The evening was perfect so far, everything I wanted for Emme.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was luminous in the candlelight, her blue eyes on fire, her red lips beckoning. Every time she took a bite of something, I watched her mouth, thinking about all the ways she used it on me. I imagined that red lipstick smeared on my cock, and got so hard I nearly asked for the check before the appetizer was gone. But it wasn’t only her mouth turning me on.

Her hands distracted me too. I’d watch them wrap around her cocktail glass or slowly butter a piece of bread or pop an olive from her martini between her lips, and a memory would hit me from the last two weeks—her fists tightening in my hair, her nails raking down my back, her fingers clutching at my shoulders, my arms, my ass. My hardened flesh sliding against her palms as her tongue stroked my chest, the unabashed way her hands explored every part of me, her fingers seeking out hidden places that made my body tremble and my vision fade. I’d had the most intense orgasms of my entire life with her, and I’d never even taken her to bed. Not properly, anyway.

Tonight would change all that, even if it was only for a couple hours.

Not that it was all about sex with Emme and me. It wasn’t. It never had been. In a way, that would have been much easier for me to deal with. But somehow, right from the start—actually before the start—I had known it would be different with her. She and I already had a connection, and it wasn’t based on sex. So I couldn’t start from there with her and simply keep it at the physical level, which for me was surface level. Things had never been just surface level with Emme. We’d cared about each other before we’d had sex. That was the difference.

That was the scary thing.

Because the sex only strengthened the original connection. Built it into something more. I felt something for her I had never felt for anyone. It was strange and foreign in a way, like it didn’t really belong to me, yet it was deeply rooted inside me. Every night when she went back to her apartment, it felt like a loss. I was constantly thinking about when I would see her again, the things we would do, what I could say to make her laugh. She was so easy to be with, so understanding of my erratic moods and silences, so free with her thoughts and feelings, even as I struggled to open up about mine. And she never pushed me too hard.

She deserved more of me than I was giving, I knew that for certain.

But I had no idea where to start.

After dinner, I asked her if she’d like to have dessert up in our room.

Her face lit up. “We have a room?”

Twenty minutes later, I was unlocking the door to our temporary private oasis, and holding it open for her. Emme went straight to the window while I hung the Do Not Disturb sign and turned the lock.

“Oooh,” she said, placing one palm on the glass. “Look at this view of the city.”

I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. “I’m sure it’s great, but I don’t give a fuck about the city tonight. Or anyone or anything outside this room. And the only view I want to see encompasses every square inch of your naked body.”

She laughed a little, low and deep at the back of her throat. “You might change your mind when you see what I’m wearing under this dress.”

I groaned, moving her hair aside so I could kiss her neck, and she tilted her head. Her skin was warm and satin smooth under my tongue. My hands moved over her breasts, down her stomach and up the sides of her thighs before undoing the little belt at her waist. Then I worked my way up the buttons on her chest. When they were undone, she turned to face me, raising her arms. I lifted the dress from the hem up over her head and tossed it onto a chair near the window.

When I saw what she was wearing, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. My dick, already hard, twitched excitedly in my pants. “Oh my God. You’re so fucking hot. Don’t move, I need to turn a light on.”

“I’ve got it.” She went over to the lamp by the chair and switched it on, turning her skin from ivory to gold, her lingerie from black to red, and my desire from hot to molten. She walked toward me again in her heels. “Like it?”

All I could do was nod. She took my breath away.

She smiled as she reached me and twined her arms around my neck, pressing close. “Good. Now let’s not waste any more time.”

Fuck, it was hard not to rush—knowing we only had a couple hours made us anxious to take advantage of every minute. I swear to God she wanted me inside her for every one of them, she begged and pleaded, teased and tempted. She used her hands, her mouth, her voice, her breasts, her hips, her hair, even her little red-painted toes to drive me wild. I held off as long as I could, because I knew once I was buried within her, there would be no holding back. And as desperate as I was to give her what she wanted—what we both wanted—I was just as determined to savor every single moment. I wanted to slow down, commit everything to memory. The sight of her lying back against snow-white sheets. The feel of that lace against my lips. The sound of her uninhibited cry of abandon as I brought her to orgasm, first with my fingers, then with my tongue.

