Page 107

Every nerve in my body wakes at once.

“Do I what?” Shit. I’m answering a question with a question. I’m making Locke spell out a question I already understand because I’ve lost the ability to be brave at exactly the wrong moment.

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

I should probably think about timing. He’s been alive just over a week. Reporters are still staying in town. Jose Oliva is making phone calls about personhood. Trent knows where Locke is. The Harvest Festival is coming whether any of us are ready or not.

Instead, I think about Locke’s fingers in my hair, his shoulder beneath my cheek, and the quiet “Again” when I stroked his arm. Most of all, I think about the fact that he’s standing in front of me asking.

“Yes.” The word comes out soft, but certain.

Locke doesn’t move immediately. “Where?”

I blink. “Where?”

“To kiss you.”

“Oh.” There should be nothing sexy about a man requiring geographic clarification for a kiss. There absolutely is. I touch my lips. “Here.”

His attention fixes there. Locke steps closer until I have to tip my head back slightly. He’s still holding my hand, while his other stays at his side.

“You can touch me,” I say.

“Where?”

“You’re very thorough.”

“Yes.”

I guide our joined hands to my waist. “Here is good.”

His fingers spread against my side, and warmth seeps through my shirt. I put my free hand against his chest, feeling the steady internal rhythm strengthen beneath my palm. “Still okay?” I ask.

“Yes.”

He bends toward me, and the first contact is barely a kiss. It’s warm and astonishingly soft, so much softer than he looks. Locke draws back less than an inch, his hand tightening slightly at my waist.

“Again?” he asks.

The word goes through me like a spark. “Yes.” This time I meet him halfway.

The kiss deepens slowly. Locke has no experience to fall back on, but he learns fast. When I part my lips against his, he follows almost immediately. He approaches it the way he does everything else, with complete attention, noticing what I give him and answering it. When I catch his lower lip between mine, he goes still for one heartbeat. Then he does it back, slower than I did, as if he’s memorizing the shape of it. Thirteen years of marriage, and nobody ever kissed me like he was trying to learn me. His fingers flex against my side.

I slide my palm higher over his chest and curl my fingers around the back of his neck. Below my waist, something firm presses against me, and Locke freezes. I know what it is before he does.

He draws back enough to look down between us, then lifts his head again. “What happened?”

I have to bite the inside of my cheek. His body has changed beneath the soft pants we found for him, and the woven shape that has never been particularly noticeable is suddenly impossible to ignore.

I lose the battle and laugh, but Locke’s brow tightens and his gaze searches my face. I put my hand back against his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing because anything is wrong.”

He looks down again. “It was not like this.”

“I know.”

His fingers hover near himself without touching. “Now it is.”

“Yes.”