Her wanting my body before she runs out the door.
Before I know what I’m doing, my strong fingers are wrapped firmly around her wrists, slowing her when she reaches for my zipper.
Her fingers flex against my abdominal muscles, and I groan—wanting nothing more than to give in.
Which only pulls a mirrored groan from her throat.
“Why? We both know you’re not a Boy Scout anymore.”
I’m still not sure if this is a dream or not. Her wrist straining in my fists isn’t helping me think any straighter.
“Don’t you dare pull away,” I whisper into the hair at the top of her head, wrapping an arm around the small of her back when she starts to wriggle. “I just need to take it slow.”
She half-laughs, half-groans into my chest. “You’re gonna kill me, Boy Scout.”
I run my fingers down the top of her hair, unpinning as I go, luxuriating in the feel of the thick, familiar texture between my fingers. So fucking soft. She was always so fucking soft.
“Fuck, Harper… how are you still the same ten years later?”
But she shakes her head beneath my chin.
“Everything’s changed,” she whispers, her breath warm against my chest through my shirt.
She tips her head back, eyes searching mine. “Except it hasn’t at all, at the same time.”
I know exactly what she means. Everythinghaschanged.
Outwardly, I’m a completely different man than the boy I was at eighteen when she left—well, when she was tricked into leaving. The long years of grief have carved me into a different sort of being.
I’m all surface now. I don’t let anybody in deep. Even my best friend, Domhnall.
I keep to the shallows. I’m far more invested in all oftheirlives than letting any of them invest inmine.
“I think I’ve just been waiting for you…” I confess, only realizing how true it is as I say it out loud. “Treading water.”
She frowns, looking hurt by that thought.
“That’s not true,” she says. “You’ve really created something here. And all your friends—it’s so clear how much they care about you now.”
“None of them are you.”
“Caleb, I?—”
But then she breaks off, looking at the floor. “We need to talk.”
She’s right. We do. But now that I have her so close, I can’t help curving my hand around the back of her neck and massaging her skull, so thrilled at feeling the shape of her again.
Her eyes flutter like it’s the closest thing she’s felt to bliss in a long time, and the next second we’re kissing desperately again, like we need each other to breathe.
Fuck, how have I lasted this long without her lips? Without her body underneath my hands?
And that’s when she reaches—not for the hem ofmyshirt this time—but for her own. She peels it off over her head.
I’m breathless when she’s left in nothing but her black bra and skirt.
The bra is ill-fitting and clearly worn. She didn’t mean for anyone to see it. She didn’t come here forthis.
She really thought she would just come for Helen’s memorial, then sneak off again.