"I love you," I said against her mouth. Out loud. In person. Not on paper, not in drafting hand, but with my voice, rough and cracked and real. "I love you, Willow."
"I know." She pulled back just enough to look at me. Her eyes were wet and fierce and certain. "I love you too, you impossible man. I've loved you since you insulted my foam art and came back the next morning."
"It did look like a deformed sheep."
"Shut up and kiss me."
I kissed her. Walked her backward until her shoulders met the brick wall. She gasped at the contact—cold brick, warm body—and I pressed into her, one hand braced beside her head, the other sliding under her flannel to find skin. Her stomach. Her rib cage. The curve of her waist.
She yanked at my shirt. I pulled it over my head, and her hands were on me—palms flat against my abdomen, fingers tracing, relearning the territory she'd mapped over weeks and lost in three days.
"Here?" she asked. "On the floor of my future coffee shop?"
"If you want."
"I want." She pulled at my belt. "I want you. Right now. Right here."
The floor was hardwood and dusty and I didn't care. I shrugged out of my jacket, spread it on theground behind her—not chivalry, instinct, the last functioning part of my brain trying to protect her from the grime while the rest of me was already gone.
She sank down onto it. Pulled me with her. I settled over her, braced on my forearms, and kissed her throat, her collarbone, the spot below her ear that made her arch.
"Callum." My name in her mouth. The only sound I needed.
I unbuttoned her flannel. She wore a plain cotton bra underneath—white, simple, Willow's complete indifference to lingerie being one of the most erotic things about her. I pushed the fabric aside and kissed between her breasts. She threaded her fingers through my hair, holding me there.
"I missed you," she said. "Three days and I missed you so much I made your coffee on autopilot this morning. Poured it down the sink."
"I noticed your shampoo in my shower every time I closed my eyes."
"The cheap stuff?"
"The cheap stuff."
She laughed, and the laugh turned into a gasp when I took her nipple in my mouth. I sucked, circled with my tongue, and she rocked beneath me—her hips pressing up, seeking friction, the patience evaporating from both of us.
I unzipped her jeans. She lifted her hips and I pulled them down her legs, taking her underwear with them. She lay on my jacket on the floor of 343 Elm Street—bare from the waist down, flannel open, her body golden in the afternoon sun that streamed through the arched windows.
I'd designed buildings. Whole buildings. Glass and steel and stone. None of them came close to the architecture of this woman, laid out beneath me, trusting me with everything after I'd given her every reason not to.
"Stop looking at me like that," she said.
"Can't."
"Like what?"
"Like you're the most important thing I've ever built."
"Oh, God." She covered her face. "You can't say things like that while I'm naked."
"I'll say it when you're clothed too."
She pulled me down. Kissed me hard. Her hand went to my belt, unfastened it, shoved my pants down with the impatient touch of a woman who knew what she wanted and was done waiting for it.
I kicked free. She wrapped her hand around me and I groaned—a raw, choked sound that echoed off the brick walls and stamped tin ceiling.
"Condom," she said.
"Wallet.Back pocket."
