“I give up! I give up! Oh my God, you’re naked!” She can’t stop laughing. I laugh too when I hear her snort once.

“You’re really in for it,” I say as I grab her and hoist her over my shoulder.

She doesn’t even try kicking and screaming and flailing this time. One, she still can’t stop laughing long enough to gain that kind of control over her body. And two, she knows better. I just hope she doesn’t pee on me.

I carry her all the way back down the hallway toward our room, and when we come to room 321 I say “Sorry you had to see that. You have a good day now” with a nod as I pass. The couple just stares, the husband shaking his head at me with a revolted look.

I close the door behind us and throw Camryn down on the bed amid the chunks of ice and freezing water. She’s still laughing.

I stand between her legs and take off her shorts and panties at the same time, staring down at her without muttering a word. I’m hard in seconds. Her playful mood shifts in an instant, and she bites down on her bottom lip, looking up at me with those sweetly seductive blue eyes that always bring out the primal in me.

Without any real warning, I lower myself on top of her and bury myself inside her.

“Are you really sorry?” I whisper, moving in and out of her slowly. My chest pressed hard against hers, our tattoos touching, Orpheus and Eurydice becoming whole again as we become one with each other.

“Yes…,” she says, the word shuddering from her lips.

I thrust inside of her a little deeper, pushing one of her thighs up with my hand.

Her eyelids become heavy and she tilts her head back.

I crush my mouth over hers, and her moans reverberate through my throat as I start to fuck her harder.

Then something inside of me grows dark, predatory. I climb onto the bed and grab both of her thighs, digging my fingers into her flesh as I drag her across the bed toward me so fast she doesn’t get a chance to move. Seizing both of her arms, I flip her body over and pin her wrists behind her back and force her on her knees. With my free hand, I touch the soft contours of her ass as it’s raised up in front of me, squeezing each cheek in my hand tight before I smack them so hard her body jerks forward. She whimpers. Then I press my hand against the back of her neck, pushing the side of her face harder against the mattress. I feel the heat coming off her flesh from where my hand has already left red marks.

She whimpers again, and I twist her wrists tighter in my hand. Reaching down with the other, I put two fingers in her mouth and hook her cheek with them while push my cock inside of her from behind.

She cries a little, her thighs beginning to shake, but I don’t stop. I know she really doesn’t want me to.

After I come and my heartbeat slows, I pull her naked body next to mine, her sweating head nestled in the crook of my arm. She kisses my chest and walks her index and middle fingers over my bicep and toward my mouth. I take her hand and kiss her fingers.

“I’m so glad that you’re you again,” she says softly.

“That I’m me?” I ask, and she tilts her head back so she can see my eyes. “Haven’t I always been?”

“No, not always.”

“When have I not been?” I’m truly confused, but I find her coyness over whatever she’s getting at adorable.

“After we lost Lily,” she says, and the playful smile that had been growing at my lips fades. “I don’t blame you for it, but after Lily you treated me like a porcelain doll, afraid you’d break me if you handled me too roughly.”

I squeeze my arm around her a little tighter and her cheek falls back against my chest.

“Well, I didn’t want to hurt you,” I say, brushing my thumb back and forth over her arm. “I still feel like that sometimes.”

“Well don’t,” she whispers and kisses my chest again. “Never hold back with me, Andrew. I always want you to be yourself.”

I grin and squeeze her arm again. “You know you’re giving me permission to ravage you whenever I want, right?”

“Yeah, I’m fully aware of that,” she says, and I hear a matching grin in her voice.

I kiss her on the top of her head and pull her over on top of me.

“Happy birthday,” she says again and slips her tongue into my mouth.

*     *     *

Thank God for Florida in the winter. After my very surprising—and satisfying, I might add—birthday this morning, Camryn and I spend the day practicing our new song. Well, it’s not technically ours, but to mix things up a bit we’ve adopted Stevie Nicks’s kickass hit “Edge of Seventeen.” Camryn is getting frustrated with the way the lyrics blend so fast into each other, but she’s determined to get it right. This is her song, the one she wants to sing on her own. That’s a huge step for her, because we’ve always done songs together.

And I admire her for it.

She looks so frustrated, but underneath it, all I see is my Camryn coming back to me more every day. Her soul seems lighter, the light in her eyes brighter, and every time she smiles it reminds me of when we first met.

“You can do this,” I say sitting on the windowsill with my electric guitar resting against my chest. “Don’t try so hard, baby, just own it.”

She sighs and throws her head back, plopping on the chair by the small round table next to me. “I know all the words, but I always get tripped up on those last few verses. I don’t know why.”

“I just told you,” I say. “You’re thinking about it too hard, because you start the song already expecting to mess up when you get to that part. Don’t think about it. Now try again.”

She takes another deep, aggravated breath and stands up.

We practice for another hour before we head to the nearest steak house for a late afternoon lunch.

“You’ll get it right. Don’t worry about it,” I say, as the waitress brings us our steaks.

“I know. It’s just frustrating.” She starts to cut her steak, knife in one hand, fork in the other.

“It took me a little while to get ‘Laugh, I Nearly Died’ down,” I say and bite a huge chunk of steak off the end of my fork. I chew a little bit and then say, with my mouth still full, “My next must-learn song is ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ by Bill Withers. I’ve always wanted to learn that song, and I think it’s about time I retire the Stones.

She seems surprised. She points her fork at me and swallows and says, “Oooh! Nice choice!”

“You know that song?” I’m a little surprised too, considering she wasn’t much of a classic rock or blues buff when we met.

She nods and takes a quick bite of mashed potatoes. “I love that song. My dad had it on a playlist he liked to listen to when he drove out of state on business. That Withers guy can sing.”

I let out a ripple of laughter.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, looking at me confused.

“You sounded so country just now.” I take a swig of my beer and laugh a little more, shaking my head.

“What? Sayin’ I sounded like a hick?” Her eyes are all wide, but her smile couldn’t be any more obvious.

“More like a country bumpkin. That Withers guy can sang! Oooh-weee!” I mock her, throwing my head back.

She laughs with me, though trying her damndest to hide her red face. “Well, I’m definitely with you on that,” she says, taking a swig of her own beer. She sets the glass back down on the table and adds, with narrowed eyes, “The song choice, not the country bumpkin thing.”

“Of course,” I say with a grin and finish up my steak.

The first steak we ever had together was just like she promised, a few days after I got out of the hospital after my surgery. And like that day and every steak she’s had since, she only manages to eat half. Just means more for me. When I see her give off signs of being so stuffed she’s getting nauseous, I reach across the table and slide her plate toward me.

She keeps glancing at her phone, and at one point she starts texting a reply to someone.