She tasted like sugar and coffee, and her skin was the softest, warmest, most sweet-smelling miracle of anatomy he’d ever encountered. He ran his hands up her back, unhooking the clasp of her bra, and then there was nothing between the skin of his chest and the skin of hers.

He could feel her nipples, hard and beaded, pressing against his chest, and it made him harder, made him tighten with want. He left her lips, kissing a trail down her neck, stopping to lick and suck lightly at the small hollow at the base of her neck. Running his lips across her skin, he breathed in her scent, and she ran her fingers through his hair, guiding his face to her breasts.

He took one hard pink nipple in his mouth, sucking on it greedily, and she arched up against him, sensitive and gasping. His fingers pinched her other nipple gently and she bucked lightly against his hand, her reaction to him making him twice as hard. He stroked her with his tongue, gently clasping the nub of sensitive flesh between his teeth before releasing it so he could pay attention to its twin. She moaned in the back of her throat, and her fingernails dug into his scalp with an urgency that made him slide his half-naked body back up along hers until his lips found hers again.

She caught his tongue between her teeth and nipped lightly until he caught hers, sucking on it until she whimpered, and his hands moved to the waistband of her jeans. He unbuttoned them quickly, hooked his thumbs through her pants and panties, and she pushed her body up off the bed so he could slide both down her legs.

He knelt over her for a moment, taking in the sight of her naked body, flushed and perfect, waiting for him. Her lips, her kiss-swollen lips, tilted up into a smile, and she leaned forward, unbuttoning his jeans and pulling down the zipper. She reached inside and her eyes whipped up to find his.

“Commando?” she asked with a short, surprised gasp, encircling his thick, rigid length with her fingers.

He pushed his jeans down over his hips, thanking every power in the universe that he’d rushed to get downstairs this morning, pulling on his jeans without boxers.

She held his pulsing sex in her hand, lightly rubbing her thumb back and forth over the sensitized tip, making him groan softly. He was quickly losing any tether on self-control, his senses in chaos. He took her wrist, gently pulling her hand away from his throbbing erection, and brought her fingers to his lips, touching them reverently as he drew her into his arms. He leaned her back so he could cover her body with his, reveling in the feeling of his skin against hers, his body lined up perfectly against hers, hard where she was soft, aching and impatient to finally be inside her.

“Are you sure you want this?” he asked again, reaching back for his jeans so he could find the wallet that held a condom. He didn’t have more than one, a circumstance he fully intended to remedy in the next few hours.

“I’m still on the pill,” she said tenderly, searching his eyes.

She may as well have thrown a bucket of cold water in his face.

Fuck. His heart dropped as he looked away from her. While he was pretty careful about who he’d been with, this was Violet. He wouldn’t put her in any danger until he was sure he could share his body with her safely.

“Oh,” she said softly, reading his eyes, disappointment flitting across her face as she bit her lower lip. Her cheeks colored pinker. “Oh.”

“It’s not like I’m with someone new every night, but . . .”

Her open mouth snapped shut, and her eyes filled with tears.

Shit! He groaned, rolling off her, lying beside her on the bed, trying to catch his breath. His body was taut, like a guitar string ready to snap, and every muscle, every cell, called out for him to bury his body inside of hers. But he didn’t have a right to touch her. He’d seen it on her face. He was willing to bet she hadn’t been with anyone since Shep died, and he’d had a slew of one-night stands over the past nine years.

He threw his arm over his eyes, angry with himself, frustrated by the way he pulsed with want for her. She was offering herself to him, and he couldn’t even get that right.

But then he felt the feather touch of her hand brushing his, peeling his fingers open and tugging the condom away. He opened his eyes to see her rip it open then straddle him, sitting on his thighs, leaning down to fit and roll it carefully over his rock-hard sex.

“Get tested,” she said gently.

His eyes burned, and he reached up to hold her hips, to knead his fingers into her pale, flushed skin, speechless with emotion, terribly in love with her for the second time in his life.

“Promise me,” she whispered.

“I promise,” he breathed. “As soon as possible.”

