"Worse?" She asked, worried. "What do you –"

"I don't mean worse – I mean, uh, more intense, maybe? Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that?"

"You missed me?"

It was difficult not to laugh out loud at that question – at the fact that she was actually asking, and appeared to be under the impression that there were a range of answers to give, rather than just the only true one.

"Of course I missed you, Blaze. I missed you so much that missing you has sort of become part of my days, like background noise or that thing where you ears ring all the time."

"Tinnitus?"

"Yeah. That."

"Did you just compare me to tinnitus?" She asked, still seeking reassurance. I was familiar with that behavior in women. What I wasn't familiar with was being utterly charmed by it, by how genuinely Blaze Wilson seemed to care about what I thought of her – not to mention the matching desire in me to actually give her the reassurance she wanted.

I pulled her into my arms and kissed the top of her head. "Don't be silly, I didn't compare you to tinnitus – I compared missing you to tinnitus. Always there, in the background, like –"

"Jack?"

Blaze turned her face up to mine, her chin resting on my chest and her expression somewhat pained.

"What?" I asked.

"I missed you too! Oh my God, Jack, I missed you so much. You have no idea."

She buried her face in my chest, slightly embarrassed at her own vehemence. I held her close, stroking her hair and just enjoying the straight up relief of having her with me again.

"These are beautiful," she said, running her fingers over the petals of one of the lilies in the bouquet I'd given her at the airport.

I knew what Blaze was doing. She was waiting. Waiting for me to lead, to ask her if she'd kept her promise. I could feel the tension in the air between us, in the way she was having difficulty looking me in the eye.

"They are, aren't they?" I asked, pretending I was happy to discuss flowers. "There are some lilies in there, and some peonies. At least that's what the woman at the florist said they were. I think she –"

"Jack!"

"What?" I grinned, unable to stop myself.

"I don't want to talk about flowers!"

"Oh? Don't you? Well you mentioned them so –"

Blaze pulled her shirt off over her head then, before I could finish my sentence. Next to go was her bra and, with it, any thoughts in my mind about continuing with the charade of not knowing what she wanted.

My eyes took in her body like a man dying of thirst takes in a glass of ice-cold water. I was already hard, just being in the same room as her after so much time apart. But seeing her? Seeing the way her lips were parted slightly, the way her stiff nipples stood up on the impossibly lovely swells of her breasts? A new and sudden urgency flooded my brain. I stepped towards her and took one of those perfect breasts into my hand, cupping it, squeezing greedily at her flesh.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, sighing at my touch and I swear to God I could have come in my pants right then and there if I let myself.

"Fuck," I breathed, yanking my own shirt off over my head and pulling her against me. "I missed you too, Blaze."

We stumbled to the bed, consumed with a sudden frenzy of lust, tearing off clothes and kissing and grabbing at each other. I had to be inside her. I told her as much as she lay back underneath me, sliding her panties down her thighs as my entire body throbbed with desire. There was nothing else for me except the absolute need to be as close to her as it was possible to get.

"Wait," she gasped, as her panties hit the floor and I lowered my body between her legs. "Wait, Jack. We need to use a –"

A condom. Yes. Fuck. I scrabbled for the box I'd already put in the nightstand beside the bed as Blaze squirmed underneath me.

"Hurry, Jack. Please –"

I didn't want to use a condom. Neither did she. But we both knew we had to. In the end it was probably a good thing I'd had to fumble with putting it on, because it gave me just enough time to make sure I didn't come the second I felt her warmth around me.

"Oh God," she gasped, when I first pushed into her. "Oh God, Jack. Oh –"

She was trying to bury her face in the pillow but I took her chin in my hand and forced her to look at me. I needed to see the way her eyes widened every time I thrust into her.

"Blaze," I moaned into her neck, sliding my hand down inside one of her thighs and pushing her further open.

