Penny

“So when’s your boyfriend coming?” Ramona asked my reflection in the massive mirrors of the bridal suite.

“Hopefully the second I can get my dress hitched up,” I answered without missing a beat before sipping the champagne in my hand to punctuate the joke.

Ramona and Veronica laughed, and I shimmied my rack in my bridesmaid dress with one hand.

“Seriously, my boobs look amazing in this. Maybe he’ll come before I can even get it pulled up.” I turned to inspect my ass, which was on point. “Anyway, I’m not calling him that. I don’t like that word.”

Veronica raised one brow. “And what are you calling him?”

“My slam piece. ‘Cause he’s Sexy Like A Motherfucker, and he can slam me all night. Like, literally all night. My vagina has never been slammed on the Bodie level.”

She snickered. “Slam piece? I mean, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“No wonder he somehow tricked you into being his girlfriend.”

Ramona was baiting me. I was no dummy even if I was a sucker.

Oddly, the moniker didn’t make me want to puke up my champagne and donuts like it had a couple of days ago.

“Slam piece,” I said flatly. “You act like I’ve pledged my undying devotion to him. God, a girl can’t even get steady dick anymore without everyone starting a pool on when she’s going to get engaged.”

Ramona laughed — she was cool as a cucumber, which was beyond all reason, considering she was an hour away from getting married. We stood in the middle of a regal room with a chandelier the size of Delaware and more French antiques than I’d ever seen in one place outside of a museum. She looked beautiful, blissfully happy, and without a single indicator of nervousness, which was impressive seeing as how she was about to walk down the aisle.

She touched my arm, her eyes and smile full of love. “I’m happy for you.”

I smiled back, my heart so furry and warm and full that I didn’t know if all the happiness would stay in my chest. “You too. Are you ready for this?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for this day forever, but I’m just … I don’t know. Zen as fuck. I don’t even care how things go — in an hour, I’ll be his wife. And then we’ll eat and drink and dance and fuck like rockstars in the Kennedy suite.”

“Yeah, you will,” I said, gyrating my hips.

“Everything is done and taken care of.” She hooked her arm in mine and hung her other around Veronica’s shoulders. “I have you two. I have Shep waiting for me at the end of an aisle to promise me forever. There’s nothing else I could possibly wish for.”

I misted up. “Ugh, you’re so happy it’s disgusting.”

Ramona laughed. “I know. Isn’t it amazing?”

I rested my head on her shoulder and took in the sight of the three of us in the mirror. “It’s kinda the best thing in the whole world.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket — my dress had pockets, guys; winning hard. — and I pulled away, reaching for it.

The photo displayed behind Bodie’s name lit up my phone and my insides; I was nuzzled into his neck laughing, and he was laughing too, his dimple flashing.

Veronica laughed and pointed at my screen. “Oh my God. Boyfriend.”

I rolled my eyes and answered the phone, smiling. “Hey,” I said as I stepped off the platform, passing the tornado that was Ramona’s mom on my way out. I swear, I think she was shouldering all the nerves for both of them.

“Hey,” he echoed, his voice rumbly and low and velvety.

My body reacted immediately to that one mundane syllable like it was a secret password.

I hadn’t seen him in two days, since after the strip club. We’d been too busy with wedding stuff to have a free millisecond.

“Are you here?” I asked.

I could hear him smiling. “I am. Just got here.”

“Meet me by the bar.”

“Already there.”

My grin stretched wide as I rushed to the door, calling over my shoulder that I’d be right back.

I hurried through the garden where people were milling around, waiting for the ceremony to start. The venue was gorgeous, an outdoor garden with a big tent for the reception and a gazebo in a hedge alcove that felt like a fairy land. There was a rope swing and a massive bar that had been imported from a pub in France, all brass and mahogany and gorgeous and elegant.

But not as gorgeous as the man standing in front of it.

