She was sticky with my orgasm and her milk, with sweat and scotch. Pleasure built brick by brick until it tripped that feeling that was too intense to simply be called pleasure anymore and was nearly painful with how good it was. I kissed her one more time, a gentle growl and the tiny press of teeth before my restraint crumpled and I turned wild, fucking her in a flurry of thrusts, messy and wet.

I ground against her, the tension in me building until it snapped and jerked above, coming with a sharp groan. Beneath me, Sara let out hoarse, moaning cries that broke with very rhythmic clenching around me.

“Max,” she whispered and pulled me close, the movement grating me against her sensitive skin so she shuddered at the friction. I began to pull back but she stopped me with her hands sliding down my sweaty back. “Stay in me.”

I caught my breath in the soft space beside her neck, halfheartedly working to keep my weight off her. Her nails scratched lightly up and down my back, legs still curled around my hips.

“All right?”

Beside me, she nodded.

“That was fun,” I whispered playfully, and felt her smile when she kissed my cheek.

“Welcome back, Mr. and Mrs. Stella,” she said.

We rode together in the back of the car, with Scott up front, navigating us through the streets of Manhattan. I felt uncorked, able to release pressure for the first time in months, and it occurred to me only now that I’d been rather terrified: I hadn’t known whether Sara and I would ever find our way back directly to each other, or if from now on there would forever be something else—children, careers, the gradual bricklaying of life itself—bridging us.

I would have been all right if it had gone that way, if the secret we had and shared had faded away and we had to learn to find our intimacy in other ways. But knowing how easily we could go back to that, and anytime, relieved something a bit guilty and dark inside.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, as she always did, right when I wanted to admit my thoughts the least.

“Something rather dickish.”

“Ooh, then you have to tell me.”

I turned to her, took her hand in both of mine. “I was thinking that I’m relieved we still have this. That if it had gone away, I would have been okay, but I think I would have been a bit devastated at first, too. I can share you with any number of kids, as long as there is a piece there that remains only mine.”

“There’s more than one piece that is only yours,” she said, looking mildly surprised. “That’s what our marriage is. It’s the thing between us that we take care of, knowing that someday it will only be us in that enormous apartment again.”

“If you want more kids, you know we can’t stay in Manhattan forever,” I told her.

She put her fingers over my lips, saying, “Shh. Let’s enjoy this new baseline for a bit.”

We both straightened, seeming to realize in unison that we hadn’t heard our phones go off the entire time we’d been at the club.

“Shit,” she whispered, digging in her purse. “Did I turn it off?”

“I know I didn’t,” I said, pulling mine from my pocket. It was just that there were no texts, no missed calls, nothing.

I quickly typed a message to Niall: All good? We’re headed home.

His reply came almost immediately. Everything is fine. Anna is asleep. See you soon.

Niall was stretched out on the leather couch in the living room, watching John Oliver on the telly. Anna was asleep on his long legs, one fist in her mouth and the other curled around her lion blanket.

“Good night out then?” he asked quietly, watching as we hung our coats up in the closet.

“The best,” I told him, taking in the scene in front of me. “Are you sure you don’t want to move in across the hall? There’s a flat for sale. This would be very convenient for us.”

He laughed. “It’s tempting. Your building is rather posh, and this little one is brilliant, yeah?”

“Cheers, mate,” I said quietly. “You let us forget to be worried.”

He smiled up at me, giving me that look that told me he thought I was a sentimental wanker, and then rested his hand on Anna’s belly. “It was really nice. Perhaps you can return the favor someday.” His smile straightened for the span of a heartbeat, and in that tiny flicker in his expression, I felt the full weight of his disappointment in his marriage.

“Without a doubt,” I reassured him.

Sara went to change out of her dress and I reached for Anna, picking her up with the confidence of a father who expects the child to remain sleeping. Except she didn’t; for once she woke when jostled, and her sweet little face screwed up in frustration as she began to cry.