She grinned at him, leaning forward slightly to catch his lips in a quick kiss.

“Now,” she said, positioning her body over his. “Blow my mind.”

Her deep brown eyes held his, and she gasped as his hardness entered her, as he stretched her just a little, and she eased herself down onto him, achingly, almost unbearably slowly, taking inch by swollen inch of him, until he was almost completely lodged inside her. She made a small, satisfied moaning sound deep in her throat, then leaned her head back and sighed.

Zach held his breath as she leaned back and took him deeper into her body, finally exhaling when she was fully impaled on him, and he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.

He had a sudden flashback to nine years earlier when they’d both been inexperienced virgins clumsily finding each other in the dark, frantic and raw, fitting together with careful yet awkward imprecision.

This was separate. Unique. Unequaled. His body was perfectly matched to hers, as though she was the split-apart half of his flesh, of his soul, finally back together, finally whole. He moved inside her, the combination of her wet tightness and the rotation of her hips making him almost come like a teenager. He watched her breasts move up and down as she rode him, as he drove up into her body again and again, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer.

He sat up, cupping her ass and lifting her onto his lap, without breaking their connection. He wanted to feel closer to her, to hold her body flush against his and feel her in his arms as she lost herself in pleasure. He wanted to feel every tremble and gasp, hot against his neck. As her chest touched his, he slowed them down, clasping his arms around her and kissing her lips. She wound her arms around his neck, pulling him against her until breath couldn’t find space between them. His movements were deep and controlled as she arched herself against him to meet his upward thrusts again and again, small sounds in the back of her throat driving him crazy.

“Zach,” she moaned, her head dropping forward as her lips and teeth brushed the skin of his shoulder. “Zach, I want . . . I can’t hold on. I can’t . . .”

“Just let go, baby. Just let go. I’m right behind you.”

He felt her muscles tighten around him, her arms tauten with urgency. He reached up to steady her head, pressing his mouth to hers. He found her tongue, sucking on it as her back bowed and she shuddered in his arms. Her head fell back as she called out his name in a ragged sob. With one final thrust he let go with her, clasping her to him, her heart to his heart, trembling, shattering, falling apart in her arms, as he buried his head in her hair, as every muscle shuddered and contracted. They held one another tightly, desperately, bodies entwined, heads resting on each other’s shoulders and the only words in his head, in an unrelenting A-flat tone of absolute and total devotion were these:

I love her. I love her. I love her. I love her.

And this time, I will never let her go.

***

Violet woke up in Zach’s arms an hour later, physically sated, emotionally exhausted and unsettled. Deeply unsettled. She barely recognized the girl who’d just thrown caution to the wind, having wild, impulsive, passionate sex with a boy she’d loved long ago. Violet had said good-bye to that girl at Yale. Honestly, she’d almost forgotten that girl had existed, and now here she was, reasserting herself with abandon.

Unsettled, yes. But Violet also looked for regret, and it surprised her that she didn’t feel it. She didn’t regret what had just happened between them. It didn’t feel bad or wrong. It felt scary and risky, but freeing somehow, too. And familiar. Familiar like a forgotten song from long ago that takes you back to a moment the second you hear it. And you recognize who you were. Then. And now. And you have to figure out how to reconcile the two.

She took a deep, shaky breath and trembled lightly.

“Hey,” he said softly, stroking her hair.

“Hi. How long was I out?”

“An hour or so.” He reached out his hand, spreading his fingers to span her hip. It felt so intimate, which made no sense after what they’d just done. “I watched you sleep. I can’t remember the last time I did that, but you looked exactly the same. I could have watched you for hours.”

She tried to smile, but it didn’t feel right. It was forced. She bit her lip, trying to compose her face into an expression that didn’t look as wary and guarded as she felt. What she felt like doing was running out of the bedroom and up the stairs to her room, where she could think, where she could process what had just happened, where she could try to get her head around what was going on between them, and if it was real. And if it was real, whether it was something she actually wanted.

“I don’t do this,” she murmured. “I don’t do things like this.”

