Chapter 4

The hotel suite door barely closed before his mouth was on mine.

I didn't know who moved first. Maybe it was me. Maybe I grabbed his collar and pulled him down to reach my height because I was done being careful, done being the good girl who waited and hoped and swallowed her pain like medicine. Whatever started it, we collided in the dark like two people who had been running toward the same cliff and decided to jump together.

His hands found my waist, my hips, the thick curve of my body that I usually hid under oversized sweaters and crossed arms. But he wasn't hiding anything. He gripped me like he meant it, like every soft inch of me was exactly where his hands were supposed to be, and the sound I made against his mouth was embarrassing and honest and I didn't care.

"Off," I gasped, pulling at his shirt. The buttons weren't cooperating so I yanked, and two of them popped and hit the hardwood floor like tiny gunshots.

"That was expensive." His voice was rough against my throat.

"Bill me."

He laughed, low and dark, and then his shirt was gone and mine was gone and we crashed against the wall hard enough to rattle a framed photograph. His body was ridiculous up close. Warm brown skin over muscle that moved like water, every line and ridge earned and maintained. He lifted me like I weighed nothing, which I absolutely did not, but he didn't grunt or adjust or give any sign that my full, heavy body was anything but exactly what he wanted pressed against him.

We moved from the wall to the bed. Then we moved again. And again. He was relentless and patient at the same time, a combination I didn't know was possible. Every time I thought I was done, every time the wave crested and broke and I lay there gasping, he found another way to start it over. A shift in angle. A slower rhythm. His mouth tracing a path down my neck, between my breasts, across the soft round of my belly like he was memorizing the geography of me.

Three times. Or four. I lost count after the second one turned my brain into static. My thick thighs shook so hard I thought they'd cramp and I didn't care. I didn't care about anything except the way his hands felt on my skin and the low growl that came from his chest every time I said his name, which I didn't even know yet, so instead I just whispered "please" and "more" and "don't stop" like they were the only words left in my vocabulary.

Afterward, he cleaned me up. Gently. A warm towel along my body, careful around the cut on my hand from the glass shard. He didn't speak. Didn't ask if I was okay. Just took care of it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Then he pulled me against his chest, his arm draped heavy over my waist, and I fell asleep faster and deeper than I had in four years. No pain. No dreams. No Nicolás.

Just warmth.

The sunlight hit my face at 10:07 AM. I know the exact time because I checked my phone the second consciousness kicked in, and consciousness kicked in with a vengeance. My head pounded. My body ached in ways I had never experienced, the good kind of ache, the kind that lives in muscles you forgot you owned. Between my thighs, across my lower back, in the soft places where his grip had been firm enough to leave invisible prints.

I turned my head slowly. He was in the bathroom. I could hear the shower running.

Move, Harper. Move now.

I slid out of bed, grabbed my dress from the floor, found one shoe by the door and the other under a chair. My underwear was somewhere on the other side of the room and I was not going back for it. I pulled the dress on over my curvy frame, ran my fingers through my tangled hair, and tiptoed toward the door.

The bathroom door opened.

He stepped out in a towel. Just a towel. White cotton wrapped low around his hips, water still running down his chest and stomach in slow, stupid, unfair lines. In the morning light he was worse than the night before. More defined. More golden. More of everything.

I looked away. Mostly. "Listen. About last night."

"Good morning to you too." His voice had that lazy, just woke up warmth that made my insides tighten.

"I just want to be upfront." I stared at the wall above his left shoulder because looking directly at him felt dangerous. "Last night was impulsive. I was drunk, I was heartbroken, and I made a reckless decision. I'm not looking for anything. No strings, no follow up calls, no checking in on each other in the hallways. We live next door to each other, so let's just keep it clean and pretend this didn't happen."

"You're very rehearsed for someone with a hangover."

"I planned this speech while you were in the shower."

"I can tell."

I reached for the doorknob. This was good. Clean exit. Mature, adult, no mess.

His hand landed on mine. Warm, gentle, firm enough to stop me without trapping me. I looked down at our fingers layered together on the brass knob and my stomach flipped.

"You really don't remember me?" His voice was different now. Softer. Like he was asking something that mattered more than the words themselves.

"I know who you are." I frowned. "You're my neighbor. 4A."

He held my gaze for a long, heavy moment. Something passed behind his eyes, something old and complicated that I couldn't read. Then he let it go, just like that, like folding a page in a book he wasn't ready to finish.

"Okay." He nodded slowly. "Then let me ask you something else."

"I really need to go."

"Marry me."

The two words hit the floor between us and just sat there, impossible and absurd and completely serious. His expression hadn't changed. No smile. No joke behind his eyes. He looked at me the way people look at contracts they've already decided to sign.

"You're insane," I whispered.

"Probably." His thumb moved once across my knuckle. "But I mean it."

I pulled my hand away from the knob and walked out of the room without looking back, my heart beating so loud I could feel it in my teeth.