“Depends on what you mean by safe,” he rasps. His gaze drops, very much not subtly, to the nipples poking through my thin nightgown, and I roll my eyes.Still a man, after all.
“I mean, am I going to die an undisclosed period of time earlier than I’m supposed to if I do,” I say wryly.
Julian’s expression mellows, and I smile, lifting his chin so he looks at me.
“I’m kidding,” I say. “I’d probably take the risk, to be honest. Everyone in my family lives to, like, a hundred anyway. I’m sure I have some years to spare.”
Julian doesn’t laugh like he’s supposed to.
“You don’t have to ‘take the risk’ for a kiss,” he says. “I can exercise some restraint there. But I’ll be honest. I don’t know if I ever slipped up with Claire. She didn’t have grays and wouldn’t haveshown it as obviously as you did, and we didn’t have enough time together for me to notice any long-term effects. This is rare, uncharted territory for me.”
“Hmm,” I say, tracing the edges of his full bottom lip. “How so?”
“The version of me who exists in liminal spaces? He’s stillme, just…less inhibited. More likely to lean into my base instincts.” Julian’s eyelids flutter, and he grabs my wrist to still my touch, then steels me with a look that demands me topay attention. “I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t mean to take from you. I didn’t even realize that I had. A transfer with the connection we have, with the anticipation we’ve built”—he holds my hand to his chest—“it’seuphoric. There’s no other way to describe it. And when I’m in that space, it’s hard to resist taking what I shouldn’t.”
I absorb the information with uncharacteristic calm. This, I think, is just like learning any new partner, figuring out their dos, their don’ts, the things that make them tick.
“Hard,” I ponder, “but not impossible.”
“It’ll take trial and error,” Julian says. “You’ll have to resist him too. If he—I—asks you to give yourself to me, you have to say no.”
“I say no?” I ask, leaning forward to kiss Julian on his brow, his left cheek, his right. “Even if I really,reallywant to say yes?”
Julian pulls me more firmly into his lap.
“Especially if you want to say yes,” he says.
And then he kisses me, and all my remaining thoughts fall away.
I imagined our second first kiss as tentative, and it is at its start, a cautious brush of his lips against mine, as if he’s not so sure about his control after all. But we’ve been holding back too long, have sacrificed too much, to deny ourselves this. I grab his face and drag him closer, crashing into him like a wave against a shore, and he makes a small sound of surprise before wrapping his arms around me andanswering my fervor with his own. We kiss for a long time, and I marvel at how he feels both the same and so different now that I truly know him. He’s no longer the oddly put together twenty-seven-year-old whom I felt just a little guilty dating, but a being who has lived lifetimes and chosen me among them. The effect he has on me—this overwhelming, drunken pleasure—isn’t terrifying anymore now that I know it for what it is, a result of his ability to read me throughout layers of my subconscious. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I tell him so, and he lowers his head to the crook of my neck to muffle his laughter.
“You’re currently in mortal danger because of me,” he reminds me, incredulous.
“Yes, but I’malsoguaranteed at least one earth-shattering orgasm a day,” I counter. “It’s not the world’s best deal, but you won’t catch me complaining.”
Julian nuzzles into me, pulling my skin between his teeth.
“Just one?” he teases. “I’m quite sure I did better than that last time.”
I roll my eyes and wind my arms around his neck, savoring being held, and he squeezes me so tight that I have to fight for air. We stay like this a while, until, without preamble, the mood shifts. I adjust myself on his lap, he rocks his hips up, and suddenly I’m hyperaware of the hardness underneath me, the way our breaths begin to heighten. I reach between us, close my hand around him, and he stills.
“Are you sure?” he whispers. “We don’t have to try this right now.”
“I want to,” I say.
“I don’t want to hurt you again,” he whispers.
“You won’t.” Now that I understand the mechanics, I feel oddly confident. I pull my nightgown over my shoulders and watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “I trust you.”
Julian exhales slowly, his eyes roving over my body like a starvingman presented with a feast. He smooths his hands down my sides, starting high at my rib cage before settling at my hips. His expression is inscrutable: desire, sure, but something akin to sorrow too, like I’ve just handed him a gift he doesn’t think he deserves.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, before kissing me again.
We start slow, an unhurried rediscovery of each other’s bodies. Julian’s concentration is evident in the serious set of his jaw, and when I joke that he looks like he’s taking an exam he pays me back by sliding down my body to take me into his mouth. My head drops back, eyes squeeze shut; I don’t think I will ever get used to the rapture this man makes me feel. I run my hand adoringly along the back of his head, and in the darkness of my closed lids, I feelhimemerge.
“You sought me out,” his voice says, echoing all around me. “Even after everything.”
We’re still on the bed, layered upon ourselves like afterimages, except I am back in this Julian’s lap, looking him in his shining eyes. I’ve been thinking of Julian as two entities, the one that walks with me in flesh, the other that haunts my dreams, but this one stares at me with the other’s wondrous adoration. It’s true that this is the Julian who stole away a piece of me, but he is also the one who cried for my forgiveness on his hands and knees, who tore me out of a nightmare just minutes before.