"Take me to bed, Jimmy," I said, my voice steady despite the way my heart was racing. "I want to remember what it feels like to be yours."
His breath caught, and I saw the exact moment when the careful distance we'd been maintaining finally collapsed. His hands came up to frame my face, his thumbs brushing away the tears I hadn't realized were still falling.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice soft but intense. "Because once we cross this line, I don't think I can go back to pretending I don't need you."
"I don't want you to pretend," I said, leaning into his touch. "I'm tired of pretending. I'm tired of being careful andcontrolled and afraid of feeling too much. I want to feel everything, Jimmy. I want to feel alive again."
He studied my face for a moment longer, searching for any sign of hesitation. What he saw there must have satisfied him, because he leaned down and kissed me — soft at first, tentative, like he was afraid I might disappear if he moved too fast.
But I was done with careful. I was done with tentative. I kissed him back with six weeks of suppressed longing, my hands fisting in his shirt to pull him closer. He made a sound low in his throat, part surprise and part relief, and then his arms were around me, lifting me slightly as he deepened the kiss.
"Bedroom," I breathed against his lips, and he nodded, his forehead resting against mine.
"Are you sure — "
"Jimmy," I interrupted, looking directly into his eyes. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."
He swept me up then, literally lifting me off my feet, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me toward my bedroom. I felt powerful and cherished at the same time, strong enough to choose this vulnerability, brave enough to trust him with the parts of me I'd kept hidden for so long.
In my bedroom, he set me down gently beside the bed, his hands settling on my waist with a reverence that made my breath catch. The afternoon light filtered through my curtains, painting everything in gold, making this moment feel suspended outside of time.
"I've missed you," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "God, Izzy, I've missed you so much."
"Show me," I whispered, reaching for the hem of his shirt. "Show me how much."
What followed was unlike anything we'd shared before. In the past, our lovemaking had been passionate but careful, two people learning each other's bodies and boundaries. This was different. This was reunion and reconciliation and thedesperate need to prove to ourselves that we were real, that this was real, that we hadn't lost everything that mattered.
Jimmy's hands shook slightly as he helped me out of my sweater, his fingers tracing the lines of my shoulders like he was memorizing them all over again. When I reached for his shirt, pulling it over his head and running my hands over the familiar planes of his chest, he closed his eyes and made a sound that was part groan, part prayer.
We undressed each other slowly, carefully, like we were unwrapping something precious. When Jimmy's hands found the clasp of my bra, his eyes met mine, asking permission even though we'd been here before. I nodded, and when the fabric fell away, he looked at me like I was a miracle he couldn't quite believe in.
"Beautiful," he breathed, his hands coming up to cup my breasts, his thumbs brushing over my nipples with a touch so gentle it made me arch into him. "So beautiful."
I reached for his belt, my fingers working the leather with more urgency than finesse. When he was finally naked, when we were both standing there in the golden afternoon light with nothing between us but air and possibility, I felt something shift inside me. This wasn't just about sex, though desire was pooling low in my belly like liquid heat. This was about choosing to be vulnerable, choosing to trust, choosing love over fear.
"Come here," I said, pulling him down onto the bed with me.
Jimmy settled over me, his weight warm and solid and achingly familiar. For a moment, we just looked at each other, drinking in the reality of being here, together, whole.
"I love you," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I love your strength, your courage, the way you protect everyone around you. I love that you're brave enough to save people for a living, and I love that you're brave enough to let me love you."
The words broke something open inside me, something that had been locked away since the day I'd told him to stay away from me. I pulled his face down to mine, kissing him with everything I had — all the love I'd tried to suppress, all the need I'd tried to deny, all the hope I'd been afraid to feel.
"I love you too," I whispered against his lips. "I love how gentle you are, how you see people when they're broken and help put them back together. I love that you're brave enough to care about strangers, and I love that you're brave enough to fight for us."
What followed wasn’t lovemaking.
It was reclamation.
"I thought I'd lost this," he murmured, his palms spanning my hips like he needed to anchor himself. "I thought I'd lost you."
"You didn’t," I said, pressing my mouth to the hollow of his throat. “But I almost lost myself not having you.”
The way he kissed me then — open, hungry, barely controlled — set every nerve ending on fire. His mouth moved with purpose, rediscovering me with aching need, and I responded in kind. We undressed with reverence and urgency all at once, tugging and pausing, kissing each new stretch of revealed skin like it mattered. Because it did.
I arched into his touch when he cupped my breasts, the pads of his thumbs teasing across sensitive peaks until I whimpered. My hands roamed over the planes of his back, pulling him closer, needing to feel the weight and heat and reality of him. By the time he slipped my panties down and kissed the inside of my thigh, my whole body felt like a live wire.
“Lie back,” he whispered, voice ragged, “please, baby — I need to look at you.”