“Well, you did it really well,” he teased, gently stroking her face. His smile faded when she didn’t respond. “You’ve changed. You used to be more . . . carefree.”

“Yeah. Look where that got me.”

He winced, understanding her meaning perfectly. “I’m sorry, Vile.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said, trying to compose herself, wishing that she didn’t feel so confused, so at odds with herself.

“I was wondering,” he said with a slight grin, part of a new cockiness that disarmed her, “if I could take you out on a date tonight.”

It was the last thing she’d expected, and her thoughts scattered. “A date.”

“Uh-huh. You and me. A drive. Dinner in Bar Harbor. More catching up. More of this.”

And just like that, her distracted surprise turned back into nerves and worry.

“Or not,” he added, flinching as his hand slipped off her hip, breaking the contact between them.

“This is complicated, Zach.”

“I don’t think it is.”

She searched his eyes, letting her face reflect her true feelings: worry, distrust, wariness, confusion. Yes, and lust, too . . . and something else. Something from long ago that was trying to resuscitate itself, trying to gather itself together into a fully formed idea, a fully rebuilt feeling. She felt it deep inside, risky and dangerous, and College Violet wanted to explore it, as Sophie had suggested, even though Greenwich Violet was terrified of it.

Zach turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “It’s just a date, Vile. If you don’t want—”

“I do. I do want to.” Where did those words come from?

She propped her head up on her palm, looking at his face in profile, at the strong cheekbones and long lashes. At the empty piercings in his eyebrow, nose, and ears. He was so different from her. So different from how he used to be.

His lips tilted up in a tentative smile. “Sure?”

“On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“I have to work tomorrow. I have to. If I don’t . . .”

He smiled. “If you don’t, readers will never see Veronica and Nash finally end up together. And you know they’ve got to end up together, Vile.”

His teasing tone and the inadvertent reference to Shep soured the lift in her mood. “Not everything’s a joke, Zachariah. Some people struggle to create something, you know. They don’t get paid forty thousand dollars for songs they can pull out of their ass.”

“Money again.” He rolled his eyes. “You have changed.”

“Really.”

“Really. You didn’t look as chic in college, but you used to write because you loved to write. Those poems you wrote that fall? I actually have to keep myself from using them in every single song I write, Violet. Because none of the words I come up with are even half as beautiful as yours.”

Yeah, right. She knew exactly how good her poetry was–not good enough to score a poetry contract, that’s how good. “Well, poetry doesn’t pay the bills and that’s a fact.”

She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. She loved poetry, yes, but she couldn’t make a living writing it. It didn’t pay back your twenty thousand dollar advance when you were in breach of contract, either.

She could feel his disappointment when he asked, “What happened to you? Since when are you so money hungry?”

And just like that, the dam burst. “Since I signed a contract to write a book that I can’t write, okay? I can’t. I can’t write it. And I already spent the advance, so just—” She wasn’t crying, but her eyes watered as she said the words aloud, and she finished in a desperate rasp. She took a deep, shaky breath. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I blew the last chunk of my savings to be here. To leave the apartment I shared with Shep and to write the book I have to write. The book that has a dead hero. I’m supposed to imagine how wonderful life could have been and write a perfect happily ever after. And then I get here, and you’re here. And you’re making me forget who I am—”

“Maybe I’m making you remember, Vile.”

“—and you’re confusing me and distracting me with your regrets and your body and your beautiful music and your teasing and your mole.”

He rolled toward her, resting his cheek on his elbow. “My mole?”

She reached up to touch the tiny brown mole under his eye with the pad of her thumb. “Here. It’s my spot. It belongs . . .” She caught herself and started to lower her hand, but he intercepted her, moving her thumb back to where it had been on his face.

“Say it.”

“It’s an old poem. It wasn’t any good and I won’t remember it anyway.”

“Try.” His hand spanned her hip again, his callused, warm fingers gently moving on her skin like they would on guitar strings. She’d forgotten he used to do that.

“What are you playing?” she asked, her eyes softening as she lay down on her bent arm, watching him.

His gray eyes sparkled. “I don’t know. I only know it’s in D-flat major.”

