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It took Molly a moment to react, surprised by his sudden melting, but she wrapped her arms around his midsection and sought healing in the thing she needed healing from.

“I’m sorry, Mols,” he whispered against the side of her face. Of all the differences between this Aster and the one she’d known before all this happened, his ability to apologize, to own the consequences of his actions and words, stole her breath like nothing else.

“That’s not why. Not at all,” he continued, pulling back.

She looked up at him, willing him to understand. “I don’t need you to save me. I’m accepting this.”

“I know you don’t. You don’t need anyone to save you.” He scowled and drew in a breath, causing Molly’s heart to drop. “We’re partners in this. I know you don’t need your memories, but I—I have to help. If I can.” He gave a tiny, almost nonexistent shrug.

“But you can’t help,” she said, floored by this man’s improbable devotion and all the ways it manifested. “And that’s okay. It’s time to move on.” She gestured at all the books around them. “If all this is here, then what—why won’t you unlock that stupid room?”

Aster’s hands found her face, cradling her jaw as he stepped even closer, pressing her against the table. His face crumpled, agony in every line.

“There’s . . . history in there. And I’m so afraid of hurting you.” One of his hands trailed along her temple, fear and reverence fused at odd angles, a struggle to find balance.

“Please,” Molly begged, willing to sacrifice her dignity. “I’m afraid too, but that’s just—it’s not enough. What could possibly be in there that has you so worried I can’t handle it? I can. I promise I can.”

Her vision blurred, and she blinked hard against her tears.

Warm hands bracketed her face. Aster’s stare contained no whirlpools, only a sense of home.

“I don’t want to fight,” she whispered. He gave the smallest shake of his head before he shifted even closer still, trapping her hands against his chest.

“I don’t either,” he said. His words came out stiff and tight. A long pause. And then: “Do I have a chance without them?” he asked quietly.

“A chance at what?”

“To convince you to love me again. Even if you don’t remember the first time.”

Molly was grateful for their closeness, for the sturdiness of his body pressed against hers, pinning her to the desk behind them. Because without that support, she might have stumbled under the unexpected sadness that overtook her. She had her doubts. And apparently he had his.

“Aster,” she whispered, desperate with the instinct to kiss him. She pressed her lips to his, holding their faces close. “That’s what makes this so hard,” she continued between tiny kisses of reassurance. Warmth flushed her as one of his hands found the base of her neck, tangling in her hair the way she loved. Loved. “You’ve already convinced me to love you, and it’s made me greedy and selfish because all I can think about is how much I want to move on and live a new life with you.”

Aster’s mouth consumed whatever other confessions she might have spilled. His kiss was desperate, relieved, and sent heat racing beneath her skin. The temperature between them had been so cold, so stagnant in their avoidance of the issue. This new heat brought her hunger out of hiding.

She pulled at his Oxford shirt; the lack of space between them still felt like too much. If there was room for air—or doubt—then there was too much distance. She couldn’t help the whimper that broke free as Aster disentangled his hands from her hair and sat her on the desk.

Molly wrapped her legs around his hips, hands dropping to his belt. He groaned, shoving her skirt up. She’d had such a small taste of him once before and had been starving ever since.

Molly remembered enough about astronomy to know that the name Aster, among its many meanings, was also a Greek word for “star.” Fittingly, he kissed light directly into her lungs.

She also knew that stars sometimes orbited each other in binary systems, constantly circling.

That thought, of how appropriate such a fact was when she felt trapped in an orbit with him and completely disinterested in escape, rocketed through her consciousness when he shifted her underwear aside and, in a thrust that stole the air from her lungs, he brought them together for the first time since her birthday. His mouth latched on to her neck, frantic fingers struggling to unbutton her blouse. The desk beneath her rocked, sending towers of literature about missing memories clattering to the ground. A glass shattered.

She held tight to his shoulders as a thundering in her chest predictably followed the lightning strike in his touch.

“I’ll stop researching,” he breathed against her ear, dropping kisses against her neck. “You’re enough, in any iteration. I loved you once, of course I’ll love you again. I’ll love you always. I never stopped. You have to know that.” His words came out heavy, panted as he rocked against her.

Molly swallowed, trying to form words. She found his eyes as another series of books scattered against the floor, research abandoned. How could she ever have doubted, brief as it was, when he looked at her like that, touched her like this?

“I do. I know,” she said, pulling to meet his mouth, desperate to taste him. One of his hands fell to grip the table beside her, seeking stability as his other arm wound around her lower back, pulling them as close as physics would allow. God, to be trapped in a degrading orbit with him, gravity ripping her fears to shreds with the promise of oblivion in destruction.

She sucked in a breath, writhing in a cage of her own skin, and coming at the command of his practiced touch, of hands that knew and loved and worshipped her. And as he tumbled after her, breath shaky against her lips, he held his face to hers. Molly couldn’t help but think what small things their disagreements were when compared to the cosmos, and how a man named for a star couldn’t be expected to operate on any other scale.

It struck her with the same force as the lightning he’d used to electrify her; he could give her everything or he could give her nothing, there could be no in-between. She held him as she found that echo of understanding hiding in her head.

She let out a soft laugh when they finally separated, righting their clothes. Her eyes landed on the books they’d sent crashing to the floor.