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He looked at her like she’d hit him in the face.

“I have been for a long time. Mostly for hormonal reasons, but I have always believed it is best to be prepared when you can be. I mean there’s an entire boys club built around that philosophy.”

“I don’t think that’s the only thing it’s built around, but yeah.”

“The point is,” she said. “I have protection.”

“Right.”

“We can use condoms, too, if you want,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said. “You surprised me because I didn’t think of it. Either way. And I can honestly say that’s a first. But it’s been a long time for me.”

Her heart contracted painfully. She didn’t know why hearing him say that affected her so much. Maybe because it made her feel as if they were more alike than different.

“Gideon.” She closed the distance between them and put her hands on his face. “We have new lives on the other side of this. I know we do. I need to believe that we do. That your life didn’t end with a bomb, and mine can start anytime now. And here, we have this. And maybe it’ll be just what we need. Maybe it will be enough.”

He nodded. What he understood, what she was saying, was that this didn’t mean nothing. It wasn’t about just losing her virginity. And it could mean something without her needing it to be forever.

Forever.

That word whispered across her soul. What did she know about forever?

She was a quitter. She was working on being more than that. But climbing one mountain was hardly a cure.

“Tonight, there’s nothing but this. You and me,” he said, his voice rough. “I don’t care about tomorrow. Or Boston. Or Cassidy or the mistakes I’ve made. I don’t care about anything but this.”

That was what she needed. She hadn’t realized how much.

When he kissed her, parting her lips and going deep, she shattered. It was the most amazing sensation she’d ever felt in her life. He smoothed his hands down her back to cup her ass, and she found herself arching into him, feeling the hard press of his arousal against her.

Tears pricked her eyes, but not because she was afraid, because she was sad.

She realized that she knew desperately little about sex. She hadn’t exposed herself to a lot about it because she had always felt like she was lacking in some way, and what was the point of consuming herself with it, of getting wound up and in over her head if nobody wanted her?

She just felt really sad for herself. For the girl that she’d been all those years. For Rory Sullivan who had let other people define what she could have.

From her parents to her bullies.

But he was right. There was nothing outside of this room, and no room for regrets.

“I am distressingly innocent,” she said, separating her mouth from his and pressing her forehead against his brow. “I know some things. But honestly, I have avoided learning too much about it the way that someone who is allergic to sugar would have to avoid a bakery. I want you. I want everything. But you’re going to have to teach me. Show me. I’m sorry that I’m not going to be a really good, skilled time. Especially because you’ve been celibate for a while.”

He growled, grabbed hold of her chin, and looked at her with those fierce blue eyes. And here again was a moment where he was wholly unlike any Gideon she had known before this. The intensity, the raw quality to him, and even more, the way he saw her. Now. He was so present. So utterly and completely there. Present in the moment.

It only just occurred to her he wasn’t like that years ago. He was always looking for the next thing. That added up with what he’d told her about himself.

The way he was always chasing glory. But she really understood it now. Really.

Because she felt the difference. When he said there was nothing else to him beyond this moment, he was telling the absolute truth. It wasn’t hyperbole.

The only thing was this. The only thing was them.

“You could never disappoint me,” he said, his voice rough. “I want you to understand that. I wantyou. I don’t want sex. I could’ve had sex at any point. This whole thing that I’ve been dealing with the last couple of years, it didn’t keep me from being able to attract women. Yeah, it might’ve made it so I had difficulty flirting in a conventional sense. But believe me when I tell you, there’s always somebody out there who wants to warm your bed because they need a place to stay for the night, or is willing to suck you off to get some of the pills that you’ve got. I didn’t want that. If I wanted sex, in the most basic way possible, I could’ve had it anytime. I didn’t. I never felt the need for it until you. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, feeling shivery and needy and altogether undone.

“Rory, when I saw you in the woods that day I thought you were an angel.”