Page 149 of The Lies We Play

She nods.

“Words, baby.”

Her eyes meet mine. “Yes.”

I push the sweater up over her stomach.

Slow.

Not because I am patient.

Because I am trying to survive the sight of her.

Her skin appears inch by inch beneath my hands, warm and soft and real. She lifts her arms so I can take the sweater off the rest of the way . Her hair catches in the collar for a second, and she makes an irritated little noise that would be funny if I were a better man.

I'm not, at the moment, a better man.

I pull the sweater free and drop it beside us.

It’s just her, caught in the middle of her ordinary life, deciding to let me see what I have been trying not to imagine for months.

I make a sound.

I don’t know what it is.

Something low. Honest enough that she notices.

She arches her back, very slightly, to put herself closer to where I’m looking.

“That’s a face,” she says.

“Yes.”

“What kind of face?”

“Liv.”

“Tell me.” The command is soft, but there is need under it.

She wants to know what I see because some part of her still thinks beauty has to be proven from the outside before she is allowed to believe it.

I put one hand beside her head and make myself look at her face before I look anywhere else.

“You are extremely beautiful.”

Her eyes close for half a second.

When she opens them, her face is open in a way I have never seen. It’s just Livia, receiving the truth and letting it reach her before she organizes it into something safer.

“Okay,” she says. Her voice is small, but not uncertain.

Then her mouth curves.

“Carry on.”

I laugh once, quiet and wrecked, and lower my mouth to hers again.

This kiss is different.