I’d sat in the darkness, my back against the wall, flicking through the dictionary, stopping a page with my finger and turning on the torch from my phone to read the entry. The fourth attempt found me at addiction. Fitting. Was Cal my addiction? I couldn’t stay away from her. I tried. Habit-forming. I only made it through a few hours before my mind raced and my body started to ache. Cessation causes severe trauma. Addicted, surely. Trauma to follow.

Was Cal my weakness or my strength? Could she be both? Did she write about obsession in her books? Not the warm kind. The dark, shadowy kind that threatened to pull you under, breaking your body along the rocks. I felt high, but so easily the low could follow. That thought alone pierced my conscience. It was why I had sat in the dark, trying to find clarity in the black. Trying to feel my way through the indistinct emotions.

I didn’t find clarity, so I sought confusion.

She was lying next to me on the bed.

Cal.

Beautiful, beautiful confusion.

She had a tattoo stretching up her thigh. A writing quote. Something about writing to live life twice. Black curves, ornate and classic, but the placement? Sexy personified. I wanted to run my tongue across it. Trace it out with my fingertips. Take a photo. Write down the quote. Memorise it. Keep it with me when she left. Oh, fuck. What was I doing? I was sliding down the slope of heartbreak again, but at this moment, looking at her spread across the bed, naked and flushed, spent and satisfied, I’d be happy to go there willingly.

‘Do you have to leave?’ she asked, sleepy and tranquil. I hated that she asked me that like she was expecting me to run, but understood why she automatically jumped to the conclusion.

‘No,’ I replied, brushing her face with the back of my hand. ‘I’ll stay.’ She held onto me, smiling like I’d given her the world.

I loved that smile.

‘Come back to bed,’ she said, curling over, inviting me to tuck myself in behind her as she drifted off to sleep. I looked at the space, thought about leaving, protecting myself, backing away before I got in too deep. But that was pointless now; I was already there. Deep and buried. In over my head.

She pulled my arm across her stomach. She gasped as I kissed her shoulder.

‘You’ve spent too much time by yourself,’ she whispered. ‘You need to get used to having someone around.’

‘That would be deadly,’ I replied against her neck. Her fingers slid around mine.

‘Why?’

‘You already know the answer.’

We were closer to Christmas Day than ever before. Two days before Christmas Eve. A week away from Cal leaving. She hadn’t mentioned it and neither had I, preferring to torture myself by meekly trying to keep away from her and failing miserably.

‘Are you still protecting yourself?’ she asked.

‘Trying.’

‘From me?’

‘Always,’ I replied, kissing the slope of her back.

‘Perhaps you don’t need to,’ she said sleepily. ‘I could move here permanently. Set up as Karensa publications. Add another string to your bow.’ I twirled her by her hips to face me. Studying her. Trying to tell if she was going to follow up her big statement with a wry smile or flirty wink. She didn’t. She bit her lip. ‘Writers can work anywhere as long as they have something to write with.’

‘Are you being serious?’ I asked, my fingers and thumbs stroking her cheeks.

She sat up, studying my face. A delirious recognition crossed across hers.

‘Do you want me to be?’ I nodded but didn’t commit to words. Too scary. ‘I’d consider staying longer,’ she said. The delirium she had fading slightly. ‘But I’d need to know something first.’

Consider. Was consider good enough for me? Consider was half-hearted. Consider was, I can still back out and leave at any time.

‘Yes, you’d have to sleep on the floor because Archie shares my bed.’ Jokes. A fail-safe for me.

‘Now that would be a problem. I have knots. Floor and knots equal pain.’

She screwed her mouth together in thought, letting it rest into a smile as I ran my finger across her lip to tease it out. ‘What do you need to know, lovely Cal?’

‘That you want me to be here,’ she said softly.

‘I do,’ I said, kissing her neck. ‘More than anything.’

‘I need to know that staying would be worth it because eventually, when we’d spent more time together, you’d give yourself to me, completely and wholly, not just snatches and glimpses.’

I sat up, kneeling above her, fighting the natural defences that I had become so familiar with, trying to hear what she was saying to me, trying to make sense of what it could mean for us.

‘I give you glimpses because I can’t give more knowing you’re leaving. But if you’re saying that’s not the case, it doesn’t have to happen—’

‘I’m saying I need more from you,’ she replied. ‘I can’t stay here longer not knowing if you’ll ever let me in. Fully. Openly. No hesitancy because of what happened before.’

