“I’m ready for the next step, but I want you to lead us there. I know you’ve been waiting for me, and like you said earlier, I think I’m as ready as I can be.”

“There’s no rush, Nadia.”

“I know.” She smiles, takes my hand. “I’m not rushing. I don’t feel rushed. I feel ready, even though I know some part of me will never quite be all the way ready. And I want more. I’m getting impatient with just kissing you.” Another thoughtful pause. “You make me feel beautiful, and seen, and appreciated, and safe. And I want the next step.”

“What did you mean by wanting me to lead us there? I mean, I guess I know what you mean, but…explain it anyway.”

A shrug. “Just…stop holding back your dumb growly male hormones.”

I nod. “I can do that.”

We just sit beside each other for a while. She’s waiting for me, now.

I think she was expecting me to turn half feral or something. Instead, I cup her face and I kiss her. I leave it slow, like the first kiss. Gentle. Exploring her mouth, stoking her desire.

Her hand slides up around my neck and she turns toward me, I bury my hand in her hair. Still familiar territory. Nadia slides her thigh over my legs and straddles me, and except that once, that first kiss, she’s never done that. I like her weight on me, her softness against me, in my arms. I cradle her face in both hands and hold her close, kiss her until we’re breathless, and then we trade breaths and breathe each other.

Now, I let myself explore. I let the ravening beast I’ve kept so tightly chained inside me off the leash, a little. Let my hands drift down her arms, to her hips. She lifts, sitting on her knees, and her hands are in my hair and knotted, tugging, and god I like that.

I don’t anticipate anything she does, because I’ve never done any of this with her, and not with anyone in, now, over four years. The anniversary came and went, and that was one of my quiet, solitary days out on the fishing boat, catching nothing but a day of memory and mourning, and it still hurt as it always will, but there was more to life now and it was okay to put it away again, to look to shore and see Nadia standing on the dock, waiting as I row in.

I let my hands fill themselves with her curves, coursing over the bell of her hips and pausing there, and then rounding over the swell of her backside and she moans as I clutch her butt, and her hands dig into my shoulders.

She settles to sit on me. Pulls away enough to meet my eyes. “This feels good.”

“Yeah, it does.” I hold her gaze. “More?”