His dirty-blond hair had been cut short on the sides, kept longer on a top, combed back and to the side in a gentle swoop, and I nearly stopped in my tracks at the transformation. The laid-back surfer in a muscle shirt and sneakers had been replaced by a clean-cut masterpiece of power. The gravity of the vision of him pulled me toward him like a tractor beam. He looked like he’d stepped off a magazine cover with tan skin and eyes shining a shade of sky blue that felt infinite. The suit he wore fit him perfectly — charcoal gray swathing every angle of his broad shoulders and chest, one button of his coat fastened, his shirt crisp and white, and tie thin and black. One hand rested in his pocket, his coat bunched up at the seam where his hand and hip were, and the other held a scotch.

I was nine hundred percent sure my uterus whispered his name when he smiled at me, popping that dimple and my ovaries with a simple flicker of cheek muscles.

I might have floated into his arms, slipping mine around his neck as I kissed him. There was quite literally nothing else I could have done when I saw him standing there, dressed like that.

His lips were so warm and familiar and soft and sweet. The two measly days we’d been apart felt like a month.

I pulled away, humming, but I didn’t give him his neck back, just fiddled with the short hair at the nape, marveling over the soft bristling against my fingertips.

“Your hair,” I whispered, smiling as my eyes scanned him in wonder.

“You like it?”

“I love it. If it wasn’t combed, my fingers would be buried deep, deep in it.”

He laughed softly, the sound rumbling through his chest and into me. “Later we’ll bury all kinds of things in all kinds of places.”

I answered with a laugh of my own. “What in the world possessed you to do it?”

Bodie shrugged. “I went in for a trim and decided to cut it. It matched the suit.”

“True. But do you think you might grow it back out?”

“Why? Miss it already?” he asked with a smile, holding me tighter.

“Maybe. I do love your long hair, but this is so soft.” I ran my fingers over it. “And I swear, somehow, your jaw looks a hundred times sharper. You’ve got a good looking head, boy. You could be a part-time model.”

He laughed at that and kissed me again.

I smiled up at him feeling dreamy and light and unbelievably happy. “I missed you,” I said without thinking.

His face held its shape, but something behind his eyes shifted, sending a jolt of uncertainty through me, cooling my mood. “I missed you too.”

I swallowed and looked at his tie, running my hand down his chest. “Where the hell did you get this suit?”

His smile shifted sideways into a smirk. “Same place as you get your lingerie.”

I laughed. “Oh, I very much doubt that.”

Bodie chuckled, his hand on my hip, thumb shifting against the soft silk before he twisted the tie around his finger and held it up. “So tell me, what happens if I pull this?”

I pressed the length of my body against his and smiled, stretching on my tiptoes to get to his ear. “Boom, I’m naked.”

His lips were at my ear too. “Good to know.”

The man was magic. He could whisper anything in my ear — My grandma makes a mean scone. I’m all out of peanut butter. I wish I had more time to climb trees — and I’d forget that there was ever or would ever be anything to do besides him.

I sighed into his ear, and he held me a little closer. I found myself pouting because I couldn’t stay right there like I wanted.

I pulled away and stepped back, though I slid my hand down his arm and to his hand to hold it. “You gonna be okay out here? It’s about to start, so it shouldn’t be long before I’m back to entertain you.”

He held up his scotch, smiling. “I’ll keep myself company.” He paused, his eyes on mine in a way that I felt in the tips of my fingers and toes. “You look beautiful, Penny.”

My cheeks flushed, and I smiled back. How could I not? Adonis in a suit was smiling at me with a scotch in his hand and a suit that made my vagina do an involuntary Kegel.

“You’re not so bad yourself, handsome. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“I’ll be waiting,” he said.

And the words worked their way through me like I’d been the one drinking scotch.

---

Bodie

I watched Penny walk away as I took a sip of my drink, my eyes running over all the places I wished my hands were. The deep V of the back of her dress, framing her tattoos. The small circle of her waist, tied by that little sash that would strip her with a tug. The swing of her hips as she hurried away in the direction she’d come from.

A sigh rose and fell from the bottom of my lungs.

I hadn’t seen her in two days, not since she came over after the bachelorette party. Things had been the same that night as they had always been — we’d spent an hour or so wrapped up in each other, an hour or so talking and laughing, and then she’d left. But something had shifted, something I didn’t know how to place or what to do with. All I knew was that I could feel the depth of it in me and in her. And she hadn’t run away.

