Why should I wonder if I love him when it’s my very certainty that causes me to ask the question in the first place?

I pull back and say it. “I love you, Cillian.”

No apologies, no soft language, no insulation, nothing to break the fall. I know he already told me he loves me, but that’s not the part that scares me. It’s the part where I love someone too.

“I love you, Meggie.”

He looks into my eyes and I realize this is the first time I’ve been in a moment like this. I’m so unprotected that my nerves start to hum. It’s gentleness in his eyes that tells me not to worry.

And I wouldn’t, if this life were mine.

Our lips collide again, messily but in a hot way. He takes off my big T-shirt.

I pull off his damp one, revealing an absolutely sarcastically good body that couldn’t be better if I had specifically had it made for me.

He lifts me up and takes me into the bedroom, lays me down slowly, his body over mine.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

“Cillian, my flight is in two days. I have no intention of getting on it. But I’m afraid of what might happen. I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.” My eyes fill with tears and I blink them away. “If I wind up back in my old life and don’t know what it’s like to do this with you, then I’m going to lose my mind. Even more than I already have.”

“Meg. We will never lose each other.”

He says it with such conviction that I actually, somehow, find myself believing him.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want him anyway. I’m not that sure he’s right.

He pulls off my sweatpants, kissing me from my neck to my chest, to my stomach, all the way down to my shaking thighs.

When he finally moves my thong aside and touches me, I shudder at the substantial weight of satisfaction and relief. I feel my heartbeat all over my body as he moves with expert grace and, clearly, a well-memorized choreography.

It’s not slow and sensual, it’s frenzied and urgent. The kind of thing I’ve thought was eye-roll-worthy in so many movies and shows. When is sex really like that?

Now, it’s like that now.

He seems to know how hard to grab on to my arm, my tits, my ribs, my ass, my thighs, never too hard, never too soft. He uses just enough teeth on my hip bones and nipples and ears. I’m primal, my open mouth on his cheekbone and in his hair as he puts his fingers inside me and uses his thumb on my clit.