His hand slides into my hair. Mine go to their familiar spot on the front of his ruined sweater so I can pull him toward me hard.
It's an easy thing to lean into. So long as I'm kissing Afon, the rest of the world ceases to exist. There is no hospital and no Lastochka, no Reznik and no blood in the snow. There are just two pairs of lips, his and mine, and all the other noise no longer seems to matter as much.
So if I'm climbing across the seat into his lap because the steering wheel's in the way and I need to be closer than this, then that's okay.
And if I need to feel something that isn't the inside of that cursed waiting room, then that's okay.
And if his hands on my hips and my heartbeat in my throat and the hardness of him grinding up between my legs all combine to soothe me in a way I've spent three decades on this earth waiting to be soothed, then that's okay, that's okay, that's okay.
"You scared me," I whisper into the hollow of his neck. "I came running out to bring you the phone, and the look in your eyes…"
"You scaredme." His arms wrap all the way around me, crushing me to him. "When you came over that rise and I saw you standing in the open, I have never been more afraid of anything in my life, Caroline."
"I'm no coward," I snap. "I wasn't going to crouch behind a duffel bag while they shot at you."
"I know." He says it into my hair. "That's the problem. You won't stay where it's safe. You never have."
"No." I pull back enough to look at him. "Because the safe spot's empty and you're never in it."
He kisses me again, softer and more tenderly than ever before. The world keeps reducing itself down to the bare essentials. His mouth on my throat. My fingers in his hair. The fog on the windows. Electric need pulsing just beneath the surface of my skin.
After that, there's no more talking.
I'll be honest: It's not the best sex of my life. The truck is too small, and both Afon and I are too hurt and weary and cold to be particularly limber. It smells like blood, gasoline, and hospital antiseptic. I literally still have tears drying on my face, for God's sake, and nothing is truly solved.
But we make do.
Because if you have this thing—this unnamed thing between us that I cannot and will not call "love," not yet, maybe not ever—then all the rest of it is merely unnecessary detail.
I free him from his jeans, perform a Cirque du Soleil shimmy out of my own pants, and then I sink down onto his lap while he cradles me in his embrace. We move together, herky-jerky and awkward, slow and then not slow. The windows fog all the way to opaque, like we're in our own little snow globe, filled with pants and whispered murmurs and praise flowing from Afon's beautiful, filthy mouth without a single pause.
You ride me so fucking good, baby.
No one can take me like you.
No one can own me like you.
You're so pretty. So pretty. So pretty…
In here, neither death nor the cold can touch us. He tells me I'm beautiful, that I'm his, that I was made for this, made for him, and I believe every word, all of it, even the things he hasn't said yet, even the things that are going to break my heart one day, maybe even one day soon.
It's not an eruption of an orgasm. It's water reaching a boil. Nothing happens for a long time until suddenly, it's happening, bubbling through me, hurting so good. Afon's is quiet, too. A few grunts, he spills everywhere, and I want to burrow inside of him and never come out ever again.
"That was probably very irresponsible," I whisper finally, once it's all over. "Someone could be watching."
I feel him laugh. "Ask me if I give a fuck."
I press my face into his shoulder and breathe him in and feel, for the first time in what feels like a thousand years,almostokay. Not safe—we're not safe, we won't be safe for a while yet. But not alone.
Whatever happens next, I won't be doing it alone.
We get cleaned up as best we can. He helps me sort myself out, and I check the wound at his hip—it's oozing again, the gauze gone, but it'll hold a little longer. I press my palm flat to it anyway, like I can keep him together by hand.
"We should go back in," I say. "In case there's news."
He nods. But he doesn't move right away. He just looks at me, in the white light filtering through the fogged glass, and smiles.
"What?" I ask.
