Page 126 of For the Plot

I kiss him again, breathless, drunk on him. On us.

“You’re really not letting me go, are you?”

He presses his forehead to mine. “Never. You’re mine now, Skye Rhodes.”

I smile and kiss him once more. “Then let’s go home, Mr. Blackwood.”

He stands with me in his arms and carries me out the door. And just like that, our ending becomes the beginning.

Epilogue

Reece—Five Years later…

Five years. It doesn’t sound like much when I say it out loud. But I feel every second of it when I look at her.

She steps out of the black car in a white dress that clings to her like a second skin. No bra. No coat. Just satin, skin, and the kind of confidence that used to be wrapped in sharp sarcasm and now drips from her in soft, lethal waves.

My wife. Still the most dangerous thing I’ve ever touched.

Her heels dangle from one hand, a grin playing on her lips as she approaches me with that slow, teasing sway that should be illegal on a quiet Chicago sidewalk.

“Let me guess,” she says. “You rented it out again?”

I take her in, hair twisted up like she didn’t try too hard, eyes glowing under the golden streetlights, a hint of that perfume I bought her for our first Christmas curling through the air between us.

“I had to,” I say. “Tradition.”

She raises a brow. “Our tradition is getting drunk at a dive bar where the floors are sticky and the jukebox is cursed?”

“Our tradition,” I correct, stepping closer, “is coming back to the place where I first realized I was fucked.”

She laughs. “You were halfway to fucked when I sat down at your table.”

“No,” I admit, my fingers brushing the exposed curve of her back. “I was fucked the second I saw you walk in the door.”

I open it for her, and she steps inside. The tables are empty. The jukebox hums quietly in the background with something old and soulful. Our booth, the one we’ve christened a few times since that first night I rented this place out, is set with white linens, a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a single vase filled with peonies.

She pauses, not saying a word, only staring.

“This is…” she breathes, blinking slowly. “You remembered everything.”

I step up behind her and press my mouth to her shoulder. “I remember every version of you I’ve ever met. But this one, this one’s my favorite.”

She turns, eyes glassy. “You’re gonna make me cry before the wine’s even poured?”

“I figured I’d start strong.”

I pour us each a glass and guide her into the booth. She slides across the cracked vinyl and stretches her legs out, one bare thigh brushing mine.

She’s not wearing panties. I know it before I confirm it. But I confirm it anyway with one slow slide of my hand under the table, brushing the inside of her thigh until I find slick, heated skin. She inhales sharply.

“Reece…”

“Five years,” I murmur, pressing my thumb against the spot that makes her hips twitch. “And you still get wet for me like it’s the first time.”

She grips the edge of the table, her breathing shallow. “You’re going to make me break this wineglass.”

I ease my hand back slowly. Deliberately. Let her sit in it.