“Like ‘Clair de Lune.’”

He nodded. “Tell me, Violet-like-the-flower. Tell me the poem.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, her thumb still pressed lightly to his cheek. It was a risk to share it with him, but she felt the words spill out of her mouth before she could stop them. Her voice was soft and deliberate, the words as much a part of her as her soul.

 

“Dark and gray and perfect and new

We don’t know, we know, we knew

And all I want forever

Is my spot.

It belongs to me.”

 

His hand glided up her hip to her waist, his fingers still playing a phantom melody that only he could hear. Her body grew warmer, more aware, more alive, empty and aching for him where she’d just been filled. And the little brown dot under her softly stroking thumb seemed to pulse like a heartbeat.

 

“Crayons and brown and shy and unsure

That she knows what she knows and she knows it for sure

A coda in time and it

Is my spot.

It belongs to me.”

 

His hand rested by her breasts, the heel pushing lightly into her softness, his fingers still changing and shifting on her back as the music played in his head, and she wished they lived in a bubble of now, where the next moment never arrived at all, and all they had until forever was this moment right now. His music. Her words. His body beside her.

 

“Denim and black and broken and cold

Expired, erased, a quiet takes hold

Of her heart and she sees and she

Hates but she knows

My spot

Never belonged to me.”

 

Her voice broke, and she moved her thumb away from him, sliding her hand gently down his face like the track of a tear.

He pulled her up against him roughly, her arms and breasts against his chest, her belly against his stomach, her soft curls against his erection, his legs entwined with hers. His eyes were closed, and he rested his forehead against hers, as his fingers on her back finally stilled.

His lips found hers, brushing them softly. “When did you write that?”

“That October,” she whispered, so close to him that the b in October made her lips touch his again.

The hand on the small of her back curled into a fist, as though all the regret in his whole body was channeled into that one spot.

“How many did you write?”

He pressed his lips to hers again, gently, though his fist remained taut on her back.

“A hundred or so,” she said. “More than the days we’d spent together.”

“What made you stop?” he asked.

She stared at him, waiting a beat, then two. “Shep.”

His fist unfurled.

***

He knew he had no right to the anger that coursed through his body when she uttered the name of her dead almost-fiancé. And yet. It was there. Zach had broken her heart, and Shep had repaired it. And there was no way to change that fact. She was right. This was complicated.

But then something occurred to him that wasn’t complicated, that was simple: She was here now. With him. Next to him. Right now.

“I want to make love to you again,” he said, nudging her hips with his.

“Do you have another . . .?”

“No.” He said it like a curse, like a dirty word.

Violet put her palms flat on his chest and pushed him away gently.

“Just let me hold you,” he protested in a grumble, tightening his arms around her, as his erection prodded her tummy.

She grinned at him, wise to his intentions, and he loosened his arms as she pushed again. “Not a good idea, Casanova.”

He watched her roll away and sit up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted for several hours, which sucked.

He sighed, reviewing the conversation that had led to her reciting ‘My Spot,’ and his eyes widened as a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. He leaned up on his elbow, watching her.

“So, the money,” he said softly. “It’s not really the issue. You’re not . . .”

She held a sheet over her breasts, but her back was bare as she looked at him over her shoulder, her sable hair all messy and her chestnut eyes wide and dark and inevitable. Never had a woman looked more insanely fuckable. Never. His erection tented the sheet draped lightly over him, even though there was nothing he could do about it right now. Later, however . . .

“I’m a grown-up, Zach. Grown-ups need money. I have bills, rent.”

“Yeah, fine. But you’re not chasing it. Money, I mean. It’s not your priority.”

“It’s a necessity, not an obsession.”

“You let me think it was important to you, that being with Smalley had somehow—”

“It just seemed easier.”

“For me to think you were shallow?”

“For you not to be interested. To avoid a fling.”

Oosh. A kick in the nuts might possibly have stung less. That superficial fucking word had no business between him and Violet.

“A fling?”

She shrugged and turned away, which made him want to shake her.

“Is that what you think this is?” he asked, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.

