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He kisses me again. Harder. His hands slide down my back and pull me closer, and the warmth of him is everywhere, and his fingers are trembling again, the way they did the first time, except this time they’re trembling because I said it back.
“Ruby.”
“Mm.”
“I would like to take you to the bedroom.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that too.”
He stands—with me, lifting me like I weigh nothing, my legs wrapping around his waist, my arms around his neck—and carries me down the hallway to my bedroom.
He sets me down on the bed. Gently. Carefully. Stands there looking down at me with those amber-dark eyes, and his face is open and raw and completely his—furrowed brow, slightly too intense, no polish, no performance.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I say.
And this time, nobody needs to teach anyone anything.
We know each other now. His hands know where to go. Mine know what he likes—the way his breath catches when I touch the skin along his jawline, the sound he makes when my fingers trace the edge of the panel along his ribs, the way his whole body tightens when I press my mouth to the place where his heartbeat should be.
It’s different from the hotel room. Slower. Less frantic, more intentional. He doesn’t ask “is this okay” because he can read me now—my breathing, my hands, the sounds I make—and I don’t need to guide him because he’s learned me, really learned me, in the way he learns everything that matters. Completely. Thoroughly. With his whole attention.
Afterward, he pulls me against him. My back to his chest. His arm over my waist. The position we found in the hotel room, except this time we’re in my bed. My apartment. My life. And he’s not a guest or a project or a fake boyfriend or a situation. He’s mine.
“Aiden?”
“Yes.”
“Stay here tonight. In the bed. With me.”
“You want me to stay?”
“I want you to stay every night.”
His arm tightens. His mouth presses against my hair. I feel the hum against my spine—steady, even, the sound I fell in love with before I knew what it was.
“Okay,” he says. Quiet. Like it’s the simplest word in the world and also the biggest.
I close my eyes.
For the first time in weeks, I breathe a little easier. Because the man behind me loves me—not because he was programmed to, not because I was the first person who was kind to him.
But because he chose me. The way I chose him. Clumsily, illogically, with no guarantee and no safety net and no reason that comes apart into pieces.
That’s the whole thing, isn’t it?
Love that you can explain isn’t love.
It’s just code.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Aiden
No Returns, No Exchanges
Ruby comes home from the bakery and goes directly to the couch and lies facedown.