She protested the second one. “No, stop,” she panted, trying to pull me up. “I want to come together. I feel so close to you when that happens.”

“We will,” I promised, kissing a path up her inner thigh.

“Not if you do it with your mouth next. I can’t come three times.”

“Want to bet?” I’d settled between her legs, ready to test her limits with my skill. For good measure, I’d used my hand again too, and she’d come within minutes, bucking wildly beneath me on the bed, her fingers clenching the sheets.

“Nate,” she whimpered afterward, her skin warm and damp, her breath short and quick. “Please. Please. I need to be that close to you.”

I lifted my head from between her thighs, her taste lingering on my tongue, and moved up her body. I needed it too. Emotionally, maybe I couldn’t give her all of me, but physically I’d give her everything and beyond. I wanted to do things for her and with her I’d never done before, and maybe it was because I felt guilty about closing off other parts of myself, but maybe, maybe this was the only language I spoke fluently. The only way I could convince her of what she meant to me.

I knew I should get up and get a condom, but I didn’t. I paused right before entering her, and we locked eyes. She knew what I was asking.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s what I want, too. And we’re safe.”

As insane as it sounds, I felt safe. Safe and strong and powerful. Protective and protected. And I realized, as I began to move inside her, our hands clasped above her head, her legs wrapped around me, what it truly meant to trust someone. After my childhood, I’d lost the ability to trust, and she’d brought it back.

Feelings for her overwhelmed me. With my eyes pinned on hers, I watched her spiral upward once more, watched her surrender to everything she felt and all the passion she evoked in me. I saw agony and pleasure intertwine on her face, felt her body tense beneath me, listened to her say my name, softly at first and then louder, louder, louder, until she was shouting and gasping and wrenching her hands free to pull me in deeper and deeper as she came and I held nothing back, gave her everything, everything, everything I had, felt it flowing from me into her, my body, my heart, my soul, my trust.

I fell on top of her, and rolled to my side, taking her with me. We kissed and clung to one another, my mind a mad jumble of unspoken thoughts I wanted to give voice to but couldn’t. There were so many things I needed to tell her. But my head—it was spinning. Or was that the room? The world? The universe?

I needed something to anchor me in the chaos that had become my life. I needed to feel like I was going to be okay. Because this room, this private little corner of heaven, wasn’t ours to keep. We had to turn the key in when we left, and we had to leave soon. And out there, nothing was certain. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know who to become.

I didn’t know how to let myself love someone.

But maybe it was time to try.

“What time is it?” she whispered. We were lying on our sides, facing each other on the bed, our legs still twined.

I picked up my head and looked at the digital clock on the nightstand behind her. “Almost eleven.”

She sighed. “I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t either.”

“But we should.”

“Yes.”

She started to get up and I put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait one minute. There’s something I want to tell you.”

She stretched out again with her head on the pillow, her hands tucked beneath her cheek. “Okay.”

For a moment, I panicked. How did you tell a girl you were falling in love with her? That she was part of what was changing your world—and you—for the better? That you might be an emotionally stunted, jaded divorce lawyer and completely inept as a dad and boyfriend, but there was a good reason for that and you were going to try harder to deserve her faith and trust?

No. That was no good.

I had to go back to the beginning.

I reached for one of her hands and took it in mine between us, just like she’d done to me the first night she’d slept over. My first night with Paisley. She hadn’t abandoned me then, and I hoped she wouldn’t now.

“I lied to you,” I said.

She blinked, her expression blank. “What?”

“I lied to you. About not having any siblings. I had a brother.”

“You did?”

I nodded, my throat closing. “His name was Adam.”

