I’m surprised to see her car already in her driveway when I park in my usual spot. I’m disappointed that the lights in her condo are dark. She’s already gone to bed.

No invitation to join her tonight.

It’s good. I shouldn’t even be here, but I can’t bring myself to give up on her yet. On us. It may hurt in the moment—the emotions that run so high when I’m inside her—but it doesn’t keep me from wanting more. More of her. More of myself that she gives me.

I don’t see her sitting on the sand until after I’ve dropped and unrolled my tent.

“What are you doing here?” I say.

“What do you think?”

She’s here for sex. I don’t care that she’s still in her work clothes and she’s got her legs pulled into her chest and it’s too dark for me to see her eyes. If there was light, I would see desire there. And for some reason she came to the beach tonight to get it.

She’s only here for sex. I turn to my tent. “Go home.”

“I’m not here for that. I’m here for the other thing you’re best at.”

“What, scaring you?” I crawl toward her and let loose in my voice as much bitterness and anger as I feel at having her here. “Get away from me. Get off my beach. You don’t want to find out what happens if you stay.”

She breathes faster. A light turns on in the house behind us and her face is half lit. She’s not afraid. She doesn’t back away and doesn’t respond to my threat. “That’s not it either.”

“Must be something desperate for you to grace my campsite with your presence.” I unfold the tent poles from my bag and piece them together.

“It’s nice down here. I’ve never spent the night on the beach before.” Her voice travels toward the water.

“In two hours, you’ll be cold. Go back to your bed.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Well, I want you to,” I snap at her.

“You can’t intimidate me anymore.”

“I scared you plenty last night.” I shouldn’t have brought it up, now I remember her catching breaths and tensing body as I fucked her over and over. Damn it. I turn back to my tent.

“You only scare me when I let you. When I want you to.”

I don’t argue. It’s true. I’ve known that since the first time she bit me for grabbing her when she didn’t want me to. From the first time, when with fear in her eyes she walked toward me instead of running away.

I think I knew even then she’d be able to handle the truth of my world, even if she was resistant. Except the possibility that I killed her father. She may get off on how it scares her, but she can’t handle that possibility.

I always knew I’d reach an end to what she could accept of me. Too much divides us for that not to happen. Our worlds are too different. Our only thing in common is our sexual preferences.

I raise the tent, one pole diagonal to the other, and ignore her. Maybe she’ll leave. She’s so quiet, I think she may have left, but when the tent is set she’s still there.

I stare, not caring to ask any more questions, intimidating her so she’ll go away before she asks them.

She takes a deep breath. “Did you do it?”

“You think I did.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you believed it when they told you. Without even asking me.”

Her legs fall from her chest. “I’m asking now.”

“Why didn’t you ask the first day?”

“I did ask!” Her voice cuts through my bullshit. “You didn’t answer!”

“You didn’t want to know the answer.”

“I wanted the same thing I always wanted from you. The truth.”

I sit in front of her. “You didn’t always want it.”

“That time is done. I want it. All of it. I don’t want to hide anymore.”

“Maybe I don’t want to tell it.”

She’s scornful. “Fuck off and grow some balls.”

I growl back. “You want me to confess?”

“So you did do it?”

“I didn’t say that.” My palms sweat. The truth about my sister, I’ve tried to tell many people through the years, to make them believe it. This part—I’ve told no one, and I can feel my resolve to keep it a secret, to never tell anyone, slipping.

This girl. What she does to me.

“Why are you afraid to tell me?” she asks.

“What’s it to you?”

“Living in the dark is no way to live. And you’re the one person in my life who tells me how it is.”

“News flash: I’m not in your life, so go find someone else to cry to about it.”

“You’re my husband. And you don’t have to be an asshole.”

“I am an asshole. Don’t like it? Go.”

She groans. “I knew you would make this hard, but I didn’t think you’d be a child about it.”

“I’m not stupid. I know who your brother is. And I don’t trust him.”

“But you trust me.”

“Trusted. Past tense. Not anymore.”

“Why?” She drums her fingers on her knee, growing frustrated.

Good, she’ll stop soon. “I trust no one.”

“Because you couldn’t. For a long time. But that’s over. You can trust me.”

