Page 130 of Wreckage and Rain

I sit on him fully. His hands on my hips holding me steady. Both of us breathing. Not moving yet. I lean down so my forehead is against his.

"This is new."

"For both of us."

"Not the bodies. The other part."

"I know, Summer. I know."

"Tell me you what you know."

"I know that I almost lost you. I know that I don't get to take this for granted. I know that every minute of this is something I have to earn for the rest of my life. I know."

I move.

Slow at first. The body remembering. I sit up so my hands are on his chest, and I roll my hips. He says fuck very quietly, the same way he's always said it. I smile, and the smile is a kind of forgiveness I didn't know I was ready to give.

I find a rhythm. Mine. He lets me. His hands on my hips guide but don't direct. His eyes are on my face. He doesn't close them. He isn't letting himself fall into the body and forget who is here. He's staying with me. Like I told him to.

"Harder," I say after a while.

"Whose pace?"

"Mine. I want harder."

He braces his feet against the mattress and meets my hips with his. The angle changes. I gasp, and the sound I make is mine, mine, with him. New.

He brings one hand between us. Two fingers, circling slowly over my clit. He hasn't asked. He's been doing this with me since we were teenagers and the answer to can I is please. He knows it. He still glances up at my face for the half-second confirmation, and I nod, and he keeps going.

I come the first time with my hands flat on his chest and my head tipped back and my mouth open. He works me through it. His hand. His hips. The thumb at the right pressure. I shake. He holds me steady with his other hand at my hip. He doesn't stop until I press my palm against his to slow it down.

"Roll us."

He rolls us. Carefully. He's on top. I'm on my back. He braces above me on his elbows. His face inches from mine.

"Like this?"

"Like this."

He pushes in again. Slower. Deeper. His forehead drops to mine. We're looking at each other. He isn't looking past me. He isn't looking through me. He's here. The whole man is here. I haven't had the whole man in so long and the fact of him being here, all of him, is going to make me cry, and I let it.

"Hey." His voice is gravel.

"I'm okay."

"You're crying."

"I'm okay. It's happy tears. Keep going."

He keeps going. Slowly. He kisses the tears off my temple. He keeps moving. He's being careful with me. Careful, like a man handling something that's been broken and put back together. I let him be careful.

I reach up and grip the back of his neck.

"I love you."

"I love you. I love you. God, Summer, I love you."

He says it like a confession. Like something pulled out of him. Like a word he's been waiting for the right window to use.