We hadn’t spoken about the status of our relationship since the ice cream parlor, and her shock that day — when I’d reaffirmed that I wouldn’t ask for more than she was willing to give — was still fresh in my mind.

How could she have gone for so long without knowing this feeling? Without wanting more than just a fuck boy?

I wanted to know. But the last thing I wanted to do was ask.

Because the last thing I wanted was to lose her.

So as far as I knew — as far as she’d said — things were the same. But what she did didn’t match up with what she said. She’d tattooed my arm. She’d spent almost every day with me for weeks. We’d been on a date, and tonight I was her date at a wedding.

It didn’t feel like no strings, no commitment, no rules. It felt like she was mine, and I was hers. It felt like we were together. And that felt good — so good that I wasn’t likely to rock the boat out of fear I’d sink it.

I drained my drink and set it on the surface of the bar, checking my calculator watch before following the signs to the gazebo.

Annika and I merged paths as we entered an arched tunnel covered in vines. In heels, she was almost as tall as me, her blonde hair in a loose bun at her nape and black dress sleek and simple.

She smiled, transforming her aloof runway model vibe, warming her up. “Hey, Bodie.”

“Good to see you, Annika.”

“You too. You’re here with Penny?”

I didn’t miss the mild surprise in her voice. I couldn’t say I blamed her. I was probably more shocked than anyone.

“I am.”

Her smiled widened. “Lucky you. Want to sit with me?”

I relaxed a little. “That’d be great. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in the wedding party but you.”

She chuckled. “I only know the crew who were invited, but I’m just about the only one who’s part of the production of the show who’s here as a guest. The rest are filming.”

I looked around once we exited the tunnel for the camera crew, finding them in little hidden alcoves, blending in like chameleons. I’d signed a waiver, and I still hadn’t realized they were here.

“Huh. How about that?” I said half to myself, guiding her into a row of white wooden chairs.

“We want to film in the most unobtrusive way possible. It’s not always easy, but thankfully, my boss is sympathetic to the cause.” She wiggled the fingers of her left hand at me, flashing her engagement ring. When we were seated, she turned a little in her chair to face me, crossing her long legs in my direction. “So, how’d you land her?”

I wished I’d gotten another drink. “Well, I’m not sure I’ve landed her just yet.”

“Oh, I am,” Annika said on a chuckle.

I glanced at her, intrigued. “That so?”

She nodded. “As long as I’ve known her, she’s never had a steady guy. She’ll date one for a little bit and then flit off to the next, never getting attached, and I’ve never seen one of the guys, only heard the stories. She won’t bring them around us like she has with you. And I’ve seen the way she looks at you, the way she talks to you. It’s my job to read people, and I’ve been reading Penny for a year now. She likes you, and she’s happy, happier than I’ve seen her. So I’m curious as to how you did it.”

“I haven’t done much but let her be who she is.”

Annika’s face softened. “Penny’s like a wild pony; she’s beautiful and untamed and completely free. Free from the tethers of judgment, free from being controlled, contained. She lives one day at a time, doing exactly what she wants, accepting her consequences without a single care for what anyone else thinks.” Annika sighed at that. “She’s the freest woman I’ve ever known or seen, and I have more respect for that than anything. I’m even a little envious.”

I nodded, smiling at the truth of her words. “I know what you mean.”

“But she loves to run. That’s the trick, the catch I haven’t seen anyone overcome.” She shook her head. “None of this — you and her, I mean — is any of my business, and I don’t mean to pry. I’m just so interested in how you snagged her. You’re like the pony whisperer.”

I laughed at that. If she’d replaced pony with pussy it might have been spot-on. “Honestly? I don’t even know. She asked for no strings, so that’s what I’ve given her. I let her lead. I respect her too, respect what she wants even if it’s not what I want.”

“And what do you want?” she asked. But before I could answer, she waved her hand as the color rose in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. My job has me trained to ask personal questions that I shouldn’t. Please, don’t answer that.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said as the music started.