I've been with women who give off the whiff of a performance before. Women who screech and writhe and bounce like they're on a stage and I'm the one person in the audience. It was different with Blaze. It wasn't some weird act of theater to be with her. She wasn't putting on a show for me, she was simply responding to me, to my body. When I thrust into her depths her lower lip quivered slightly and that one exquisite little detail was hotter than a thousand random women screaming like porn stars.

I was attuned to her, too, paying a level of attention that I don't know I've ever paid to anything – or anyone – before, noticing every sweet twitch, ever catch in her breath. I felt it when her body started to tense up, just slightly, and she began to rock her hips against me a little faster than I was already going.

"Jack!" She cried out, sinking her fingers into my muscled shoulders. "Jack, I –"

"I know," I whispered, closing my eyes tightly against the urge to let go right then and there. "I know, baby. Blaze, I'm here. It's OK, baby. Come for me, Blaze, come for –"

There was no more holding back possible when I felt her tightening around me, over and over, little convulsions of pleasure that teased and begged and then finally just demanded that I let go. I slipped my tongue between her open lips and did just that, giving myself permission to fall over the edge and let the bliss overtake me.

Blaze kissed me as I came, stroking my face and searching my eyes like she was looking for the secret to the universe.

"Jack," she whispered, when she could talk again. "I love making you come. I love – I don't know – I just love it."

"Good," I replied, flopping down next to her on the bed and tying off the condom. "That's good, Blaze. Yes, I think I'll take you back to my cave and keep you."

She slapped at my shoulder weakly, still out of breath. "Shut up, cave man. I didn't mean it that way."

I rolled over onto my side and eyed her. "Oh? Didn't you? Because it kind of sounded like you did."

She gave me a cheeky smile. "OK, maybe a little. But only a little!"

"Oh of course, only a little," I joked, as Blaze's eyes began to close. "Don't fall asleep, gorgeous. It'll only make the jet lag worse. Besides, aren't you hungry? I feel like I could eat – uh, what do Irish people eat?"

"Leprechauns?" She suggested sleepily.

"I don't think they eat leprechauns, goofball, but I could still eat a whole one either way. Anyway, come on. You should have a shower, that'll wake you up."

"Mmm, noo!" She protested. "I don't want to have a shower. I just want to sleep!"

"Well, you can sleep if you want," I told her, pulling my jeans on, "but that's only because I seem to have developed a condition whereby I am unable to say no to you."

That made her giggle. "Good. Wait – Jack, where are you going? Stay here with me."

I sat back down beside her on the bed so I could pull my socks on. "You want me to stay? I'll stay if that's what you want. But I'm hungry enough to eat a horse, Blaze, and this hotel has a restaurant attached. I was just going to go grab something to eat."

Blaze opened one eye. "A restaurant? What, like a good one?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask about whether or not a restaurant is good," I replied, brushing a lock of hair off her still-flushed cheek. "But I doubt a place like this has some crappy burger joint attached. The woman at the front desk said it serves traditional Irish food – and I'm kind of curious to see what that's like. Maybe they'll have that col – what was it? Col–?"

"Colcannon. Stop it, Jack, you're making me hungry now."

I couldn't help bending down to kiss her. "You know what, Blaze?"

"What?"

"Your cheeks get red when you come."

"What? No they don't. Jack, no they don't!"

"They do. They're still a little red right now. Maybe you just never noticed it before because no one ever made you come the way I do?" I teased.

She sat up, then, rubbing her eyes and looking at me. "You do, you know. No one ever has made me come the way you do. Ugh, so embarrassing."

Blaze was being serious, I could see it on her face. "Don't be embarrassed," I told her, failing to hide the grin on my face – the one that said my ego had just grown three sizes. "It's just, uh, maybe it's just –"

"Ha!" She laughed, taking her bra when I passed it to her and starting to get dressed. "Look at you, Jack, sitting there glowing with pride. Well I guess it's your right, because as big as this is going to make your head, it's actually true. It's always been difficult for me to have an orgasm with a man, actually. I don't know, I guess I never really thought about it much – it made me feel like something might be wrong with me."