Maybe I need to test her trust in me. To find out if she can handle my full darkness and the completeness of the evil she’s suspected me of from the beginning.

Maybe I am afraid of her. Afraid she’ll turn her back on me.

“What are you afraid of?” she whispers. “That I won’t love you anymore if you’ve done it? Because nothing is changing that. No matter what you’re guilty of.”

There’s something wrong with my ears. I did not just hear that.

She leans on her elbows. “You heard me.”

I shift nervously—this is the last thing I wanted. Or thought I wanted.

“Do you want me to say it again?” she taunts, and it is the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard her say.

It’s my turn to be afraid.

She leans toward me. “I’ll say it again. And again. Until you believe it.”

I would back away, except that would give her more power, and I’m not a coward. I will not be scared by her words.

She touches me, her hand on my cheek, her fingers stroking my temple. Her lips hover over mine, and I feel her breath on my mouth. “I love you.”

My eyes fall closed and breathing becomes optional. I don’t understand. There’s nothing of me to love. I am only bad things. Only the worst sort of human being devotes his life to vengeance. But I can’t help whispering, “Why?”

Her lips ghost over mine and I can almost feel it, I can almost taste it. She means it. “You are more than you believe yourself to be. In your crusade for truth and justice, there is a genuineness to you.”

I groan and try to disengage from her.

She clasps her fingers in my hair, tightening her hold on me. “Listen. You’re more real than anyone I’ve ever known. And you understand things about me and this world I thought no one ever could. And you made me believe.”

Her hands drop to my chest, and she presses both her palms to my heart. “And there is more to you in here than I could ever touch. That’s what you’re made of. What do you think fuels your anger and your thirst for vengeance? What causes the desperation you feel in needing to tell Louisa’s story?”

My jaw opens a little. I think I know what she’s going to say, but I’m not sure I can take it.

“You’re made of so much more than all those things.” She kisses my cheek and whispers in my ear. “You’re made of love.”

Her words break something in me. I’d only ever allowed myself to feel the anger and the hatred. Sometimes I’d glimpse the pain but shut it away. But I never saw what was fueling all of it before. Until now.

I wrap my arms around her and hold her flush to me. My breath catches in my throat. This woman. This precious woman. How is it that she is here, not running from me but believing in me? More than believing in me, she’s loving me and telling me I am lovable. Telling me how.

Telling me the things I never thought possible.

I wouldn’t believe it, but for the welling of exactly what she says so full in my chest. There is no denying it. “I love you too.”

She crawls in my lap and squeezes her arms around my neck. “I know.”

My mouth is on hers and I draw on her lips, on her tongue, like I could take her inside me. Like I could put me inside her. Like there is nothing in this world but her lips and there is nothing I will ever want more in my life than her like this—me holding her, her holding me.

My confession gushes from me. Like she hoped it would. Like I hoped it would when I believed she could take it. And if she loves me—because she does love me—it’ll be okay.

“I didn’t do it.” I rest my forehead against hers.

She kisses my nose. “Tell me.”

“I wanted to. Fuck, I wanted to. I wish I had.” I grit my teeth and say it with all the desire and force I still feel. “I stood in the doorway to his hospital room and stared at him, unconscious, pathetic. So vulnerable, like a little child. It was late and no one was around. It would’ve been so easy to walk over there, turn off the monitor and cut off his oxygen. I could’ve done it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“You have to understand.” I hold her shoulders. “I may not have done the deed but when I heard he was dead, I wished it had been me.” I clear my throat. “And you know why I didn’t do it?”

“Why?”

“Because it was too painless. I wanted something worse for him. I decided to make other plans.”

She sits back from me, her face in shadow, masking her expression.

I clasp her hands, fearful I’ve lost her. “Can you still . . .”

“Shh.” She kisses me. “I meant what I said. It’s still true.”

But I need more of it. I want to feed on her heart and fill myself with her. I am a bottomless well of need for everything she has to give me.

I ease away from her and move to stand. “Let’s go back inside.”

“No.” She pulls me down to the sand. “Let’s stay here. I want to sleep where you sleep tonight.”

I smile. “It’s a tent and an air mattress. Not a real bed.”

“Is there room for me?”

“I’ll make room for you.”

“Then you can’t get rid of me.”