She leaned in as his mouth found hers, and he kissed her until the sandpaper of his chin shifted down her neck to the crevice where the cross lay. He slid his hands under her sweater, lifted it over her head. Her limbs were like water, fluid with his movements. It had always been like this, always would be—and she wanted him so badly, wanted to be fully understood. She tasted the inside of his mouth—this was where she’d once been and should never have left. She shivered and he pulled the other down sleeping bag over them as a blanket.

He ran his mouth down the side of her neck and she arched her body toward him, laced her fingers in his hair.

“I remembered that. God, I was hoping I’d remembered it right. The way you bend, your fingers in my hair. Amy, I want it all back—all of it.” He grabbed at her, pulled her against him.

She came to him. Here they could have everything they had lost, could unearth the love buried in the memory of touch—skin to skin, arms circling flesh and eliminating any barrier. They moved as one body removing each other’s clothes.

He slid down and kissed her abdomen. She moved her hand down, suddenly shy—her stomach, so different from what he’d known, years and children having changed her. He pushed her hand away, buried his mouth in the softness there, then lifted his head and looked at her. “I wish they’d been our children.” He wrapped his hands around her body.

She groaned and all reality other than him and what was meant to be vanished. How could they have been denied this intimacy, this perfect knowledge of each other?

Nick mumbled in the darkness, whispered into her flesh, “My Amy, my beloved. My Amy.”

“So this, this is what was out . . . there,” she said, her voice raw and deep.

“Where?” He ran his finger over her lip. She bit down on it lightly.

“This was somewhere out there . . . waiting.”

“Yes.” He moved his finger inside her mouth, then ran it down her chin and around her neck, down her back. “I need to touch every part of you I’ve missed. Here.” He touched the back of her knee. She squirmed and pulled closer. “And here.” He shifted down and traced the outline of her anklebone. “And here.” He ran his hand up her leg to the inside of her thigh. She groaned. “Even here.” He ran his forefinger around the curve of her ear.

“This could take a while,” she murmured.

“God, I hope so.” He kissed her so gently; she lifted her head to taste more of him. “This is what my dreams are all about, all I’ve ever wanted.” He turned her on her back and rose above her and she heard him and she believed him.