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“You don’t have a psychology degree.”
A laugh breaks through the pressure inside my chest.
Briggs kisses my cheek before stepping into the hallway. “Go get your man, no-filter Charm.”
“He’s coming to me.”
His grin returns. “Even better.”
He jogs toward his apartment six doors away, then turns around before reaching it.
“Charm?”
“What?”
“Welcome to Milwaukee.”
He disappears inside his apartment.
The door closes behind him, leaving me alone with the quiet evidence of the hours we spent turning Ryan’s home into somewhere I no longer feel afraid to stand.
Then machinery begins moving behind the walls.
37
Charm
Footsteps strike the hallway, fast and heavy, before the lock turns.
Ryan enters wearing a black knit cap pulled low over his ears, a black wool peacoat over a dark hoodie, faded jeans, and fingerless gloves that remain an insane choice for anyone living in Wisconsin. Snow melts across his shoulders. Cold has darkened his cheeks, exhaustion sits beneath his eyes, and he looks like a man who spent most of the day driving around Lake Michigan twice without stopping long enough to question what would happen when he reached me.
Then he sees me.
Everything in his face changes.
For nearly seven months, Ryan has existed at a distance. First through silence, then letters, photographs, and Sunday calls that taught me every change in his breathing without giving me his face. I know the chair beside the windows where he reads my letters and the corner of his bedroom where his voice becomes lower when the hour grows late. One reckless night gave us enough sound to expose everything our bodies still needed, but neither of us saw the other. I built every movement from memory while his voice crossed four hundred miles and told me where to place my hands.
Nothing prepared me for the hunger that crosses his face when memory no longer stands between us.
The door slams behind him.
I run.
Ryan meets me hard enough to send his keys skidding across the floor. His arms lock around my waist, my feet leave the ground, and our mouths collide before either of us says a word.
Seven months detonate inside the kiss.
There is no careful reunion or trembling pause while we confirm the other is real. Ryan’s mouth is cold from outside, his body burns beneath layers of wool and cotton, and the force of him against me tears every fantasy distance allowed me to build apart.
His tongue moves into my mouth while I wrap my legs around his waist. My fingers drag the knit cap from his head and fist in his hair as he carries me deeper into the apartment.
He tastes like coffee, winter, and the man I have wanted through every letter, photograph, Sunday call, and lonely night after we hung up.
Ryan drives me against the wall beside the kitchen.
The impact never reaches my spine because one gloved hand slides behind me first. Even desperate enough to shake, he protects me without interrupting the kiss.
I pull his lower lip between my teeth.
