“When you left me, I told my father about you,” I say, and she gasps. “Told him I lost the girl I loved, and he said if I loved you, I wouldn’t just let you get away.” I take a step closer to her. “I sat there outside on my patio with my heart broken, and my father told me that if I let you just walk away, then I didn’t really love you.” I take another step to her. “So I made a plan.” Another step. “To make you see that you loved me.” I finally stand in front of her and now my hand comes out and stops the tear from rolling down her cheek. “I knew you loved me. You were just scared.” She nods her head. “You can’t just walk away from me, Vivienne, because I’d follow you,” I tell her. “I’d follow you wherever you go. As long as I’m with you, everything is okay.” I smile. “I was ending it tonight, too.” Her mouth opens. “I was done giving you space. I was done with the games and showing you I loved you. I was done not waking up with you or going to bed with you. I was done with not telling you.”

“I’m done running,” she finally says. “I’m done with it all.”

“Can I kiss you now?” I ask, my voice almost a whisper.

“Please,” she says just as softly, and finally, after two long months, my other hand comes up and takes her face—her beautiful, beautiful face—and I lean in and kiss her lips. Her hands rest on my chest right over my heart as my tongue slips into her mouth. The kiss goes from soft to urgent to frantic in seconds. I bend and pick her up, carrying her in my arms, her legs falling over my arms. Our mouths never letting the other one go. When I get to her bed, I stand her up and slowly undress her, the satin dress falling to her feet, leaving her in front of me in just a pair of see-through panties that shred in my hands the minute I try to take them off.

“Make love to me,” she asks, pushing the jacket from my shoulders. Her fingers unbutton my shirt, and then finally when it opens, she pushes it off my shoulders, and I look at her.

“You haven’t been paying attention,” I tell her, and she looks at me. “I’ve been making love to you this whole time. Every single time I slid into you, I was making love to you.”

I pick her up and place her in the middle of the bed. After I finish undressing, I get on the bed with her, then turn around to get a condom, but her hand comes out and stops me. “Nothing,” she says softly. “Nothing between us.”