Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
ROMAN
By the time the sign on the bookstore reads CLOSED and the fans are humming on low behind the counter, the snow has thickened to a hush.
I don’t remember deciding to bring her here; it happens the way breathing does.
One minute, we’re standing under that tree, hearts on the table, and the next, I’m opening my front door.
The scent of pine and cinnamon is out to meet us like it’s been waiting.
She lingers in the entry, cheeks pink from the cold, eyes moving over the house we built on napkins and late-night texts—arches and light, a kitchen that actually invites you in, the double doors to the library cracked the way she left them last time.
Her coat slides off her shoulders. I catch it, hang it on the hook she made me buy because “you’re not thirteen, Roman.
” She toes off her boots and looks up at me, and I’m wrecked all over again.
“Hungry?” I ask, mainly to keep my hands busy.
She shakes her head. “Not for food.”
I laugh—quiet, helpless. “Okay.”
We don’t talk about the leak. We don’t talk about tips or lists or how I said a sentence I’ve been swallowing for years.
She brushes her fingers along the back of the couch, glances at the tree in the corner by the window—gold and red, a few crooked ornaments that make her smile—and then turns back to me like she’s made a decision that changes everything.
“I meant it,” she says. No wobble in her voice. “I love you.”
If I live to a hundred, nothing will ever hit me the way that does. I step in, close enough that I can see the tiny snowflakes melting on her hairline. “I don’t know how to be good at this,” I admit. “I only know I can’t live without you.”
She moves first—fingers sliding under my shirt like she knows exactly where I live beneath the fabric—and I’m done pretending I can keep playing it cool. I’m not cool. Not with her. Not when she touches me like that.
I dip my head and kiss her. Slow. Intentional. It’s not rushed—it’s not even urgent. It’s a deliberate kind of hunger. The kind I’ve been starving for.
She opens for me with a soft sound that unravels something deep in my chest. I chase it, deepen the kiss, tasting her sighs and swallowing the hitch in her breath as my hands grip her waist.
“Come here,” I murmur against her lips, and she nods like we’re speaking the same language.
We move through the house together, bumping into doorframes and laughing quietly between kisses, past the kitchen. Up the stairs I widened years ago because she said someday I’d need them—for dogs, for book boxes, for a life that takes up space. I didn’t know she meant us.
In my bedroom, her laugh trips out when my knee bumps the cedar chest at the end of the bed. It’s bright and unguarded—her. I grin and kiss it right off her mouth.
She grabs the hem of my shirt again, and I let her pull it over my head. Her fingers graze down my chest like she’s memorizing the terrain.
“Yours too,” I whisper, already curling my hand beneath the soft hem of her sweater. She lifts her arms and lets me undress her, eyes holding mine as the fabric glides off.
Her bra is black, simple, and suddenly the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. My hands skim along the straps, fingertips brushing her skin until I reach the clasp. I hesitate, letting her feel the pause. The offer.
She nods. Just once.
The bra slips away. My mouth follows.
She exhales sharply when I kiss the edge of her breast, then again when I suck lightly over her nipple, circling it with my tongue. Her fingers tangle in my hair, body arching into mine, and I feel her pulse thrum against my mouth.
“Lie down for me,” I whisper, voice rougher than I meant. She backs onto the bed, pulling me with her.
I trail kisses down her stomach as I reach for the button of her jeans. She lifts her hips so I can slide them off. No hesitation. No self-consciousness. She’s here, fully, and it knocks the breath out of me.
When I get her completely naked, I pause. Just look.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” I murmur, brushing my thumb along her thigh. She’s already warm, already wet, and the fact that it’s because of me nearly wrecks me.
Her legs part slightly, and I settle between them, mouth grazing her hip.
I kiss the inside of her knee, then higher.
She moans when I lick slowly up the seam of her, soft and firm all at once.
Her hips lift as my tongue finds rhythm.
She’s trembling. Hands in my hair, breath in gasps, eyes glassy with need.
“Please,” she whispers, voice barely a thread. “Come here.”
I kiss my way up her body, and she pulls me into another kiss that’s wetter, hungrier, more desperate now.
“Do you want this?” I ask, forehead resting against hers.
“Yes.”
“Tell me if you want to stop.”
“I won’t.”
Still, I reach into the drawer beside the bed and tear open the foil packet. Her eyes stay locked on mine the entire time I roll the condom on, like she wants to remember this, too. Wants to remember how this felt before everything changed.
I line myself up, dragging the head of my cock along her, slow and deliberate, feeling how ready she is—how much she trusts me with this. Her thighs tighten around my hips, pulling me in like she’s already decided I belong there. Like she’s not just giving me her body, but every part of her.
I press forward, inch by inch, slow enough to feel her open for me. To feel the way she takes me in—tight and warm and perfect. My breath stutters. My heart’s thudding so loud I wonder if she can hear it.
She clings to me—hands gripping my arms, eyes locked on mine, wide and dark with something more than want. Need. Knowing. Her lips part like she wants to speak, but can’t find the words. Doesn’t need to.
I sink into her, to the hilt, and still there.
Not because I have to. Because I need to.
To feel this. To let it settle.
To memorize the moment she becomes a part of me in every possible way.
Her breath shudders against my mouth.
“God,” I whisper. “You feel like home.”
She pulls me down into a kiss that answers every question I haven’t asked.
I move. Slow, deep thrusts that draw soft sounds from her lips. She wraps around me, arms and legs, like she’s trying to fuse us.
We don’t talk. Not really. Just murmured yeses and the occasional gasp of each other’s names. It’s slow. It’s all sensation. The drag of skin. The slide of sweat. The way she bites her bottom lip and arches when I hit that perfect spot.
Her nails dig into my back as her breath quickens. I feel the shift—her muscles tightening, her voice breaking apart.
“I’m—” she starts, and I thrust deeper, holding her eyes.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper.
She comes undone with a cry muffled into my shoulder, her body trembling beneath mine. I follow moments later, burying my face in her neck as I let go, her name a prayer on my lips.
We lie there in the quiet after, tangled together, heartbeats slowly syncing.
Her fingers trace lazy patterns on my chest.
I kiss her hair. “You okay?”
She nods against my collarbone. “More than okay.”
I laugh under my breath and kiss her hair. “Me too.”
We drift for a while, not quite asleep. The clock ticks in the hall. Snow dresses the world outside in quiet. I keep waiting for the panic I used to carry like it paid rent in my ribs. It doesn’t come.
She shifts closer, one leg thrown over mine, fingers brushing the center of my chest like she’s anchoring me there.
“This is the best Christmas,” she whispers. “Not just the day. All of it. You. This.”
My throat tightens. I wrap my arms around her, holding her closer than ever.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Best one I’ve ever had.”
And for once, I believe it.