Chapter Nineteen
For one slow-motion honey-drip moment, I melt into Gale’s broad chest, basking in the afterglow. My naked body tingles with
satisfaction and a certain quiet triumph while the weight of me pins him down, sending a thrill straight to my core. No way
am I letting this beautiful man float away—he’s mine now, grounded by our touch and hungry for more.
On the nightstand, a clock ticks away, desperately trying to remind us that time exists. As if we care. Right now, tangled
up in sheets with thread counts higher than my credit score, I feel like we’ve stumbled into some kind of temporal loophole
where only Gale and I matter.
I press my lips to his collarbone, savoring the tang, and wonder if it’s possible to bottle this feeling. I’m hyperaware of
every point where our skin touches, the way his chest is a landscape of firm planes and gentle valleys, rising and falling
in a rhythm that could lull me to sleep if I wasn’t so jangled. I press my palm flat against his sternum, feeling his heartbeat—strong
and steady, like he’s some kind of human metronome designed specifically to keep me in time, in tune, in sync with this perfect
moment. And God, do I want this song to keep playing on repeat.
I prop myself up on an elbow, looking down at Gale with the satisfaction of Artemis surveying her chosen prey. His hair is tousled, his eyes warm and vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen before. In the warm glow of the bedside lamp, he looks like a mortal touched by divine favor.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Okay?” he echoes, shaking his head. “Sweetheart, ‘okay’ is like calling a hurricane a light breeze. This?” His fingers trail
down my spine, making me shiver. “This is . . . I don’t even have words. Like trying to explain what lightning feels like
from the inside out.”
I can’t help but giggle, feeling drunk on endorphins and the way he’s looking at me. Like I’ve stumbled onto some secret frequency
where everything hums just right. “So, what you’re saying is . . . you’re not not okay?”
“I’m saying I’m pretty sure I’ve reached some higher plane of existence,” Gale replies, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
He catches my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm that’s so tender it makes my insides turn to goo. It’s like he’s trying to
pour every ounce of emotion he can’t put into words into that one simple gesture.
I curl into Gale’s side, his arm a comforting weight around my shoulders.
“You know,” I murmur, my fingers tracing absent patterns on his chest, “after Zach, I told myself that I was happiest when
I was alone in my condo, just me and a glass of wine and a good book or show.”
“And now?”
I prop myself up on one elbow, looking down at him. The dim light from the salt lamp casts a warm glow on his face, softening
the edges. Everything feels crystal clear suddenly—the way he yields to my touch, how naturally he follows my lead, the perfect
give-and-take between us.
“Now I know I was settling. For less than this. Less than you.”
He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Careful,” he teases, “you’re dangerously close to being sappy.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “Don’t let it go to your head. I still think you’re a pain in the butt sometimes.”
“But I’m your pain in the butt,” he says, pulling me closer.
The word “your” hits me like a good whiskey, makes heat pool low in my belly. Mine. The possessiveness of it, the way he offers himself up so freely—it makes me want to pin him down and mark him, claim him,
make him say it again and again.
Instead, I laugh, trying to steady my voice as I settle back against his chest. “Yeah, you are.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” he says.
“Of course.”
He traces one of my nipples with the thick pad of his thumb. “These are more gorgeous in person than I imagined them to be.
And believe me, I imagined.”
“Right back at you.” I squeeze his pecs, loving how he arches into my touch, always so responsive. “I guess we’re evenly matched.”
“Seems so.”
We fall into a comfortable silence, but my mind keeps echoing with that word: yours, yours, yours.
“Tell me something,” Gale says after a while, his fingers playing with the ends of my hair.
“Hmm?”
“Something you’ve never told anyone else.”
I think for a moment, feeling unexpectedly shy. “Sometimes,” I say slowly, “I worry that I’m not as smart as everyone thinks.
That one day, someone’s going to figure out I’m just faking it most of the time.”
I half expect him to brush it off or try to reassure me. Instead, he just nods. “I get that,” he says softly. “But you know
what? I think everyone feels that way sometimes. It’s part of being human.”
I smile against his skin, feeling a surge of affection so strong it almost takes my breath away. “When did you get so wise?”
“Must be all that time I spend with you,” he replies, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
I can’t help but think about how far we’ve come. From friends to . . . this. Whatever this is.
“Hey, Gale?” I whisper.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad it’s you.”
