Page 194 of A Matter of Time

“There’s no wastebasket,” I said, unable not to smile over how affronted he was. “I’ll get it in a minute, but I don’t want to get up, and I don’t want you to move either.”

He chuckled in my ear as he wrapped me in his arms. “Okay.”

The sigh that rose out of me was long and loud.

“Listen, even though being apart sucked, now I know everything I need to about you and me,” he rumbled, nuzzling his face into my hair. “I don’t wanna be with you because sex with us is the best I’ve ever had or because kissing you makes me want to do it all the time, or because of how your body fits against mine so perfect. I mean, I love all those things, but it’s not only that.”

Normally, I would have teased him, bantered with him, but I wanted to hear everything he thought, so I stayed quiet, nearly holding my breath.

“You’re not an experiment that got out of control.”

I nodded.

“I’m not me without you, and that’s the truth. I can be a detective without you, I can be an investigator, but not a man. I need to be loved to be me, and only you can do that.”

I couldn’t speak around the lump in my throat, so I turned my head, rolled to my side, on my hip—couldn’t knock off the contraption on my ankle, there’d be water everywhere—and took hold of his face. My fingers scraped over his stubbled jaw, his cheeks, as I stared up into those eyes I loved.

“I’m sorry for being a coward and not coming to see you as soon as I figured everything out,” he husked. “There was a lot to do to make it right. I would’ve had to tell everyone, tell Maggie I couldn’t see her anymore—basically throwing a grenade at my life.”

He was willing me to understand, and I did. I’d always been me, there was no change I had to make to be with him. But for him, there was a whole reframing of how people saw him that had to happen. Inside, there was a change of who he loved, but not of who he was. Sam remained the same man he’d always been, with his values and beliefs intact. What was different was on the outside, as people would make quick judgments seeing him holding my hand when we walked down the street. That was the part he had come to terms with in his mind. Our time apart had been him buried in work and doing a lot of soul searching.

“I thought we were done,” I said, and felt the shiver run through me. “Over. You weren’t coming back. I would have died before reaching out, so what was going to happen if I didn’t see you tonight?”

“Change was coming,” he assured me. “It’s a new millennium, after all. I couldn’t have gone too much further into two thousand without you.”

It was a good answer, but really, it didn’t matter. I would have been just as ready to hear him, to take him back into my life, into my bed, whenever it was that he decided he wanted me. And that probably made me weak and needy, but I knew my life would be perfect if I just had him along with all my other blessings.

“I love you,” I murmured.

“I know,” he said, grinning at me. “And I’ve bounced back and forth with you enough times to know that, with you around, I’m good. Gotta have you; only way my life works.”

I might have whimpered before he kissed me. I could have died happy right then and there.

We decided that since we were at his place, he would pack a bag and drive us to my apartment, and he would leave from there in the morning. He had offered to just throw me over his back and carry me, but I was determined to get the crutches he had loaned me to work. They were slightly too big, even though he had shortened them to the smallest they could go, but he assured me they were workable. So I was making my way to my building, from his car, with him beside me, yawning dramatically.

“Could you stop that?” I groused at him.

“Sorry?” he asked like he had no idea what I was talking about.

I tried to scowl, but he looked so good with the smile in his eyes, the way his lips curled up in the corner, the day-old stubble, and his hair sticking up in places. He was rumpled and tousled from being in bed with me earlier, having proven that he could be careful when he made love to me.

He wrapped my legs around his waist and supported my weight in his lap without once touching my ankle. I had insisted that we consummate our back-together status, despite his objections.

“I don’t wanna rush you,” I said, sitting up and turning to look at him. “But I gotta have you.”

“I don’t think that’s such a great idea with your ankle, do you?”

“You’ve never hurt me,” I reminded him.

“That’s not really the issue now, is it?”

“I think it is.”

“J—”

“Get this thing off me and take me to bed.”

“I—”