“What if I want to show you now?” His fingers graze my waist as it swings out of reach. I let my gaze linger playfully on his chest. Then lower. My grin widens as I settle into a sparring stance.

“Fleur,” he laughs, “this isn’t exactly what I had in—”

I drop to the mat, sweeping his legs out from under him. His breath rushes out with the force of his fall, and before he can react, I’m on top of him.

“Fleur—”

Slamming his wrists against the mat, I pin him down with my knees. Something flashes in his eyes, wicked and wild. “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be?” He surges under me, throwing me sideways, careful to control my fall as I crash down into the thick foam. We grapple, breathless and giggling, tumbling over each other until he’s got me pinned.

“You’re holding back,” he says, loosening his grip, giving me an out I don’t need. He may be stronger, but the windows to the villa are completely open to the garden outside. I could summon roots and vines to haul him off me and hang him from the ceiling by his toes if I wanted to.

I melt into the mat, my laughter dying as the hard angles of his hips sink to fit against the soft, warm space between mine.

“Maybe I like you like this,” I whisper.

I see it then, in his almost-flinch—whatever it is he’s been stacking on that weight bar and carrying alone. His dark hair falls over his eyes.

“Hey,” I say, angling my face to catch his gaze. I know why he spends so many hours in here. And while I can’t deny the end result is amazing, it hurts knowing why he’s become so obsessed. “I love you, Jack. You.” I didn’t fall in love with him because of his magic. Nor did I fall out of love when he lost it. If anything, I fell harder, loving him more, for the strength it must have taken him to give it away. “I love you like this.”

Lacing our fingers together, I raise our hands up over my head, bringing our faces close, the same way I held him down at the edge of the pond near the safe house, the night we shared that first earth-shattering kiss. It had started as a snowball fight, two Seasons wrestling in the marshy grass in a fit of laughter to see who would come out on top. Maybe he let me get the best of him that night, but it didn’t matter. Did it? Our lips met somewhere in the middle.