“This is where we talk?” I ask with a smile, and I force some bravado in my eyes; I honestly have no idea why we’re at the beach and not on the couch in his living room, facing each other.

Me on his lap.

His hands beneath my shirt.

His mouth on my throat.

“I don’t reckon I know what else we need to say,” he says, shrugging sweetly. “But I know if we were at my place, we would have sex. And I just want to be with you for a little while first.”

When I look back up at him, the way he watches me is more intimate than any kiss could be, any sex, anything. I have this wild vision of climbing him, clawing at him, trying to get inside him somehow. I just need to connect.

“Are you still mad at me?” I ask him, chest aching. “A little, I mean?”

He shakes his head, and I see it past a shiver of tears through my eyelashes. I don’t know where they’re coming from. Relief, maybe. Probably exhaustion. More than a little triumph.

He reaches across the space, brushing away the first to fall. “I’m not mad.”

I nod, hoping if I keep swallowing, I won’t start crying harder.

“I’m not going to leave you,” he says. “You know that, right?”

A river of tears follows: the dam bursting. “It’s not that.”

But it is. My fear the past two weeks is at least partly that—that I changed his love, broke it somehow in the same way Mom broke mine—and now three feet between us isn’t nearly enough to dilute my need to touch him.

“Lola,” he says, stronger now. “I don’t want to be without you. I’m not leaving you. Even if you’re busy. Even if you’re scared. Even if you’re unreasonable or crazy, I won’t leave.”

“It’s not—”

“But I need to know that you’re not going to leave, either. I can’t feel like I come second. You will always come first to me,” he says. “I will never take you away from your art, but I don’t ever want to feel like a distraction to you.” He watches where his fingers brush more tears off my cheeks. “I’ve realized . . . I’ve never needed to matter to someone as much as I need to matter to you.”

He steps closer, his coat pressing against my chest, and I lean into him, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my face into the hollow of his throat. He smells so good. Familiar, clean. He smells like books and fabric softener and the ocean. His arms come up around my shoulders, one hand on my back, the other in my hair.

“Okay?” he whispers.

“You matter,” I tell him urgently. “You matter so much, Oliver. In fact, you became everything and it scared me. I think the idea of messing up with the books felt a little like losing someone in my family.”

Oliver studies me. “I know.”

“I went to a crazy place when I let it all get so bad. I guess I need to figure out how to manage that.” I shrug in his arms. “I think I can. Okay? Asking for space only made it worse. So much worse.”

He kisses the top of my head, nodding.

“You said you knew it would be intense like that,” I remind him. “But you were right: I didn’t. I haven’t felt that before.”

“I’m glad, though,” he says. “I want to be the love of your life.” Tilting his head, he reconsiders, adding, “At least, I want to be the human one. I can share you with Razor.”

I try to laugh but my throat is tight with emotion, making my voice come out a little strangled when I ask: “Have you seen Allison again?”

“No,” he says in a burst, pulling back to look at me. “Lola. I love you. I told you already, I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

An enormous knot loosens in me. “Okay. Okay.” I don’t know why I had to ask this, but I did. Allison likes him. She’s an option for him.

He exhales, his chest slumping against me, and I can practically feel his guilt. “I know it feels like a betrayal that I did that. It feels that way to me, too.”

I nod, swallowing back another sob. “Such a small one in comparison. Oliver, I’m an idiot.”

He laughs. “It feels good to finally talk about this stuff, though,” he says. “Feelings and things about us. And not just when we’re having sex. I mean out here, on the beach.”

“Okay,” I say laughing, “I guess I agree it’s good we didn’t go inside.”

“We would be making a lot of noise, but nothing intelligible,” he says, bending to press his forehead to mine. Desperate need for him explodes in my blood and I feel the ache spread like a vine inside my chest.

“Oliver . . .”

But he pulls back, eyes heavy with desire, determined to keep talking. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he says. “Sometimes it grew so enormous it left me feeling faintly nauseous. I went on a date shortly after we met and I moved to San Diego, and was miserable. I came home and listened over and over to a voicemail you’d left me. It was this rambling monologue about how much you hate Pringles but it was really a love letter to Pringles.”

I laugh; I know exactly what message he’s talking about.

“I got myself off to the sound of your voice that night,” he admits, then looks at me darkly.

My heart hiccups; heat spreads from my chest down down down between my legs.

“I’ve done very, very crude things to you in my head.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Licking, biting, fucking,” he says quietly. “Coming inside you. On you. Just after you or, sometimes before you, making you play with me until I was hard again.”

I can’t catch my breath, can’t remember how to swallow.

His eyes darken again when he says, “And that thing we did in the shower.”

I suddenly feel very, very aware of the fact that he hasn’t kissed me again since we left his house. That it’s been over two weeks since he had his hands on me, and far longer since I let myself be completely lost in the feel of them.

His head angles down, lips skirting across my jaw. “Your turn for a recap.”

“I had a crush on you in Vegas but sort of got over it when I thought you weren’t interested,” I tell him. “And then I was buried in the launch of Razor and just . . . mainly . . . fantasized about you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Licking, biting, fucking. And that thing we did in the shower.” He laughs without sound: a gentle rumble in his chest against me. “But then I drew you nearly naked and the fantasy wasn’t enough anymore. I mean, I have approximately twenty drawings just of your dick.”

“Must have been hard to find places for all that poster board,” he says, smiling.

“I mean, obviously. Go life-size or go home.” His hands slip into my coat, ducking under the hem of my shirt. Cool fingertips meet the warm skin of my waist, my ribs, the top swell of my breast above my bra, and our eyes meet for a few seconds until he bends, kissing me once.

“Hi, girlfriend.”

I feel my smile all the way to my knees. “Hi.”

“You’re okay?”

I nod. “I’m so, so good.”

Silent communication isn’t new to us, but the message in his eyes is. There aren’t words for what he’s saying, at least not in any language we know. He’s desperate but elated; his body is amped up, but it isn’t about fucking for the sake of orgasm, or ironing out some twist between us with pleasure. It’s this intense, perfect connection he feels. I know because the same thing is thrumming in me.

I slip the top button of his jeans free while his eyes hold mine, granting silent permission. The three beneath it open with only gentle coaxing. Oliver’s breath comes out fast and warm on my cheek.

“What are you up to, Lorelei?”

“Touching you.”

I look down, watching my hand dig into his boxers, but I can feel when he looks up and behind me at the beach, making sure we really are alone out here.

I tilt my face to his, silently asking for a kiss.

“This massive, massive love . . .” he murmurs into my lips, trailing off when my fingers slide over the swollen, slick head of him.