We turned in our seats.

From the green archway, Penny appeared on Patrick’s arm, that dress sweeping the green grass at her feet like she was floating, and her eyes found mine and held them.

“I just want her,” was my answer to Annika, to the universe. To myself.

The ceremony was simple and perfect. Ramona and Shep were married under the gazebo, staring into each other’s eyes like no one else was there. When they said their vows, when they kissed, a lump formed in my throat, and Annika pressed her fingertips to her lips. We all stood and clapped and cheered and smiled as they walked down the aisle — this time, as husband and wife. And when Penny passed me and her eyes found mine, they were shining, her cheeks flushed. She told me a million things I somehow couldn’t decipher; I could only feel them all and try to understand.

I offered my arm to Annika, and we made our way into the reception tent and to the head table where our dates would be joining us. We sat next to each other, chatting as everyone found their seats.

The DJ kicked off “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness, and Penny blew onto the dance floor with Patrick, inflatable guitars in hand, air-strumming. Penny actually hitched up her skirt and slid across the parquet, red bottom lip in her teeth and head banging in time to the beat.

The rest of the wedding party came out, and once they were present, they made an archway with their black guitars, and then Ramona and Shep ran through to finish the song to a standing ovation.

After the song, they headed over to us — Penny practically jumped into my arms, sending me off balance, and I swung us to keep us upright.

The sound of her laughter in my ears was the sweetest song.

I set her feet on the ground, sliding her down my body, and she cupped my cheek and kissed me gently, smiling softly. She looked at me like I was a king, and I felt like every bit of one with her on my arm.

We took our seats and ate our steaks, laughing and talking and high off the night, the moment. Toasts were given. Speeches were made. Tears were shed. And all the while, Penny’s hand was in my lap, our fingers threaded together.

And then the party started.

The sun had gone down, and the dance floor was illuminated by naked bulbs strung in arcs from one end of the tent to the other. Shep and Ramona’s first song was a spinning, swaying, brilliantly choreographed dance to “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS. After that, Ramona, Penny, and Veronica did their own choreography to “Scream & Shout,” and the guys surprised them by jumping in halfway through with their own moves.

Joel, Shep, and Patrick — aka two tattooed Sasquatches and a male model — throwing lassos and yelling Britney, bitch was the most hysterical thing I’d ever seen in my life.

And then Penny was in my arms for the rest of the night. First, we were bouncing around to New Order and Lady Gaga. Then, The Clash came on, and I kissed her in the middle of a sea of people jumping and singing to “Rock the Casbah,” just like the first kiss, the kiss that I thought of so often.

I pulled her outside to get a drink and spotted a swing on a gargantuan old tree.

I tugged her in that direction, stopping just next to it. “Remember the park by the beach where we used to party in high school?”

My hand rested on her waist, and she smiled up at me, reaching for the rope of the swing.

“How could I forget?”

“You’re just the same as you were, except now you’re more you than you ever were. You’re just as beautiful. You’re just as brash and brilliant. But now, you’re free.”

She fiddled with my lapel with her free hand, and her eyes watched her fingers. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I want to be. I try to be. But sometimes, my freedom is a cage.” She seemed to shake the thought away and smiled, meeting my eyes again. “Your outsides have changed, but your insides are exactly the same. I wish … I wish I’d seen you then like I see you now. If I had, maybe things would have been different. Maybe I’d be different.” Her words were soft, her eyes bright and shining.

“I wouldn’t want you to be any different than you are right now, Pen.” The words were quiet, solemn.

And for a moment, we stood in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t let her say anymore, because if she did, the thin façade I’d built would crumble and blow away, exposing me, exposing her.

So I kissed her instead. She tasted of bourbon and cake, smelled of jasmine, felt like silk against my fingertips, against my lips.

When I let her go, I guided her to sit on the wide wooden plank, her long fingers wrapping around the ropes to hang on. And when I pulled her back by her waist and released her, the gray silk of her dress billow and her silvery hair fly with the sound of her laughter in my ears.

