I'd waited eight years to hear those words.
The bedroom was dark. Curtains still drawn from days of her hiding.
I didn't reach for the light. Didn't need to. I knew her by touch, by memory, by the way her breath caught when my fingers found the hem of her shirt.
I pulled it over her head. Slowly. Let myself look.
She stood in front of me in a thin bra and gray sweatpants slung low on her hips.
The lean lines of her waist. The swell of her breasts rising with each breath. The freckles scattered across her collarbones like a constellation I'd once known by heart.
She was more beautiful than I remembered. And I remembered everything.
She reached for me. Tugged my shirt over my head. Her hands settled on my chest, fingers splaying across my skin.
I felt the touch in my spine.
"You're bigger than you were." Her palms traced down over my ribs, the ridges of my stomach. Slow. Exploratory. Like she was relearning the shape of me.
"Eight years of hauling hose."
She smiled against my mouth when she kissed me again.
We took our time. And we didn't.
Her bra unclasped under my fingers, muscle memory, my hands remembering what my mind had tried to forget. She inhaled sharply when the air hit bare skin, and I dipped my head. Kissed what she'd bared for me.
Her fingers tightened in my hair.
"I missed you," I murmured against her skin. "Every day. Every night."
The sweatpants came off easily. One tug and they pooled at her feet. She stepped out of them and pulled me closer.
Nothing between us now except the last thin layer of fabric and eight years of wanting.
I lifted her. She wrapped her legs around me, instinct, the way she always used to, and I carried her to the bed.
Laid her down. Looked at her.
Dark hair fanned across the pillow. Green eyes watching me. The rise and fall of her chest.
"Come here."
I lowered myself over her. Foreheads touching. Breathing the same air. Her body warm and solid beneath mine.
My hand traced the dip of her waist. The flare of her hip. The soft skin of her inner thigh.
She shivered.
"Garrett—" Her back arched. "Please?—"
Slowly. Deliberately. Watching her face, the flutter of her lashes, the flush spreading down her neck, the way her lips parted when I found the places that still undid her.
She gasped. Pulled me closer. Said my name like it was the only word she had left.
I wanted to memorize every sound. Every shudder. The way her nails dragged down my back. The way her thighs tightened around me. The way she whispereddon't stopagainst my jaw.
I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to.
