Chapter 10
LIAM
She was gone.
I was standing in my living room, Chinese food getting cold on the counter, and Anne was gone.
Again.
I should have been used to this by now. Anne Mitchell running away from me was practically a pattern at this point. Years ago, she'd run to Chicago instead of coming to Sweden. Monday, she'd run from the almost-kiss. Tonight, she'd run after the actual kiss.
I seemed to have that effect on her.
I sank onto the couch and pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to process what had just happened.
I'd kissed her.
Or she'd kissed me.
It didn't matter who had moved first. What mattered was that for those few minutes, I'd had Anne Mitchell in my arms again. Her mouth on mine, her hands fisting in my shirt, her body pressed against me like she was trying to crawl inside my skin.
And then she'd said *this was a mistake* and walked out the door.
The same words. Years later and she was still using the same words.
Except it didn't feel like a mistake. It felt like the first right thing that had happened since I'd boarded a plane to Stockholm and watched Chicago disappear below the clouds.
My phone buzzed. Carter.
Carter: How'd it go with the PT? You get her to check your form? ;)
I deleted the message without responding.
I should have eaten. Should have cleaned up. Should have done literally anything other than sit on my couch staring at the spot where her back had been against the wall and her breath had been on my neck and she'd made that sound?—
My phone buzzed again.
Her name on the screen.
Anne: I'm sorry. For leaving. For everything. I just needed you to know that.
Then a third time.
Me: Don't apologize. You don't have anything to apologize for.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Anne: Liam…
Me: I know you're scared. I'm scared too. But it wasn't a mistake.
Anne: We can't do this.
Me: Why not?
Anne: Because it's complicated.
Me: You keep saying that. But you won't tell me what's actually complicated about it.
Me: Is there someone in Chicago? Is that what this is?
Long pause. No typing indicator. Nothing.
Then:
Anne: I should go. I'll see you tomorrow morning. Professional.
Me: Anne, don't do this. Don't run away from this.
Anne: I'm not running. I'm being smart.
Me: Bullshit. You're terrified. And I get it. I'm terrified too. But I'd rather be terrified with you than safe without you.
No response.
I waited five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.
Nothing.
I set down my phone and leaned back against the couch, closing my eyes. I meant every word. The question was whether any of it mattered.
Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on my door.
I wasn't expecting anyone. Carter knew better than to show up uninvited. My neighbors kept to themselves.
I opened the door.
Anne was standing in the hallway.
Hair down, eyes red like she'd been crying, hands shaking where they were clutched around her purse strap.
"Can I come in?" she said.
I stepped aside.
She walked past me into the apartment, and I closed the door behind her. She stood in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding herself together by force.
"Liam, I—" She stopped. Started again. "I can't keep running. I've been running from you for years and I'm so tired. I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of carrying everything by myself."
"Then stop."
"I'm trying." Her voice broke slightly on the words. "I'm really trying."
I crossed the room and took her face in my hands, tipping it up so she had to look at me.
"You don't have to carry it alone," I said. "Whatever it is. You don't have to figure it out tonight. But I need you to stop running from me."
"I know."
"Anne." I pressed my forehead to hers. "I'm not going to hurt you."
She made a sound that was almost a laugh, almost a sob. "I know that too."
"So stay. Just stay."
She looked up at me, and I watched the decision happen in her eyes — something that had been held tight finally letting go.
"Okay," she whispered. "I'm staying."
This time when we kissed it was different from before. Less desperate. More deliberate. Like she had made a decision and she was committed to it fully, and there was nothing holding either of us back anymore.
I kissed her like I meant it this time. Like there was no clock, no contract, no reason left to hold back.
She kissed me back the same way.
We barely made it to the bedroom.
I walked her backward down the hall, her hands working at my shirt buttons while mine found the hem of her sweater. We were pulling at each other like we were afraid the other one would disappear — needing to close every inch of distance before that happened again.
"Liam—" Her voice was wrecked already.
"I know." I pulled her sweater over her head and dropped it. "I know."
She got my shirt open and pushed it off my shoulders, and then her hands were on my chest — flat palmed, like she was memorizing me, like she was making sure I was real.