"Nothing is wrong with you," I said. "Believe me, Blaze Wilson, there is not a single damned thing wrong with you."

"I'm being serious, Jack. This is hard for me to talk about."

"Oh I know," I whispered, pulling her onto my lap and kissing her neck, just below one of her delicate little seashell ears. "I know you are, babe. But hearing this does kind of make me want to strut around like a rooster with its chest all puffed out."

"Is that how roosters walk?"

I laughed at the random question. "Actually, yes. We used to have poultry at Sweetgrass Ranch when I was a kid – the rooster always strutted around like he owned the whole place. You're making me feel like that."

"Am I?"

Our eyes met. "Yeah," I replied honestly. "You are. You telling me that no man has ever made you come like that? You're lucky I don't rip off my shirt and run around the grounds of the hotel beating my chest like a gorilla. But I know, Blaze. I mean, I'm not a woman, so I suppose I don't know – but I understand that it's not always as easy for a woman. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with you."

"Well, not when you're around," she whispered, leaning forward to kiss my cheek, then my mouth.

"What do you want?" I asked her. "You tell me what you want right now, right this minute, anything in the whole universe and I'll make it happen."

I wasn't joking or exaggerating. It was simply true that nothing in the world mattered as much as what Blaze Wilson wanted, and my conviction that whatever it was, I would be the one to give it to her. Thankfully she did not declare an abiding desire for me to scale Everest or bring her the heads of her enemies.

"Just you," she smiled. "Just you, Jack. Are you still hungry? Let's go check out that restaurant."

* * *

"And your wife?"

We were seated at a linen-covered table in a large, dark-wood paneled dining room, and the female server, an older woman, had just asked me what my 'wife' would be having to drink.

"I'll have a Guinness too," Blaze replied politely. "But I'm not his wife."

"Oh!" The server responded, flustered. "I just thought, uh, I thought you two were on your – oh, well, I'm very sorry about that. I'll be right back with your drinks."

When she was gone, Blaze made a face. "Wow. I must be getting old."

I shook my head, chuckling. "I – uh, I don't think that's what she was getting at, Blaze."

"Don't you? God, a wife. Next thing you know people are going to start calling me ma'am."

"You're wrong," I told her. "This has nothing to do with age. She just noticed something between us. I mean, we did just spend the last hour making love. You think people don't pick up on that, when a couple seems especially close?"

"Well it never happened before you," she replied. "Not with my ex or anyone I dated."

"I just don't think this has anything to do with how old she thought you are," I said. "I really don't. You're 26, you don't look 'old.' Here, let's pick something to eat. I don't even know what half of these things are. Dublin Coddle? What's that? It sounds like some kind of PG-13 sex move."

Blaze laughed out loud. "Ha, it does, doesn't it? What about – ooh, corned beef and cabbage, even I've heard of that. Irish stew? This is the perfect time of year for stew."

In the end, Blaze went for the Irish stew and I ordered the Dublin Coddle, which turned out to be a kind of stew made with sausages, bacon, potatoes and onion. It was delicious. Everything we were served was delicious, right down to the traditional soda bread. Blaze commented that if we ate like that every day we'd have to spend all our time in the gym doing cardio just to burn off all the starch calories.

"Or work on a ranch," I commented. "I usually eat like this – I mean, not these things specifically but the diet was very meat-and-potato-heavy at Sweetgrass Ranch. Old Blackjack used to consume his weight in steak and potatoes on an almost nightly basis and he was always wiry as hell. Working all day burns a lot of calories."

We chattered on throughout the meal and two slow, drawn-out rounds of coffee, completely engrossed in each other, until night fell and we were the only people left in the dining room. When it came time to leave, the server suggested a walk in the grounds.

