But he went still over her, and she paused, too, moving her hands to rest them on his hips. “Too fast?”

He shook his head and smiled down at her. “Just making sure.”

Jess reached up to push the hair out of his eyes and nodded, unable to get the words out.

“Say it,” he said, bending to kiss her. “I’m sure. Are you?”

She couldn’t spread her hands out wide enough; even with his body aligned all along hers, she needed to get closer. “I want to,” she said. “Please.”

River dropped his forehead to her temple, letting her be the one to take him in. They both went still for a breathless pause, and in that time Jess existed only on the razor-sharp edge of bliss and discomfort. Carefully, holding still, he kissed her—so sweet and searching—and she could finally exhale.

“You okay?” River kissed her mouth again, and Jess felt him pull back and take in her expression. “We can stop.”

Was he serious? They absolutely could not. Her drama-queen body was certain they’d die if they tried.

“No. Don’t go.”

“Okay.” His lips dragged across her jaw and she could feel his smile. “I won’t.”

He kissed her again, pulling away with a gentle bite. When he whispered through a laugh, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m shaking,” and she felt the truth of it under her hands, she could exhale some more because it made her think maybe she wasn’t alone in this feeling—so desperate for him that she might cry.

River moved over her—slow, then building in tempo, pressing into her again and again, releasing a quiet grunt with every forward pitch and—

—and suddenly she felt the weight rolling down her spine like a steel boulder in a trap ready to spring.

Jess got only one word out—“I’m”—before it hit her like an explosion, the inside-out splitting of heat and relief spreading through her entire body. She was still too tangled up to appreciate River’s abandon, but it imprinted in the back of her mind how he groaned her name against her neck, going tightly still over her.

After a pause filled only with the sounds of their short, stuttering breaths, River pushed up on his arms and stared down at her. His hair was a mess of dark curls falling into his eyes, but Jess had the weird sense of looking into a mirror anyway; his gaze was brimming with the same shock and amazement she felt vibrating in her blood. It hit her in a sharp, startling truth: her whole life she had been put together wrong in one tiny, invisible, and critical way. And having that piece altered just enough for it to slide into place suddenly changed everything.

“Can you stay?” he asked, catching his breath. “Stay here tonight?”

Her heart pinched painfully and Jess ran a hand down his sweaty chest, over his stomach. “I don’t think so.”

Nodding, he pulled back with a wince, and she immediately ached for him. River sat back on his heels and ran a warm palm along her leg, from hip to knee.