Not tonight.
She presses her palm to my chest. Over my heart.
“You still carry me here?”
I cover her hand with mine.
“Every day.”
She guides us to the edge of the heated pool. Steam ghosts around her legs as she slides in, graceful and silent. I follow, steps slow, reverent.
We meet in the center, water up to our waists.
She wraps her arms around my neck and leans in, forehead to mine.
“I wantyou,” she whispers.
“Not who I was?”
“No. Not who you pretended to be either.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me. “I wantthis.You. Now. No ghosts.”
And gods help me, I’ve never wanted anything more than to be real for her.
I kiss her like a man who’s been starving. But not desperate.
Present.
Alive.
Her mouth opens to me like a secret unfolding, and I take my time learning every syllable.
Our bodies find rhythm—slow, deliberate, wrapped in heat and memory and the tremble of something neither of us can name. Every touch is a promise. Every breath is a confession.
She leads. Then lets me lead.
And when she gasps my name—notin anger, not in warning, but like anoath—I damn near fall apart inside her arms.
We make love in the water like we were born from it.
No barriers.
No lies.
Just skin and soul and the trust of two people who never stopped needing, no matter how many years carved their distance.
Later—long after the steam fades and the water stills—we climb out. Dry off. Find warmth in each other again.
She curls against me in the loungers by the artificial flame pit, her hand resting on my chest, legs tangled with mine.
“You’re not sleeping,” she says without opening her eyes.
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because if I sleep... you might not be here when I wake up.”