Too soon after, the night was nearly over. The DJ had brought the tempo down, and I found myself in the middle of the dance floor with Penny against my chest, The Cure singing “Pictures of You” as the two of us moved in small circles on the parquet.

It was strange, how I felt. Like I was dreaming. Like my heart had opened up and so had hers. That we were open to each other. I could feel the connection like a tether between us. That everything that I felt, she felt. That everything I wanted, she wanted.

I kissed the top of her head, and she shifted her face against my beating heart.

I had to tell her. I needed her to know that I wanted her, wanted more, felt more. I wanted to soothe her, ease her fears, promise her anything she asked for. Because I’d give her anything even if it meant giving her nothing. Even if it meant we kept going just how we were.

But if I told her, things wouldn’t go on like this. Things would change.

I could lose her.

My heart skipped a beat against her cheek.

The war between trusting her with my feelings and giving her the space I knew she needed battled in my ribcage. When did the sacrifice of what I wanted become too much? How would I know she was ready, that I wouldn’t scare her off?

I’d coaxed the wild pony out to eat from my hand, but putting a bridle on her was another thing altogether.

I couldn’t tell her, not yet. I only hoped I had the resolve to hold on.

---

Penny

I could have stood there on the dance floor in Bodie’s arms with The Cure on repeat for the rest of my life.

The night had been full of magic.

Every moment between us deepened my feelings, and I knew he felt what I felt. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. It was as if every second that ticked by whispered, Yes, as if we were caught in something we couldn’t turn back from, swept away in each other. I didn’t even want out. I could drown in him, and I should have been afraid.

But I wasn’t.

I felt safe. Safe and warm and cared for. This was what trust felt like, real trust between someone who valued you as much as themselves — I realized it distantly, as if I were floating above the two of us swaying in each other’s arms. I trusted him because he’d proven that his words were truth. He’d agreed to everything I’d asked for. He’d made me promises and held them, and I had no reason to doubt him.

But when I really held his actions and words up next to each other, they weren’t quite the same. He’d said it was all copacetic, sure, but he felt more just as much as I did. He wanted more. I’d denied my feelings, but he’d known all along.

I knew it as suddenly and clearly as if I’d looked in a mirror for the first time.

He’d just been giving me what he knew I needed, just like he always had. He’d sacrificed what he’d wanted to make me happy.

I thought I’d want to cut and run at the realization, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, not only because he had done everything for me without asking for a single thing in return, even my heart, but I wanted to stay because he’d shown me how to trust again. He treated me with care and respect. He honored me without thought to himself.

I wanted to stay because I’d never been with anyone who didn’t play games. And with Bodie, there was no power play, no control, no upper hand.

We were equals. And I’d had no idea something like this could even be real.

I had two gears — full-blown obsession and apathy. This gear that I was on was unknown, a lurch in my life that left me reeling, without any context or boundaries or rules.

That unknown brought a flicker of fear. But in the circle of his arms, with his heart beating under my cheek and his breath warm on my skin, I was safe. He was exactly what I needed, and he was everything right.

There was nowhere else I could have imagined being.

The DJ came on when the song ended, directing us to the front of the gardens so we could send Ramona and Shep off, and Bodie and I hurried over to the stairs. We each grabbed sparklers and lit them when we were told, holding them up so my best friend and her husband could run through. I’d sworn I wasn’t going to cry, but there was no stopping it — the sight of them golden and beautiful and smiling and crying as they waved goodbye to all of us was too much.

When the door to the limo closed, I turned to Bodie, who smiled down at me as he captured my chin, and then he kissed me, stealing my breath, stealing my heart.

I was beginning to realize that I’d never stood a chance.

Worry sprang like a broken fire hydrant — I didn’t know if I could keep my heart together. If I let myself go, if I opened that door, would I be able to maintain what we were?

The more I felt for him, the less rational I’d be. I’d scare him.

I’d lose him.

I needed more time.

So I turned the giant wrench on that spewing fire hydrant and shut the motherfucker down.

Tonight, I wasn’t crazy. Tonight, I had Bodie.

Tonight, he was mine.

