I slid my hands down his hips, then ran my fingertips down the inside of his thighs. “I used to fantasize about you. I tried not to. I’d start imagining someone else, anyone else, but it always turned into you. I’d close my eyes and remember what you smelled like, what you tasted like. Sometimes it wasn’t enough, and I’d call your office and listen to your voice on the machine. It never sounded like you—not the real you—but if I concentrated just right, and tuned out the words, I could hear your voice, and that always worked.”

“I used to see you,” he said, tugging my shirt out of my jeans. “Everywhere. The street, the office, at home, even sitting beside me in the car. Out of the corner of my eye I’d see something and, for a second, I’d forget you were gone and I…”

He inhaled sharply and buried his head against my shoulder. After a moment, he kissed the side of my neck, and started pushing down my jeans.

“Sometimes it was a smell,” he murmured. “The smell of a food we’d eaten or a place we’d been. Other times it was a laugh. I’d swear I heard your laugh, and I could see you there, in bed, grinning at me, head turned just so, hair falling over your breasts.” Another sharp inhale, and he brushed his fingers along my hair, tickling it over my breast. “That’s what did it for me. Hearing that laugh. Sometimes at the most inconvenient times. But, once in a while, that wasn’t enough.”

He traced his fingers down my sides, and across my stomach, inching lower. “I found one of your apartments once. I stayed away until you were gone. After you moved out, I went there, just to…” He shrugged, eyes lowered. “Just to look. To be there. I found a pillowcase you’d left, fell behind the bed. I could still smell you on it. That’s what I used, when remembering wasn’t enough.”

I put my arms around his neck. “I want you back, Kris. For now and forever.”

He lowered me to the dock.

Afterward, we stretched out, enjoying the faint heat of the sun and the slap of the surf. Kristof’s fingers slid up my thigh, then stopped. He frowned and looked down at my leg. His frown deepened. I followed his gaze to a paper-thin raised welt encircling my thigh where Trsiel’s sword had passed through.

I told him what had happened.

Kristof shook his head. “That man has serious sword-control problems.”

I sputtered a laugh. “You think?”

“If he’s not slow getting it out, he’s sticking it in where it doesn’t belong.”

As my laugh died, I pressed my face against his shoulder. After a moment, Kristof stroked the back of my head. “What else happened?”