“What happened?”

“He died when he was nine. Leukemia. I was twelve.”

Her eyes grew shiny. “Oh, Nate.”

“It pretty much destroyed me. It destroyed all of us.” I wiped at my eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

“Of course it did. I don’t know how you get over something like that.”

“You don’t.”

“Were you close?” she asked softly.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Best friends, probably. Like my sisters and me.”

After a moment, I found my voice by thinking about pain other than mine. “We’d been a perfectly normal, happy family before that. And then afterward…my mother developed her obsessive fears about germs and crowds and touching things. She blamed them for Adam’s death—of course, that wasn’t the truth. What she really blamed was herself. But she couldn’t handle that. She tried to externalize it. It was the only way to deal with her grief and guilt. Eventually she disappeared into her fears. The mother I’d known was gone.”

Emme nodded and wiped her eyes. “What about your dad?”

“He drank his sorrow. Abandoned us emotionally if not physically. He died of heart disease three years ago but the man I remember as Dad was gone long before that.”

“And you?” she asked, another tear slipping from the corner of her eye. “How did you cope? You lost everyone, didn’t you?”

My throat seized up again. I focused on our joined hands. “I promised myself I would never love anyone that much again.”

“Of course you did.”

“I wanted to protect myself. I thought if I never loved anyone like that, I couldn’t get hurt again. I wouldn’t have to be afraid.”

A few more tears trickled from her eyes.

“It’s why I’ve never wanted to have a relationship. Why I’ve never wanted to get married. Why I never even considered being a father.”

She nodded. “And now?”

“Now there’s Paisley.” I took a breath. “And I love her more every day. It’s like my love for Adam was—pure and simple and effortless. Unconditional. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing as a father, but I love her and I’m trying.”

“It’s enough, Nate.” She brushed my hair off my forehead. “You’re doing more than a lot of guys would in your shoes.”

“It’s not enough. It’ll never feel like enough. Because it will never make up for the fact that I didn’t want her.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I feel so fucking guilty about that.”

“Stop.” She propped her head up on her hand. “You don’t have to feel guilty about that. You would have wanted her if you’d known.”

I opened my eyes and stared at her.

“Okay, maybe not right away, but…” She grabbed my hand again. “You would have been excited eventually. Look at you now, after only two weeks. Can you imagine your life without her?”

“Frankly, yes. It’s my old life. I fucking miss it. I mean, I don’t want to give her up, but I miss it. I miss me, who I was—I wasn’t afraid of anything. I was on top of the world. Now it’s spinning out of control around me, and I’m a fucking mess.”

“You aren’t,” she said fiercely. “Not to me, you aren’t.”

It made me smile a little. “No?”

“No.” She sat all the way up. “You’re brave. And strong. And sexy. Hearing you admit the truth and talk about your fears tonight makes me want you even more. You’re a good man, Nate Pearson. Paisley is damn lucky to have you. And so am I.”

I looked up at her. “You do have me.”

A pause. “Do I?”

I sat up and took her face in my hands, praying to God—if there was one—she’d understand what I was saying to her. “You have me, Emme.”

She turned her head so one cheek rested in my palm. “You have me, too.”

I glanced at the clock, hoping against all odds the numbers hadn’t changed, or even better, had gone backward. No luck—but… “Hey,” I said. “Look what time it is.”

She turned her head and gasped. “Eleven eleven!”

“Go ahead. Make your wish.”

She looked at me again for a moment, squeezed her eyes shut like she was concentrating hard, then exhaled and opened them. “Your turn.”

I sighed exaggeratedly. “Do I have to?”

“Yes. You know my rule!”

“Fine.” I remembered the first wish I’d made at 11:11 PM, when we’d been in my kitchen exactly two weeks ago. That night I’d wished that the next person Emme fell in love with would love her back like she deserved and make her happy.

Now I looked at her hopeful, smiling, beautiful face and made it different.

I wish I could be the one.