When the limo was gone and the guests dispersed, Veronica and I dashed off to gather our things from the bridal suite. She took all of Ramona’s things, citing a trip by Ramona and Shep’s new place to drop it all off. Something in her eyes said she was a goddamn liar about her plans, and I should have pressed her. But I was too anxious to get back to Bodie to care. She could go be a sneaky liar on her own time.

The cab ride was too long, but I spent the duration tucked into Bodie’s side, the two of us recounting the night like we hadn’t been together for all of it. And then we were walking down my silent hallway together, smiling at our shoes. And then we were inside, and I was closing my door.

I took him by the hand, and he followed without question into my bedroom and leaned against the door as I turned on one of my smaller lamps just so I could see him. Just so he could see me.

My heart thumped at the sight of him, so tall and easy, hands in his pockets, the line of his shoulders and arms and long legs speaking to the artist in me. Because he was art with a heartbeat. But what hit me, what nearly stopped me in my tracks was the expression on his face.

The playfulness and charm were gone, replaced by something deeper, something more. It was the tightness at the corners of his eyes, the depth of his irises, so blue. It was the shape of his lips, the crease of his lips where something waited for me, words he didn’t want to speak. Words I wasn’t ready to hear, and he knew it.

But that was what Bodie did. He anticipated what I required and gave it to me, even when the gift was his silence. He cared about me more than he’d said. But he still cared for me without demand, without expectation.

He was air and sun and soil, just existing around me to give me all I needed to grow. And all the while, I’d grown and blossomed and bloomed, not realizing that I needed him to keep me breathing.

I crossed the room, overwhelmed and overcome by the revelation, trying not to think of what it meant or what it would mean. Instead, I looked into his eyes and told him without a word what I felt for him. I told him with my fingers slipping under his coat that I wanted him. I told him with my lips pressed to his that he’d changed me and there would be no going back.

His body was hard against my palms as they roamed up his chest, and I leaned into him, the two of us angled against the door, me standing between his legs so I could reach his lips.

And that was the thing that struck me the most; he felt what I felt. He knew what my body told him just as much as I knew what his told me.

Never in my life had I felt this before. I’d had power sex. I’d had flirty sex. I’d had fun sex and serious sex. But in that moment, I became aware of a fact that that changed me, there in my room, kissing Bodie.

I had never been intimate.

I wasn’t just hungry for his body. I was hungry for his heart and soul.

I wanted all of him. I just hoped I could hold onto him without it breaking me.

My tongue swept his lip, and he opened his mouth, turning my face with his hand, and I opened up in kind, leaning into his palm. He pulled me into him with his free hand — the length of him pressing against my belly sent a shock up my spine, to my lungs, springing them open as I sucked in a small breath.

He hooked his arm around my waist, keeping me flush against him as he pushed away from the door, leaving my feet dangling off the ground, even as I wished they were wound around his middle but my dress wouldn’t allow it. And then gravity shifted as he lay me down in bed gently. But he didn’t lower his body onto mine like I wanted, and I hung onto his neck like it could convince him to.

His hand ran up my arm and to my face, and he broke the kiss with a smile, his eyes laden with something that betrayed the levity of his lips.

“I’m not going anywhere, Penny,” he whispered, coaxing me to let him go.

But the words meant more than that to me.

I relaxed my arms, and he stood, his eyes sliding up and down my body as he unbuttoned his coat and grabbed his lapels, pulling it open, exposing his broad chest, then shoulders, then arms. His big hands tugged the knot of his tie, slipping one piece from the other with a whisper of silk. And it seemed to take an hour for him to unbutton his shirt. I could have watched that in slow motion on a loop — the sliver of skin on his chest that grew wider with every button, his hands gripping both sides as he opened it just like he had his jacket. Except when that crisp white shirt was gone, all that was left was his beautiful naked chest, all shadows and angles and planes and the tattoo on his arm where I’d put it.

He could have undressed and redressed and undressed again and again, and I would have laid there and watched, content and unhurried and perfectly satisfied.

