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My legs instinctively wrap around him. I can tell how hard he is; I can feel him. Apparently, Maison is the only topic that will get him into the headspace I need him to be in so I can have the physical side of him I want so desperately.

“Please,” I whisper, so hungry for him that my skin is burning.

He pulls up, looking at me as his dark pupils flare. “Do that again.”

My eyebrows draw together. “Do what?”

“Beg.”

My stomach swirls, and I can’t help but smile. “Please,” I whisper, running my fingers through his hair again. “Please. Please. Please.”

For someone so strong, his ego really is so fragile.

He presses his lips to my belly this time. “Are you sure?” he whispers. “It’s going to hurt.”

My breath hitches, and I give him a nod of consent, although I’m not sure exactly what I’m consenting to.

He starts sucking right near my belly button. I let out a moan as he scrapes his teeth down my stomach. I’m so thin that I barely have any fat for him to suck, but that doesn’t seem to stop him.

His lips tickle me at first, and I flinch when he bites me, puncturing my skin only slightly. He hesitates, looking up at me, so I buck into his torso, his contact making me desperate for more attention to release the deep pressure between my legs.

“Keep going,” I breathe.

He intensifies the pressure, then eases off. And during that moment of respite, I grab his fingers and place them on the sensitive part of my clit. He sucks harder, and I moan as the pressure mounts and an orgasm rolls through me. I can’t help but dig my fingers into his back. Instead of stopping, he just moves to another spot, and I let him, knowing he’ll give me another awful bruise, but that’s what he needs.

By the time he’s done, I have bruises on my belly, each hip bone, and one on my inner thigh. Each time, it gets progressively more painful, but my orgasms more intense. His fingers are deep inside me, pleasuring me during the worst part of it, blurring the line between pleasure and pain.

He’s so focused on me while he’s doing it. It’s just us, the deafening silence of the woods that besieges us, and the creaking door of the cabin reminding me that I am, indeed, still on earth.

I am breathless and glistening with sweat when he finally gives me relief. I have no idea how long he was doing that, but the sun is now setting. I guess it doesn’t matter because time as I understand it doesn’t exist.

Our eyes connect, and I smile at him. He didn’t speak the entire time, but he seems lighter now, even if I can’t properly breathe. The fact that I’m the reason for it makes my heart burst. “Do that again, too,” he says, cupping his skilled hands over each breast. His hands feel like silk as he rubs them over me.

I suck in a breath, my body on fire. I lean up to see him, to understand the look in his eyes. “Do what? What do you want me to do?”

He licks his bottom lip. “Smile. I want you to smile, baby.”

A big grin spreads over my face. He really has no idea how happy he makes me. Even in this impossible situation, I’m exactly where I belong.

He continues kissing my stomach, moving his way to my breasts, taking his time kissing every inch of them with his skilled tongue. He’s soft now, only giving me pleasure as an icy breeze pushes in a draft that painfully hardens each nipple. I giggle as he captures one between his teeth.

A smile tugs at his lips. “Fuck, I love you,” he says, and I melt. If those words were the last I ever heard, I would die in peace.

I remember the moment I first saw him, the explosions in my belly in the lunchroom at school. Which, at this point, seems like a lifetime ago, even though it was only in August. The explosions I have now are from enjoying the pain—his pain—as I pull it into me.

My eyes roam over to the window as large snowflakes drift to the ground like on a holiday card.

“Micah?” I whisper as the evening settles, the sharp wind outside subsiding and the snow blanketing the world around us.

“London,” he murmurs, not really listening.

“Who was Olivia to you? Please tell me now. All of it.”

He pauses his kisses, and I wince, worrying he might stop entirely. He doesn’t; he continues worshiping me. “She was a fuck. I needed a release, so Maison let me screw her pretending I was him. She suspected what we were doing and blackmailed me to keep fucking her. So I did, until shit turned ugly, and well… you know the rest.”

There you have it: a pointed explanation after months of half-truths and lies and years of deceit. He just lays it all out like it’s no big deal. I suppress my jealousy, the stinging twinge in my belly, considering the possibility he enjoyed having sex with her more than he does with me. I’m sick of being jealous of a ghost.

She doesn’t matter anymore.