"It's lovely at this time of year," she told us. "Perfect for a walk after a meal like this."

"Sounds good," Blaze said. "Although I'm not sure I can walk after eating all that."

A thick fog swirled around us as we strolled hand in hand down the gravel paths that criss-crossed the neatly-maintained land surrounding the hotel. We were just coming to a small stand of oak trees that looked like something out of a Tolkien novel when Blaze stopped short suddenly and looked up at me. For some reason the look on her face triggered a memory of her in the pick-up truck back in Little Falls, that day the smell of pig manure had made her sick.

"Blaze?" I asked. "What is it?"

She waved her hand at me and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. "Wait. Just a – whoa, just a sec, Jack."

"What?" I asked, starting to get genuinely concerned. "Do you feel dizzy? What's going on? Blaze!"

"OK," she said, a few seconds later, blowing air out of her mouth. "Ugh, I don't know what that was – I just felt like I was going to throw up all of a sudden. I think – yeah, I think I'm OK now. How about you? Do you feel OK?"

I nodded. "I'm fine. Maybe this is just jet-lag or something – do you want to go back to the room? Are you tired?"

She reached for my hand. "No. I actually feel totally normal now. Man, that was weird. But it's nice out here, isn't it? It feels so – I don't know, magical somehow. The fog and those huge trees, I feel like some kind of medieval princess."

So we kept going, but I kept a close eye on her even as she said she felt entirely fine after that short, strange episode. She wasn't wrong about the surroundings, though. It was December 22nd, three days before Christmas, and some of trees closer to the castle itself had been festooned with Christmas lights – or 'fairy lights' as I had heard a little kid in the lobby referring to them. It did feel magical, especially through the woodsmoke-tinged fog.

"This is so nice," Blaze said, cuddling close to me as we walked. "I'm so glad you invited me to come here with you, Jack. Really."

"Well there's no one I wanted to be with more than you," I replied plainly.

"When are you going to the bank? Tomorrow?"

I still hadn't quite figured out how to tell Blaze about the money. I knew I didn't want to tell her – or anyone, I wasn't even going to accept it myself – until I had the reassurance of a real person from the Bank of Ireland telling me to my face that yes, it was actually mine and no, there hadn't been some terrible mix-up. I also wasn't sure if I wanted her to come to the bank with me. Was that a good way for her to find out? I knew she was going to be happy, especially when I told her about the livestock, but I wanted it to be perfect.

"I don't know," I hedged, kicking at a tuft of grass on the edge of the path. "Maybe. I'll call them and see what branch I need to go to, see if I have to make an appointment, that kind of thing."

Blaze looked up at me curiously. "Really?" She asked. "Aren't you dying to get your hands on it? And when are you going to tell me how much it is?"

"When I know for sure," I replied. "But don't you go letting your imagination run away with you or anything like that."

"I'm not," she replied. "It's not my money. All I care about is you, Jack. I know it's too much to hope for but I still – I guess I just haven't accepted that Sweetgrass Ranch isn't yours anymore. Which is really stupid, because you seem to have accepted it."

I nodded, not wanting to say anything concrete, or give her any hints. When I bent to kiss her cheek her skin was cool against my lips. "We should get back," I said, "you're not wearing the clothing to be out for too long in weather like this."

We walked back to the castle, nodding and smiling to the other guests we passed by, as you do when you're feeling particularly happy yourself. And as soon as the heavy wooden door to our room was closed behind us, Blaze was wrapped around me, covering me in kisses that tasted like coffee and clutching at my clothing, eager to get it off.

"You're insatiable," I laughed, slipping my tongue into her mouth and pulling her body against me.

We made love two more times before finally falling asleep – and when we did I lay awake for longer than her, staring up at the ornate ceiling and trying to figure out if I'd known Blaze in a past life, or if the feeling of the two of us fitting together like long lost puzzle pieces was a sign of something else.