Then his mouth curves.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
He studies my face for a long second, not talking, and I know that look now. It’s his looking-too-hard look. The one that says he still can’t quite believe I’m here.
I smooth my hand over his cheek.
His eyes close for half a beat.
When they open again, they’re darker.
“Why are you smiling like that?” he murmurs.
“Like what?”
“Like you know something I don’t.”
I laugh under my breath.
“This is going to sound insane.”
His brows lift.
“Try me.”
I trace the sheet where it cuts across his chest, buying myself one last second before I just say it.
“Why did last night feel like a wedding night?”
He goes still.
Not frozen.
Not thrown.
Just very, very still in the way he gets when something matters enough to hit all the way through him.
Then his expression changes.
Softens.
Deepens.
Breaks me.
“Because it wasn’t about finally having you,” he says quietly. “It was about finally keeping you.”
My throat tightens so hard I can’t speak for a second, then I lean in and kiss him, slow and smiling and helplessly in love with the fact that he is exactly this boy, this man, this impossible combination of heat and devotion and self-control that makes everything in me feel safer and more alive at once.
When I pull back, I whisper, “How are we supposed to top that?”
He grins, lazy and beautiful and still not fully awake.
“We don’t.”
I blink.