"You have no idea," she breathed, "how many times I thought about this."
"Tell me."
"Every single day since you left."
I reached behind her and unclasped her bra and pulled it away, and then I just — stopped. Looked at her.
She was more beautiful than I remembered. Softer, and somehow that made it worse — made the wanting worse, made every day we'd lost feel heavier than it already did.
"What?" she whispered.
"Nothing. Just—" I shook my head. "You're so beautiful. You've always been so beautiful and I forgot how much it hurt to look at you."
She made a small broken sound and reached for my belt.
We fell onto the bed together, and the last of our clothes came off in a tangle of hands and half-laughed apologies when something got stuck, and then there was nothing between us at all.
Just her. Just me. Just skin and the dark and everything we'd been holding back finally given somewhere to go.
She pushed me gently onto my back and worked her way down my stomach, and when she wrapped her hand around me I groaned and dropped my head against the pillow.
"God—"
She pressed her lips to the tip — a soft, deliberate kiss — and murmured against me, "Hello, old friend."
I laughed despite myself, then immediately stopped laughing because her tongue ran up the length of me and every coherent thought I had evaporated.
She stroked slowly, her thumb dragging over the tip, learning me again, relearning what made my breath catch. Her other hand cupped my balls, rolled gently, and I grabbed a fistful of the sheets.
"Anne." Her name came out broken.
"I've been thinking about this," she murmured against my chest. "Let me."
I wasn't going to argue with that.
She worked me until I was shaking, until my hips were moving without my permission, until I had to put my hand over hers just to slow her down.
"If you don't stop," I managed, "this is going to be over embarrassingly fast."
She laughed — a real laugh, low and warm — and I felt it everywhere.
I rolled her onto her back and took my time even though every instinct told me not to. I worked my way down her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her breast. I pulled her nipple into my mouth and felt her arch underneath me, felt her fingers dig into my hair.
"Liam—"
"I've got you." I moved lower. "I've got you."
When I settled between her thighs she gasped my name, and the sound of it — raw and desperate and real — undid something in my chest I hadn't known was still knotted.
She tasted exactly like I remembered. Exactly. Like some part of her had been waiting for me just as long.
I licked her slowly, reading every hitch of her breathing, every shift of her hips, until she was shaking and pulling at my hair and whispering please, please, please into the dark.
"Please what?" I murmured against her.
"I need you inside me. Right now. I need?—"
I moved back up her body and settled over her, and her legs wrapped around my waist and pulled me in before I'd finished the thought. She was so wet that sliding inside her was effortless — like coming home, like her body had been waiting for exactly this.
We both went still.
Her eyes found mine in the low light from the window, and neither of us moved at all. Just looked at each other. Just breathed. Something passed between us that didn't have words. Just the weight of everything that had kept us apart, and the fact that none of it mattered right now.
And then I started to move, and she arched up to meet me, and we found the rhythm like we'd never lost it — like our bodies had held the memory long after everything else had faded.
She was trembling, her nails tracing lines down my back, her breath coming in pieces against my neck. I held her tighter and moved deeper and felt her clench around me as she came, her whole body shaking, my name breaking apart in her mouth.
I wasn't far behind. All of it crashing down at once — everything I'd been holding at arm's length since the moment she'd walked back into my life. I pressed my face into her hair and let go completely.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the dark, her back against my chest, my arm across her waist, both of us still breathing hard.
I pressed my lips to her shoulder. Felt her exhale slowly, like she'd been holding her breath for longer than just the last hour.
This. Not just the physical — though God, that too — but this. Her weight against me. Her breathing slowing. The specific way she fit against my body like she'd been built for exactly this.
I tucked her closer and felt her hand cover mine where it rested against her stomach.
"You okay?" I asked quietly.
She was quiet for a moment. "Yeah." Another pause, longer this time. "Liam."
Something in her voice made me go still.
"Yeah?"
She turned over to face me. In the low light from the window I could see her eyes glistening, and the expression on her face — it wasn't the soft, open look I'd been expecting. It was something else. Something that looked like someone who had finally run out of road.