"That's going on Instagram," he announces.
"Let it," Ryder says, and kisses me again.
The party stretches into the early hours. We dance badly to terrible pop music, drink too much champagne, and pose for approximately eight hundred photos with people who want to commemorate the moment. Cade claps Ryder on the back and says something that makes Ryder laugh and look at me with so much love I feel it in my bones.
At two in the morning, we finally stumble back to Ryder's apartment, fingers linked and faces flushed from champagne. The streets are empty now, just the two of us and the echo of our footsteps on the sidewalk. Fresh snow has started to fall, dusting the parked cars and streetlights.
"Hell of a night," Ryder says.
I lean into his side. "You didn't have to do that. The speech."
"I wanted to." He stops under a streetlamp, turns to face me. Snow catches in his hair, melts on his eyelashes. "Wanted everyone to know."
"Know what?"
"That you're mine. That I'm yours." He cups my jaw, his palm warm against my frozen skin. "That I'm not going anywhere that matters."
I kiss him there in the middle of the empty street, slow and deep and full of promises. When we finally make it upstairs, we're both shivering and laughing, shedding layers in a trail to the bedroom. My coat lands on the floor. His scarf follows. He backs me against the wall by the bedroom door and kisses me until my knees go weak, his hands sliding under my sweater to find bare skin.
"Cold," I gasp against his mouth.
"I'll warm you up." His voice is gravel and want, and heat floods through me despite the chill clinging to my clothes.
We stumble the last few feet to the bed, tugging at buttons and zippers. His sweater comes off, then mine. My bra. His jeans. Each piece of clothing reveals more skin, more heat, more of the man I've fallen so hard for in just three weeks.
He lays me back on the bed and hovers over me, his weight braced on his forearms. The city lights outside cast silver across his shoulders, the sharp angles of his face. He's so beautiful it makes my throat ache.
"I need to memorize this," he says, his fingers tracing the curve of my waist, the dip of my hip. "Every inch of you. So I can remember when we're apart."
"Then look." I arch into his touch, bold and wanting. "Touch me. I want to feel you everywhere."
His breath hitches. He lowers his mouth to my collarbone, pressing kisses down the center of my chest, across my ribs. His hands map my body like he's drawing a new route home, fingertips skating over sensitized skin until I'm squirming beneath him.
"Ryder." His name comes out desperate, needy.
"I know." He kisses the hollow of my hip, his stubble rough against my inner thigh. "Tell me what you want."
"You. All of you."
He groans and moves back up my body, settling between my legs. His mouth finds mine again, hungry and claiming, while his hand slides down to hook under my knee and hitch my leg around his hip. The contact makes us both gasp.
"Please," I whisper.
He reaches for the nightstand, finds what he needs. I watch him through hazy eyes, taking in the flex of muscle in his arms, the focused intensity on his face. When he finally pushes into me, we both go still, breathing hard.
"Okay?" he asks, his forehead pressed to mine.
"More than okay." I roll my hips, urging him deeper.
He moves. Slow at first, finding our rhythm, then faster when I dig my nails into his shoulders and demand it. The bed frame creaks. My breath comes in short bursts. He buries his face in my neck and groans my name like a prayer, and I'm lost in the feeling of him, the weight and heat and desperate connection.
"Look at me," I manage, and when he lifts his head, his eyes are dark and wild. "I love you."
"I love you too." His hand slides between us, finding where I need him most, and the pleasure spikes so sharp I cry out. "Come for me, Luce. Want to feel you."
The climax hits hard, stealing my breath and vision. I clench around him, shaking, and he follows with a broken curse, his hips stuttering as he buries himself deep and holds.
For a long moment, we just breathe together, sweat-slicked and tangled. His heartbeat pounds against my palm. Mine races in time. This is what I'll remember when he's gone. Not the distance or the loneliness, but this. The way he looks at me like I'm his whole world. The way he touches me like I'm precious. The way he makes me feel brave enough to believe we can survive anything.
