I opened my eyes. The firelight lit the planes of his face, and what I found in his expression wasn’t the controlled assessment I’d first cataloged in a service corridor — it was something I didn’t have a clean word for. Something that had been building since before either of us had names for it.
He pressed into me slowly, watching my face, and the stretch of him pulling a fractured sound from my throat that the firelight swallowed. For a moment neither of us moved — just the crackle of the fire and our breathing and the particular, impossible intimacy of two people who had fought their way here from opposite directions.
Then he began to move.
It was different from every time before. Unhurried in a way that had nothing to do with restraint and everything to do with intention — like he was determined to be present for every moment of it, to give me no reason to be anywhere but here. Each movement deliberate and generous, his forehead pressed to mine, his hand finding mine and pressing it into the rug above my head.
“I’ve wanted this,” he said against my temple. “Not just this. You. This specific thing we’re doing where we actually tell each other the truth.”
I laughed — breathless and startled — and felt him smile against my jaw.
The pressure built slowly, radiating outward from where we were joined until it reached my fingertips laced through his. His thumb found my clit, and I gasped and pulled him closer with my legs, and the slow deliberate rhythm gave way to something less controlled and more honest.
“Come for me, Em.” His voice low and certain, pressed against my ear. “Let me feel it.”
I did — the wave cresting and breaking, my whole body tightening around him, his name somewhere in the sound I made. He followed with his face buried in my hair and my name on his lips like it was the only word he needed.
We lay tangled together afterward on the soft rug, the fire warm at our sides, the lake catching the last of the day’s light beyond the windows. His hand moved slowly through my hair. I listened to his breathing slow.
“Stay,” he said eventually. The word came out quiet and unguarded, the way things did when the armor was completely gone. “Not just tonight. Not just this weekend.”
I propped myself up to look at him. He met my eyes steadily, and I could see the cost of the ask in his expression — Sebastian Laurent, who had spent his life ensuring he never needed anything he couldn’t control, asking someone to stay knowing she might say no.
I let the weight of it sit between us for a moment. Let him feel that I was actually considering it rather than deflecting.
“What are you asking?” I said. “Specifically.”
“I’m asking you to build something with me. Whatever that looks like. Wherever it takes us.” He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, fingers lingering at my cheek. “I can’t promise I’ll be perfect at it. My instincts are still going to be wrong sometimes. I’m still going to have to stop myself from trying to solve things I should be asking about instead.”
“I know.”
“But I can promise I’ll try. Every day. And I can promise that whatever you decide about the network job or the next story or where you want to set up your life — I’ll be the person standing beside you while you figure it out. Not in front of you. Not behind you, trying to manage the outcome.” His thumb traced my cheekbone. “Beside you.”
The word had been the whole argument, from the beginning. Beside.
I thought about the op-ed we’d planned together. About standing back to back against a ballroom full of people who wanted us to fail. About a night on a balcony in November when a stranger who knew my name had kissed me like I was something worth being careful with.
“The offer from the network,” I said slowly. “I was thinking about saying no.”
“Don’t.” His hand stilled on my face. “Not for me.”
“It’s not for you.” I pressed a kiss to his palm. “It’s because I’ve been so focused on proving I could do this alone that I almost missed the point. Doing it alone was never the goal. The goal was doing it on my own terms.” I held his gaze. “Those terms can include you. If you’re actually willing to be what you just described.”
“I am.”
“That remains to be proven.”
“I know.” A small, genuine smile. “I’m counting on you to keep track.”
I settled back against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath my cheek. Outside, dusk settled over the lake — the water going gold and then rose and then the deep still blue of an evening with no obligations in it.
“This,” I said quietly. “Whatever we’re becoming. I want to find out what it turns into.”
His arm tightened around me. “So do I.”
The fire crackled. The lake went dark. Somewhere in the forest, something moved through the undergrowth, and the world outside continued its indifferent business.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I wasn’t trying to get ahead of it.
