I feel him reaching climax, and our rhythm goes slow and gentle and delicate and purposeful, and I press up so I can look down at him, and my arms press against my breasts as if offering them to him and he takes the offering, his mouth loving on them, and then his eyes tell me he’s there and his voice goes rough and it’s him, now him in control, lifting me and bringing me down, pushing up, thrusting up as I drive down, and I watch him through it, watch his face lose whatever composure he had left as he fills me, as he detonates and I collapse forward on him, cradle his face to my breasts and let him pump wildly into me through the mad starburst of his orgasm, and there’s more and more and more, until he slows to half thrusts and then to stillness.

I just lie on him, filled with him.

It feels like this was always us, always meant to be.

From the moment I saw him sitting on the porch of his cabin, reading, I think I knew.

My head on his shoulder, his hand on my butt.

“Be right back,” he says, wiggling out from under me.

I watch him go, clean up, watch him return, and I move the covers back and get under them. Lift them up for him. Lift myself as he sidles in beside me, and I resume my place against his side, tucked into him, head on the pillow of his strong arm.

I feel him working up to something. “Don’t say it,” I whisper.

“Okay. But it’s true.”

“I know.”

“Nathan?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

A wry laugh. “For what? I should be thanking you. I think you just changed my world.”

I snort. “Who changed whose world is up for debate I think, because mine feels pretty damn well rocked.” I lift up to look at his eyes. “Thank you for waiting. Thank you for being patient. Thank you for taking the time to…to know that you love me, before making love to me.”

His arm tightens around me. “I do.”

“I thought you were gonna say it for a second.”

He chuckles. “I would. But for some reason, you told me not to.”

“Because I want to say it first.”

Another laugh. “Okay, honey.”

“Honey?”

“No?”

“No, I like it. Just…seeing how it feels. And I like it. It’s good.”

“You’re sweet as honey, so I figured it fits.”

I laugh, patting his chest. “You’re silly, you big sweet man.”

We float together in a long glowing silence. Doze, maybe.

It emerges from me unbidden, abrupt, a raw whisper into the afterglow silence.

“I love you, Nathan.”

His chest rises and falls, harsh. A ragged breath escapes him. I reach up and brush a droplet of overwhelmed emotion from his cheek.

“Sorry, I just—”

“Try that again,” I interrupt. “This time, no apologizing.”

A not-quite, almost laugh. Another heavy sigh, this one long, an attempt to control.