His arm tightens around me, and I can hear the smile in his voice when he replies, “Me too, Harriet. Me too. So . . . what
happens now?”
And there it is. The million-dollar question. I can hear the vulnerability in his voice, see it in the way his eyes search
mine, like he’s trying to read the future in my irises.
I take a deep breath, buying myself a moment to think. Because the truth is, I don’t know. I’m as new to this whole “earth-shattering,
life-altering connection” thing as he is. But as I look at him, at this man who’s managed to turn my world upside down in
the best possible way, I realize something.
“Now,” I say slowly, my fingers resuming their exploration of his chest, “we wing it. Together. We take it one day at a time,
figure things out as we go.”
I see the relief wash over Gale’s face, like I’ve just handed him the key to some locked door he’s been staring at for ages.
“Yeah?” he says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I can handle that.”
“Good,” I reply, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his lips. “Because that was the correct answer.”
He shivers beneath me, and as I deepen the kiss, I can feel him stirring back to life. Ready for another round.
This kiss is different from our earlier ones. It’s slower and more exploratory. I take my time, savoring the taste of him, the soft warmth of his mouth. His hands roam my back, mapping my contours, and I revel in his touch, allowing this worship.
I shift against him, my body finding his with instinctive need. The friction between us sparks something primal, something
honest that races through me. With each kiss and touch, my doubts dissolve—not just about this moment, but about myself. The
walls I’ve built fall away until there’s nothing between us but truth.
For the first time, I catch a glimpse of myself through his eyes. Gale doesn’t complete me—he shows me I already am complete,
just waiting to spread my wings and soar.
“God, the things you do to me. I don’t know how to describe it,” he breathes.
“So don’t.” I roll my hips against him in a way that makes his breath catch. “We can say everything we need without making
a sound.”
“Oh no, doc,” he growls, biting my lip. “There will be fucking sounds.”
As our syllables fail and sentences crumble, we let our mouths speak a language all their own. Our kisses are the only dictionary
we need to decipher these wild, beating hearts.
I explore him like a map, each lick a careful step, each nibble a clue deciphered. His skin is my personal atlas. When my
lips discover that sweet spot beneath his ear, I anchor there, savoring. His rough groans and ragged gasps are sounds I wish
I could bottle up and keep forever. I’m drunk on the power of it, this ability to unravel him with just the brush of my mouth.
Before, we had come together with frantic passion and clawing urgency. Now, there’s tenderness. When I reach the tattoo on
his ribs—the one that proclaims him “unconquered”—I pause, tracing the letters with my tongue.
“Unconquered, huh?” I murmur, my breath hot against his skin. “I disagree.”
Before Gale can formulate a response, I resume my downward path, a swirl over his navel, a rough bite on the hard edge of his V-line. As I take him in my mouth, his fingers weave in my hair, his body taut with the effort of holding still.
“Fuck,” he gasps, and I hear the sheets rustle as he digs his feet in. The taste of him, the weight of his thick shaft sliding
on my greedy tongue, sends a fresh rush of desire through me. When I can’t take him any deeper, when he’s fully penetrated
my soul, that’s when I look up and meet his gaze.
His eyes are like pools of midnight, deep and fathomless. But I’m not afraid of drowning anymore. Instead, I want to dive
in, to explore every hidden depth and secret current.
I make a silent promise. To myself, to Gale, to this fragile, beautiful thing we’re creating. I promise to be brave. To try
to stay even when it’s scary.
I trace my fingers over his collarbone, feeling the steady thrum of his pulse. Usually by now I’d be wondering about pulling
back, softening my edges. Playing nice. Making myself smaller, safer, less . . . demanding. But Gale arches into my touch
like he’s starving for it, like he wants every sharp edge, every dark command.
“Stay,” he whispers into my hair.
The word burrows under my skin, settles in my bones. And for the first time, I don’t feel the need to apologize for taking
up space. Don’t need to swallow down the orders that rise in my throat. Don’t need to pretend I’m anything less than what
I am. Instead, I press my face into the crook of his neck, breathing in sweat and skin and him. My fingers dig into his shoulder,
holding on. Claiming. Being claimed.
His arms tighten around me, and something that’s been clenched tight inside me for years finally releases.
After, he presses a kiss to the top of my head, his lips lingering there as if he’s trying to imprint this moment into his
memory.