His pants were next, his leather belt in his fist sending a burst of images through my head — his cock in his hand, the pop and sting of that leather belt against my ass. He snapped open his button with a flick of his fingers, lowering his zipper just as quickly, kicking off his shoes and dropping his pants in movement that felt deliberate and restrained.

And then he was naked before me, the man who’d snuck his way in without me even realizing.

I moved to sit, but he stopped me, laying me back with his hand on my cheek and thumb shifting against my skin. I turned my head to press a kiss into his palm, and he bent to kiss my lips, a kiss without demand but one that burned with smoke and fire and want and need.

He still wasn’t in bed with me, and I reached for him, wanting him on me, around me, in me. Just wanting him. He was too far away, but he didn’t give me what I was asking for, not this time. This time, he would do what he wanted.

Bodie walked to the end of the bed and slipped his hand over the bridge of my heeled foot and up my leg, pushing the hem of my dress up with it. I opened my legs, and one of his knees slid between my calves and then the other, his hand still on a track up my leg as he climbed onto the bed and knelt before me.

His hand moved from my thigh to the tie of my dress, a simple bow, and he slid the silk between his fingers, meeting my eyes as he pulled. The bow came undone and fell away, and my dress opened just enough to expose a slice of skin down to my belly.

He sighed, his eyes on his hands as he ran his fingers down my sternum, down my stomach, hooking under one side to expose my breast, leaving the chiffon pooling around the bend of my hip. But that sliver of me was naked, from my neck to the center of me, and his eyes drank me in like he was parched.

I spread my thighs, opening myself up to him. And he lowered his lips to my offering, closing his eyes as he kissed the hot line between my legs like he was confessing a secret.

My hands slipped into his hair, my hips rocking and breath shuddering, my pulse climbing as my body neared the edge, the blissful edge.

I called his name — a plea— my hands on his shoulders to tell him I needed more, that I wanted it all, I wanted everything, and he climbed up my body, his hand on my jaw, his fingertips in my hair, the tip of his crown at the slick center of me. And then he looked into my eyes and shifted his hips, filling me up, claiming me as his, giving himself to me, all in a breath.

His body moved, rolling and flexing, his eyes on mine, his lips parted and brows together, and he said my name. And that whisper on his lips was all it took to push me over that edge in a rush of heat and a burst of electricity down my spine, sending my back arching and lungs gasping and body pulsing. And at my release, he found his own, my name in a loop that followed every thrust of his hips as they slowed.

Our eyes were closed, his forehead against mine, his body pinning me down and our breaths mingling. And for some reason, I felt tears pricking the corners of my lids, my nose burning and a lump heavy in my throat.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to bury his face in my neck so I could hide from him. Because in that moment, for the first time, I’d found something real, something beyond me, even if I didn’t know what to make of it. I only knew how it felt, and I felt it all the way through me, through every atom. And I made a vow never to forget it.

If I hadn’t been addicted to him before, now there would be no hope. No amount of rehab would cure me.

We held each other like that for a long time before he rolled onto his side, pulling me with him and pulling out of me in one motion. He kissed me sweetly before rolling out of bed and heading to the bathroom, leaving me alone.

I lay there on my side with my back to the door and my heart full of shrapnel. It burned — my chest was shredded and smoldering and elated and aching. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t want to think about what it meant. I just wanted him back in bed with me. I wanted my name riding his breath and his arms around me and his lips against mine.

I wanted simple and easy. But we were past that.

He came back a minute later with a warm washcloth and cleaned me up like he always did but without the intention of more. Something in him was reserved, contained, like he was trying to separate from me.

The thought made me want to hang onto him more.

He stood and began to collect his clothes, and I felt my heart break.

“Stay,” I said simply, holding my breath in the hopes that he would say yes, the word hanging in the air as he turned to me.

I had never intentionally spent the night with anyone — I’d never wanted to. But the last thing in the whole world I wanted was for Bodie to walk out that door.

His face was soft and cautious as he asked, “Are you sure?”

And when I smiled and nodded, relief washed over him, and he slipped into bed next to me, holding me in his arms, whispering my name as we drifted off to sleep.