He enters me with a sudden, forceful thrust that knocks the breath out of me. I wrap my legs around his waist, locking him in. I’m not letting him go. Not tonight. He’s going to stay right here until he remembers exactly who I am.
The rhythm is frantic. He’s moving with a drive that borders on aggression, his hands gripping my hips so hard I know there will be bruises tomorrow. Fingerprints. Evidence of his presence. I want them. I want to look in the mirror and see that he was actually here.
“Look at me,” he commands, his voice cracked.
I open my eyes. In the shadows, his face is a mask of concentration and raw, unadulterated need. He looks like theman who once stayed up all night drawing sketches of a house we’d never be able to afford, just because he wanted to see my name on the mailbox.
He moves faster, his chest heaving against mine. Losing control, his movements turn erratic, more primal. Taking. Claiming. Marking his territory.
I feel the climax building, a sharp, white-hot tension that starts in the small of my back and radiates outward. I tighten my grip on him, my nails sinking into his shoulders. I want him to feel this. I want him to know that I am the only thing keeping him grounded.
“Ross… please…”
“I’ve got you,” he gasps. “I’ve got you, baby.”
He thrusts one last time, his entire body shuddering. Then he lets out a deep, guttural groan that sounds like breaking. I follow him over the edge, the world dissolving into a series of sharp pulses and the heat of his skin against mine.
There is just the two of us, tangled in the ruins of our Valentine’s Day, breathing each other’s air. Ross collapses onto me, his heart thudding against my ribs. He’s heavy, sweat-slicked, and utterly present.
I run my hand down his back, feeling the tension slowly drain from his muscles. He’s here. He’s finally, actually here.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I whisper into the hollow of his neck.
He doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he squeezes me tighter—a silent acknowledgment of the passion we both felt after weeks of missed connections. He stays there, his weight a comfort, his breathing slowly evening out.
I close my eyes, letting the darkness of the room wrap around us.
Ross rolls off me, though he drapes his arm across my stomach. His other hand rests limp against my hip, his breath evening out.
I start to close my eyes. I can feel the pull of sleep, the sweet, heavy gravity of it. My thoughts are a blurred collage of lamb, silk, and the way Ross looked at me when he said my name.
I’m almost there. Almost under.
Ross stirs again, a twitch of his hand on my hip. He lets out a long, shuddering sigh, the kind of breath that marks the final surrender to the subconscious. He’s in that grey space now, where truth lives without any of the filters we use during the day.
“Goodnight, Tabitha,” he murmurs.
Chapter 3
Margot
The name poisons the oxygen.
Tabitha.
Three syllables that act like a controlled demolition, vibrating through the headboard and into my skull. My heart, which had been slowing near Ross’s chest, suddenly kicks, dead. I don’t move. Don’t even blink. I am a statue carved from ice, frozen in the exact position of a woman who was loved ten seconds ago.
Ross is the one who moves.
I feel the violent jolt of his body as his brain catches up to his mouth. The arm draped over me, the one that had felt like a sanctuary, suddenly feels like a heavy, dead limb. He pulls back, his skin sticking to mine for a sickening second before the friction breaks.
I stare at the ceiling.
“M-Margot,” he stammers. The tone is different now. It’s not the prayerful whisper of the man who just claimed to be home.It’s the frantic, high-pitched whine of a man who just saw a load-bearing wall crack in half. “I, I didn’t mean. God, Margot.”
If I look at him, I might shatter, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction. I slide away from him, my movements smooth and mechanical. I grab the top edge of the Egyptian-cotton sheet and roll, wrapping it around my body until I am a mummy, a cocoon, a closed system.
The fabric is cold. The room is cold. Ross is a heat source I no longer recognize.
