We’re silent the whole way to her apartment. Scarlett fumbles with the lock on her door. She laughs at herself, but her hands are shaking as she brings the key back to the lock. I set the bags of food on the floor and gently take the keys from her. Those big blue eyes I fell in love with so many years ago lift to watch my face through her thick eyelashes as I put the key into the lock and turn.

The door pops open, but we remain where we are. Scarlett leans back against the doorframe, her eyelids hooded and her mouth parted.

“If I kiss you again, I’m not going to stop.” My voice is low and rasping. My own heartbeat whooshes in my ears.

Scarlett licks her lips, leaving a shiny coating over the pink of them. “Okay,” she breathes.

“The food will get cold,” I warn.

“I have an oven.” She flashes a lazy smile. “I’m pretty sure it even works.”

I huff and rest my forearm above her head, unable to resist leaning into her and smelling her black-tea scent. God, it has been so long since I’ve smelled her, tasted her. I can barely concentrate. “You make a good point.”

Her eyes trail over my skin, leaving warmth in their wake. “I know,” she says. “Now kiss me.”

Heat. Desire. Need. I’m reduced to these three basic elements as she looks up at me expectantly. But there’s something else in her gaze that I hadn’t seen before. I think it’s doubt. As if she’s asking me to make a move again in order to give me an out if I want it.

Doesn’t she know I’ve been dreaming of the taste of her lips and the feel of her body next to mine for five long years?

As her eyebrows crease slightly, I realize that no, she doesn’t. How could she when she said herself that she thinks I’ve been better off without her?

Words tumble around my brain—how beautiful she is, how wonderful it has been to have her in my life again, how I’ve never truly stopped loving her or worrying about her. I may not have thought about her every moment of every day, but she’s been a constant white noise. I could ignore it sometimes, but not all the time, and it was always playing.

But now that she’s here, it’s silent again, as if that part of me has been sated. As if having her near me has turned down the volume on everything but her as she leans against the door, her body beneath mine, a battle between hope and concern playing out on her face.

There are no words for how I feel about her. There never have been. I’ll just have to show her.