Could I give her that? I wanted to, but in reality, I’d chosen to live this life, come to terms with the loneliness, accepted that I would never allow myself to fall in love again. There was a lot to pick through. My insecurities. My fears. Would I destroy us both? Force her to stop believing in love? If Cal stayed here, would she end up feeling the same as Meghan? Trapped. Isolated. Alone. Seeking comfort from elsewhere. Craving the life she had before Karensa. Resenting me, breaking me and leaving.

‘I can give you now,’ I replied honestly. ‘Now is yours without question.’

‘What about the chance of a future together?’

‘I don’t think like that, Cal,’ I said, rolling across the bed and standing up.

‘Because you did with Meghan?’

‘Yes. And she took it away,’ I replied raking my hand through my hair and kneeling down in front of her as she pushed herself forward on the bed. She cradled my head against her, wrapping her arms around me.

‘Is it ridiculous that I still want to stay?’

‘Absolutely ridiculous,’ I agreed. She ruffled her hand through my hair, it instantly made me relax.

Stay with me.

‘I’ll stay for a few more weeks. Get to know you better. See where this journey takes us,’ she replied, looking out of the window. She rested her elbows on the windowsill and I wrapped my arms around her. I needed to get used to the unfamiliar feelings she caused in me. Safety. ‘I’m starting to think I belong in places that make me feel significant,’ she said, and her words warmed through my body like an injection of fire. Cal was significant. She was significant to me. ‘In London, I’m a face in the crowd. Here, I feel like my life matters. Like I’m not so alone.’

‘It’s OK to do things alone,’ I replied, pressing a kiss to her neck.

‘It’s OK to do them with someone too.’ I nodded against her, loving how right she felt in my arms. She ran her tongue along her bottom lip before pushing back and kissing me. ‘I’ll take now,’ she said, sitting back on the bed and lying down with her arms stretched out, relaxed and carefree, if just for now. ‘I can work with that. It’s better than not at all.’

‘I can give you now,’ I repeated, sliding my hand between her legs. She parted them for me, gasping as I hit where she wanted me the most. ‘Now is yours.’ I pinched her nipple, watched the lip bite it elicited, the drop of her head, her eyes closing. ‘However long that may be.’ I felt her wetness on my fingers, hers or mine, my seed still inside her. I pushed her back, needing to taste her, the promise of our arousal merging, too much for me to bear. She was sweet and salty. Fucking gorgeous. I was hard, but this wasn’t about me. This was about Cal. I was consumed with making her come. Preoccupied with the noises that escaped her, the tiny gasps, the big moans, the immense pleasure playing throughout her body.

‘You’re making me crazy,’ I said, kissing along the glorious line of her pussy, opening her with my tongue.

‘Crazy’s good.’

‘How did you get me to break my rules?’ I asked, tasting her.

‘I’ll never get you to break them.’

‘Already did.’ I nodded against her pussy. ‘You make me want to get close to you. I want to let you in.’ I traced my finger along her tattoo, kissed her knee, slid my finger inside her, caught her gasp in my mouth as I placed mine against hers. Our tongues caressed each other, swirling, dancing as I curled my finger and pressed hard against the ridge of nerves, the knot that was tightening with every stroke. ‘Be the one that stays when others have walked away.’

‘Trust me,’ she gasped.

Yes. Let’s create a love alliance. You and me.

‘Ah…I’m going to come,’ she whispered, grasping my arm, digging into my skin. I watched her mouth part, her breathing become rapid, a chant of, Oh my God, falling from her lips, and I closed my eyes as I felt her pussy contracting around my finger, each pulse a slow descent from her climatic high.

Her thigh was still quivering. I held my hand there, kissed the inside of her leg, her tattoo reverberating, almost trying to recite the words of the quote out loud. She was born to write. Everything she did should be written down and preserved on paper. She pulled me towards her. I hovered above, our eyes connecting, never leaving each other, searching and longing. A feeling of contentment slipped through me like this was where I was meant to be and I couldn’t help myself. My fingers followed the lines of her nose, traced the curve of her lips. I kissed her, a feeling of something so great I could only link it to love and all of its power. I’d experienced the dark side of love, but Cal was the glorious light.

‘Write me words,’ I said. ‘Share this in your stories. Translate the feeling so that it’s this fucking beautiful.’

‘Inspire me,’ she whispered, dragging her hand down my stomach to feel the hardness of my cock, cradling it, making me want to write my own story. A story about absolution and forgiveness, reframing and rebuilding. Learning to love again. Allowing myself to. But above all, a story about love and the woman who was going to be part of my momentous plot-twist no matter how the story was going to end.