She glanced back at him, her voice soft and measured as though she were speaking to a child. “I have no idea what this is. Three days ago, you were a memory. Today, I’m in your bed.”

“But there are real feelings here.”

“Are there?” she asked softly, looking away from him. “I’m not sure about that. Maybe they’re only residual feelings. Old feelings that seem intense because of our history? We’ve both changed so much. We’re adults now. Do I feel something for you? Yes. What is it? I’m not really sure, Zach. I’m not even sure if it’s real. And you’d be lying if you said you were.”

“So what do we do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Really? You really want me to tell you what I want to do?”

She looked him in the eye and nodded.

He took a deep breath. Pouring out his heart didn’t come easily, never had, and he tensed before speaking.

“I don’t want you to go stay at the White Swan on Tuesday. I want you to stay here with me for the next two weeks. I want you to write poetry. I want to write music. Maybe we could even write a couple of songs together again. I want your head on my shoulder while I play you something beautiful, and I want my body buried inside yours ten times every night, and I want you to believe me when I say that once upon a time I loved you.”

“And then?” Her voice was a thread, a whisper of strangled sound.

He shook his head and hedged, chickening out. “I don’t know.”

She flinched before looking away from him, wrapping her arms around her body in that defensive gesture he was growing to hate. But it told him exactly what he needed to do: he needed to put himself out there, just as she had done so long ago, no matter how scary it was. He needed to offer himself to her with the full knowledge that she could reject him, pull on her jeans and walk away. He needed to give her the chance to be the one in control of their fate.

“Naw, that’s bullshit. I know what I want.” He licked his lips nervously before continuing. “All right, Vile. You ready?”

She looked up and nodded, meeting his eyes.

“I want a second chance. I want two weeks with you, and after two weeks, if you want to walk away from me, you walk. You go. At the end of two weeks, it’ll all be up to you. But I promise you, Violet, I will never walk away from you again.”

Her chest heaved lightly. “That’s a big promise to make. The classically trained musician’s now a heavy metal rocker, and the hippie poet’s now a suburban chick lit author.”

“That’s not all we are. You can’t generalize each of us into convenient clichés. I don’t buy it.” He ran his hand through his hair, frustrated with her. “There’s something here, Violet. Something real. I know it. Can’t you give it a chance?”

“We’ve changed. A lot. We’re really different now, Zach. You know, you might not still want me at the end of two weeks. You might want to walk away again. You shouldn’t make that promise to me.” Her voice was breathless, and he could hear an undercurrent of panic in it.

“I should make that promise,” he said, determined to hold her eyes, determined to show her he was in earnest. “I can. Because you’re all I’ve wanted for the past nine years. Because you’re all I want right this minute. It doesn’t matter if you dress differently and I got a few tattoos. Doesn’t matter if you write twenty chick lit books and insist that Greenwich is where you have to live forever. Nothing matters but you and me.”

And then the damnedest thing happened: Zach, who’d always had an impossible time acknowledging his feelings, let alone expressing them, realized that every word was true. And saying them felt a million times better than he ever thought it could. It was scary, sure, but it didn’t feel terrifying, like it had in college, when she told him she was in love with him. In fact, after years of holding it all inside, it felt like a relief. Like taking a breath after nearly drowning—a big, giant, grateful breath of the freshest, smoothest air the earth had to offer, and he wanted to fill his lungs until they matched the fullness of his heart.

She didn’t lower her arms, and her eyes stayed wary. But her lips didn’t harden. They didn’t straighten into an angry, untrusting line. Her next question—asked so quietly, it was almost as though she was talking to herself—surprised him.

“How do you know I won’t break your heart?”

“I don’t.” He shrugged, knowing that a chance with her was worth a broken heart. Knowing that fate cost something and he was willing to pay it. “But at least then we’d be even.”

She tilted her head to the side, her face serious and tentative and beautiful. “Two weeks.”

“Two weeks.”

She smiled. Small at first, then growing until her lips parted and she laughed softly, bowing her chin to her chest before looking back up at him. His breath caught because her eyes were happy. Her eyes were hopeful.

“Okay.”