I come so hard it makes the corners of my vision blurry, but things don’t exactly end there. At least, I think they don’t. Valentine is curled around me, trembling. She kisses the corner of my jaw, my earlobe, and across my cheek, hot and sweet, every print of her lips burning on my skin. I think she has one or two more little orgasms, her hips rocking against me before she falls asleep.

I haven’t slept with anyone—really slept with anyone—like this for a long time.

Maybe ever.

Valentine curls against my side, her naked, perfect breasts pressed up against my ribcage. She breathes in and out in a rhythm that reminds me of waves on the lakeshore. Her red hair is everywhere. I can see it all because neither of us thought to turn off the light.

Only I can’t bring myself to move. Not a single muscle.

I want her to stay like this, with me, for as long as possible.

It only takes a few minutes for my arm to start to ache. Still, the weight of her body against mine feels…secure, somehow. Safe. A shelter in the storm.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to need her. I’m not supposed to need anything from anyone in this town, or any other town. But her body against mine could become a little bit of an obsession.

Who am I kidding? It’s already an obsession, even if I’m only willing to admit it in the privacy of this bedroom. It’s not quite my bedroom, but it’ll do. With Valentine next to me the room doesn’t matter at all. 

My eyelids are heavy. I never get enough sleep, not with Minnie around, and I’m pretty damn spent from what just happened here. 

It’s been a long road.

I raise my hand to my mouth to stifle the laugh that bursts through my chest. The thought of Valentine looking at all those sausages, so patient, while that poor kid stood there… He had to have known that we were hooking up. Had to. I mean, how could he not? I never felt an ounce of jealousy for him or his sausage-delivering life, which is rare these days.

Although I haven’t been envying anyone else’s life now that Valentine and I are playing this game. 

It’s not a game, though.

I can hardly keep my eyes open, drifting off in between thoughts. Is it really a game? No, I don’t think it is. I think I want more from her, but I’m not going to ask her unless I’m totally sure I can handle it. Not to mention Valentine’s own ability to handle my life, which is almost never a sexy cakewalk of a fling. I’m starting to realize that she can bounce back from anything, though. Flour. Mexican food. Even surprise sausage deliveries. 

I don’t know how long it’s been, but eventually I have to turn off the light. My eyes are begging for some country darkness—this is pretty much the country—and the last thing I need is a ridiculous electric bill. 

Easing out from under Valentine turns out to be the easy part. Once the light is off, and the only thing filtering into the room is a pale moonlight, I stand at the side of the bed, trying to figure out how to get back underneath her without waking her up.

I fail.

She stirs as I slide my arm back under her, a little smile curling at the corners of her lips. “Hi,” she whispers.

“Hi. You can go back to sleep.”

Valentine yawns. “Did you get a job or something?”

I laugh. What kind of question is that? “I did…but why does that matter right now?”

She shrugs against me. “It doesn’t. It’s just that your muscles are even…better than usual.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say, pretending to be offended. She laughs a silent laugh against me. “You would notice that I’m even more ripped than usual.”

“How could I not?” She smiles, her teeth white in the darkness. “I think I’d like to notice everything about you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You do the talking, then.”

I shift downward in the bed so that my head is actually on the pillow and breathe her in. “What do you want to talk about?” We’re heading into territory that is decidedly not the kind of thing you get into when it’s just a fling, but here in the dark with her, none of that matters. I just don’t give a fuck about the rules of the game. Fling only…what does that even mean?

“Tell me about her.”

My heart pounds in my chest—it’s like I can feel it clamming up when Valentine asks the question. But I’m pretty savvy. I know how to avoid a grenade if I need to. “Who?”

She swallows. “Minnie,” she says, and my entire body relaxes. 

I don’t bother to disguise the smile. “She’s amazing.” I think of her fine blonde curls at the back of her neck, the way she’s endlessly adventurous, the way it doesn’t seem to faze her at all that we moved cities. But it’s hard to talk about Minnie without mentioning Angie, and I think—I think—that’s what Valentine really wants to know. “She’s…she’s the only good thing to come out of a bad situation. Her mother’s name is Angie.”

Valentine frowns—I can feel it against my chest—but she doesn’t say anything. 

“I knew Angie from school a little bit, and when I came home from Afghanistan, she was still hanging around the town I grew up in,” I say, every word measured. I have to figure out how to do this in a way that’s not going to make it seem like I spend all of my time thinking about fucking Angie. “I didn’t know it at the time, but she was a drug addict.”

Valentine tenses against me. “Oh, no, Ryder,” she whispers. It doesn’t have a happy ending, that story, and she already sees it coming. But here we are. Now that I’ve started telling her, I can’t stop.

“She wanted to move to the city, and I went with her. That was about three years ago.” I shake my head. “Things went south. Things were really, really bad, Valentine.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted it out loud to anyone. “She went totally off the rails. The drugs—” I don’t like to think of the way she was. Violent. Too violent. She’d come after me, and what could I do? The police would never have been on my side. So I’d let her have at me. Better me than somebody else. “Then she got pregnant.”

Valentine sucks in a breath.

“When Minnie was born it changed everything. She was such a sweet baby. So bright. So interested in everything and everyone, but Angie didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She tried, but she just wasn’t cut out for… being a mom in that way, I guess. But it was different for me.” I swallow down the ache in my throat. “A few months ago—five, maybe?—she went to work for a shift and didn’t come back.” The shame comes hot and thick. “I tried to make it work, but Minnie was beside herself. I couldn’t leave her in daycare for long enough to make the money I needed to keep our place.” There. I’ve said it. I’ve admitted my failure to Valentine.

But she doesn’t move. She only holds on tighter.

“So now we’re here. And I’ve got the job with my brother, for the time being, just until we can get back out again.”

We both breathe quietly for a few long minutes. Is she asleep?

Then Valentine speaks into the dark. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” she says softly, her voice a balm on the ache in my chest. “But I’m glad you’re here. I wish you didn’t have to leave.”