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“Come inside with me.” He grabs my hand again, and we go inside together, with Poppy and Boomer chasing after us with excitement.

“I wanted to bring you up in the loft,” he says. “To watch the clouds through the skylight with you.”

The usual apprehension washes over me as I peer over to the small stairway that leads to the loft, the one place in his house I’ve never been. Much like a basement, it’s a space that is not easy to get out of. He waits patiently while I mull things over.

“You can go up first and look around,” he suggests. “I can stay here, or outside.”

I breathe air into my lungs. “No,” I reply. “I want us to go up together.”

His lips curl into his crooked smile. “Good answer.”

Tyler’s loft immediately becomes my favorite part of the house. It’s small, with slightly slanted side walls with built-in shelves filled with books. The bed takes up almost the entire room, and it’s covered with a dark gray down comforter with large black pillows and our special blanket. A narrow oak night table is on each side of the bed, one with a twisted metal lamp with a red light bulb. A two-foot dream catcher with rows of flowing beads, feathers, and tassels hangs on the wall over the center of the headboard. The floor is unpolished wood, with thick, colorful throw rugs.

“It’s beautiful up here!” I exclaim.

“I knew you’d like it.”

Directly over the bed is a window in the ceiling, exactly as he described, and I can’t believe every bedroom doesn’t have one of these amazing windows. He sits on the bed and takes off his shoes as I walk around and peruse the spines of his books and take in the details of all his wooden and resin statues. A large glass jar is on the floor in the corner, with a few coins on the bottom and several tiny folded pieces of paper thrown on top of the coins.

“What’s this?” I ask.

His smile morphs into a frown. “Oh… that’s a jar of failure and hope.”

I blink at him. “It’s what?”

He pushes his fingers through his long hair, and it falls back over his face. “The jar is a sort of family tradition. It started with my great-grandfather, I think. They would put coins in a jar when they were in their teens, I guess?” He clears his throat. “Then when they were ready to propose, they would use what was inthe jar to buy an engagement ring.” He shrugs. “I quit that idea a long time ago.”

I swallow over the sadness that pushes through my good mood. “And the little papers?” They almost look like folded-up fortune cookie strips.

The muscles in his jaw twitch. “Every time you said, or texted, something nice to me, I wrote it down. And put it in there.” His eyes shift to the jar with indifference. “It’s stupid…”

I cross the small room and throw my arms around his neck. “It’s not stupid,” I whisper against his throat. “It’s incredibly sweet.”

He hugs me tight against him for a few minutes, then slowly releases me, his hands lingering on my waist. “Take your shoes off and lie on the bed with me.”

Kicking off my shoes, I watch as he stretches out on his back, the material of his T-shirt stretching over his muscular chest and arms and riding up to reveal his hard stomach. My insides respond by swarming with that unfamiliar tingle.

I crawl onto the bed and settle into the spot next to him, and I join him in staring out the skylight at the blue sky and clouds above us.

“This is amazing,” I say. “I need to have one of these in my own bedroom someday.”

“Hopefully, someday you will. It’s really cool at night when you can see the moon.”

He turns on his side to face me, grabs my hand, and lifts it to his lips; then he moves his lips down to my wrist, then farther up my forearm. My breath catches as I watch his mouth move along my scars, kissing each one.

“Ty…,” I whisper.

“Shh… I’m going to kiss them all.”

I give myself over to him, relaxing into the softness of his comforter as he kneels over me and slowly removes my shirt, bending down to press kisses on each and every faded cut and burn, tiny versions of his own. His fingers brush against the silk fabric of my bra, causing my heart to race even faster, and he rubs his cheek against the swell of my breast.

“Your heart is like a little hummingbird,” he breathes. “It was beating like this the day I found you…” He kisses the valley at the center of my chest, his tongue slowly sending a warm shiver up my spine. “I could feel it against my chest. It made me want to hold on to you forever.”

I reach up to run my hands across his back, my mind growing fuzzy, drunk on his words and his touch.

“I’ve always wanted you to.” My whispered words invite his mouth to mine, and he kisses me softly at first, then unapologetically rough and deep, pulling me further into a woozy haze. I move my hand up to the back of his neck, beneath his hair, and now I know why he tugs my hair when we kiss. The sensation of his hair moving between my fingers is addictive, and the deeper he kisses me, the more I want to tangle my hand in it.

He groans against my lips and rests the full length and weight of his body on top of mine, sending me into a frenzy of physical and emotional upheaval. We’ve never been this close, body to body.