If there were such a thing as an emotional climax, I had one. Something inside me burst and spread through my chest, through my limbs, down to my toes, up to my head. It was hot. Tingly. Bliss.

His gaze still locked on mine, he entered me. In one thrust, he was stretching me, filling me the way he’d filled my heart. Perfecting me.

“Yes,” I cried. “Like that. Yes.” Yes, I love the way you feel in me. Yes, give me more. Yes, my heart is open too.

He moved in and out, not fast, not too slow. He was enjoying me. He was telling me how he loved me. He was proving his yes. His hips circled, nudging my clit. I moaned and sighed. I gasped. I sang.

And he continued to cherish my skin, brushing his fingers across my thighs and hips, finding my scars, caressing them tenderly. “As many times as it takes.” His mouth hovered above mine, his breath hot. “I will kiss away your bruises. I’ll kiss away your pain.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck. His attempts to heal me were valiant, and I appreciated them more than words could say. But he needed to know the process was ongoing. That true healing would take time.

I brushed my lips against his and told him. “Most of the scars are on the inside.”

“I can be there too.” As if to prove it, he pushed my legs in toward my chest, and on his next stroke, he hit deeper in me, deeper than I thought I’d ever felt him before. Deeper than anyone had ever been inside me before.

He kissed me hungrily, licking into my mouth. Everywhere I felt him—with my lips and tongue, against my skin, inside my pussy, inside my chest and head and limbs. He infiltrated my senses and my soul.

And when his tempo picked up and he pounded into me with sharp, unyielding jabs and the tension pulled tight in my core, I held on. I waited. When we went, we went together, open and free, our climaxes uniting into one glorious, brilliant explosion.

***

We made love through the night and fell asleep wrapped around each other with the dawn.

I woke midmorning to his voice, harsh and angry. He was on the edge of the bed, the phone at his ear. I’d missed whatever he said, but emotion was written all over his body. He was more than angry. He was completely enraged.

He ended the call without a goodbye, simply letting the phone fall from his hands and to the floor. He stood and paced the room for half a minute before screaming, “Fuck!” and throwing his fist into the wall.

I gasped, both because he’d startled me and because violence in any form made me uneasy.

Still shaking his hand, he spun toward me, his eyes finding mine. Immediately, his face softened, but his body remained tense.

“Wanna talk about it?”

He shook his head.

“Is it one of the things you can’t say?”

He didn’t answer. His breathing had been fast and heavy, but now he took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

Then he climbed back on the bed and knelt before me. “I want to talk about us. Let’s talk about us.” He took my hands in his. “Can we?”

“Yeah. Sure.” I was apprehensive. Edgy. Cautious. “What about us?”

He kissed the back of one hand, then the other. “I love you, Gwen. You know that I love you, right?”

“I do.”

“And you love me?” His tone was urgent and panicked. Not at all like normal.

Concerned, I shifted so I was kneeling too. “I do. I do love you, JC. What is it?”

“This is good,” he said under his breath. “This is going to work.” Then he smiled, his grin unsteady but sincere, his hands tightly wrapped around mine. “Gwen. Marry me.”

Chapter Seventeen

I laughed.

There was no other appropriate response. It also helped to relieve some of the strange tension building inside of me.

But when I was done laughing, he was still looking at me with earnest, intent eyes. He obviously wasn’t joking.

“JC.” I sat back on my heels. “Stop being weird and talk to me about what’s going on.”

He tightened his grip on me. “I’m serious, Gwen. I’m asking you to marry me.”

I blinked a few times. I hadn’t even had any coffee yet. There should be a universal law that made caffeine a requirement before serious conversations and proposals.

I looked down at our hands joined together and found that the knuckles on his right hand were red and scratched from his punch to the wall. He was lucky he hadn’t hit through the sheetrock. “Oh God, honey. Does it hurt?”

He glanced at his hand then returned his attention to me. “I can’t feel it. It’s numb. Marry me.”

This was the third time he’d said those words and the first time that they actually got through to me. My throat and chest tightened and critters began flitting around in my stomach, and while some of the sensation felt pleasant I had no doubt what I needed to say. “I can’t marry you, JC.”

“Why not?” The response came fast and even. Prepared. As though he’d been expecting my no.

I pulled my hands out from his while I tried to come up with the answers that should be completely obvious. “Because it’s too soon. Because we don’t even know each other. Because we only just said we loved each other.” I slid out of the bed, uncomfortable being so near to him while he was acting so off.

“But we’ve felt things for longer than that. And what does time matter anyway? We love each other and that’s what counts. Marry me.” He was so confident in his delivery. Each time, two words—marry me. As though saying them over and over would make the difference. As though I would be convinced eventually, and he just needed to be patient.

“JC.” I found my underwear and put them on, feeling too vulnerable without any clothes on. “I can’t—” I took a deep breath.

But maybe I could.

I looked for a shirt to put on while I tested the idea out in my mind. I’d never thought about marrying JC. I never thought I’d marry anyone, actually. So the idea of a union like that at all was peculiar and foreign.

But now that I was thinking about it…

It wouldn’t be the worst thing. Having a place to come home to every night—or morning, in my case—a place that was more of a person than a location. A place that was safe. A place that was filled with love. It was a warm thought. One that spread and grew and felt less ridiculous than it should.

I found JC’s t-shirt on the floor and pulled it over my head. When I turned around, he was standing not a foot away, expectant. “You can’t? Why can’t you?”