"Say it."
"I want your cock inside me. Right now."
He kisses his way back up and lines himself up, and this time there's no rush — he pushes in slow, watching my face the entire way, one long stroke until he's fully seated, and the sound we both make is not small and not quiet. He stills, forehead against mine, buried deep, the two of us just there together in the middle of what we've chosen.
"Look at me," he says.
I look at him.
"You stayed," he says.
"I stayed."
"That matters. I need you to know that matters more than—" He rolls his hips, slow and deep, and whatever he was going to say disappears into a sound low in his throat.
I don't look away now. I let him see everything, because this time there's nowhere to go and nothing to manage — I'm exactly where I chose to be, and every drag of his cock inside me proves it.
"You feel the same," he says. "Ten years and you still feel exactly the same."
"Owen!"
"I know." He moves harder, deeper, and I grip his shoulder and say his name twice. "I've got you. Tell me what you need."
"More," I say. "Harder — right there!"
He gets a hand under my lower back, changes the angle so every thrust drags against the spot that makes my whole body clench around him, and I dig my nails in and say his name again.
"There," he says. "I know. I've got you. Stay with me."
Owen gets his thumb against my clit and works it in slow circles while he fucks me, deep and steady, and I come apart around his cock — hard, shaking, clenching down on him, his name breaking out of me. His face when he watches it isn't triumph. It's relief. The specific quiet of a man who wasn't sure he'd get this back.
I pull him down and get my mouth on his throat, and that's what breaks him. His control cracks, his rhythm goes rough and deep, and he groans my name into my hair as he comes, hips stuttering, buried deep, holding there until it's finished and I can feel every drop.
He doesn't move for a long moment. Just breathes, forehead in my hair.
Afterward he lies on his back and pulls me against his side. I put my hand on his chest again, over his heart.
The room is quiet. Outside it's fully morning, the festival grounds waking up for the last day, someone's music already going.
"I'm not going back the same way," I say.
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "What does that mean?"
"It means: I went to Vancouver at twenty-three because I wanted a career and a life and I wasn't wrong to want that. But I think I also went because I was afraid of what staying would mean. Being the girl from Silver Ridge. Beingyourperson. Like that would make me smaller somehow." I pause. "It wouldn't have."
"No.”
"So I'm not going back the same way. I'm going back to figure out what needs to change. Work, living situation, whatever. I don't know what it looks like yet."
"Okay,” he nods.
"You're not going to ask what the timeline is?"
He tilts his head down to look at me. "And I've been waiting ten years. I can be patient."
I press my face against his shoulder.
The bonfire that night is enormous.
