brushes my hair over my shoulder and gently kisses the back of my neck. My eyes fall shut, and I revel in the warmth of his chest pressed against my back, never wanting to break the contact.

But then all too soon, he sits back, pulls my skirt down, and grabs my tights from the floor. “Maybe we should talk now?”

I chuckle and take the tights from him. “Yeah. I guess so.”