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I don’t expect his honesty, not when I haven’t been with him, so the words feel like a slap. “What if I am?”

Then he steps closer, and I instinctively step back, my back bumping into the cold brick wall behind me.

He doesn’t stop until there’s only a breath between us.

“You asked for space, and I gave it to you.” His jaw, still tight, dips as he nods toward the door to the bar.

Hurt flashes behind his eyes again, and I feel it deep inside my chest. “I didn’t agree to that . ”

“Didn’t agree to what?” I have to know what he thinks I was doing, if he really thinks I’d betray him in this way too.

He leans impossibly closer, his breath tickling my neck, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear. “I’ll give you all the space you want, Elsie, but if anyone is taking you home tonight, or any night, it’s me.”

His words slice through me, cleaving my heart in two. I want—no, I need—him to know that despite everything, he’s the only person I’ve ever wanted. That there’s not enough space in the world that could make me consider someone else.

It’s not a good idea, I know that, but right now, it feels like the best idea I’ve ever had. “Take me home, then.”

The truck smells just like it always has, like Beau and sunbaked interior.

The seats feel the same. Soft, supple leather cracked with age.

This truck is as familiar to me as its owner.

Unconsciously, my eyes flit to the back seat.

I’ve had sex in this truck. With my husband , who is sliding into the driver’s seat beside me.

My husband, who I’ve hardly seen in months, who, using all the strength I had left in my heart, I asked to leave, to give me space, to give me time.

I guess the clock has run out.

I can’t make myself feel upset about it. Not when he looks this good, his cheeks flushed from anger and cold. Not when he smells like home, like all my favorite memories. Not when I know that he’s going to stay when I ask him too. That we will both feel good for the first time in so long.

We’re silent the entire way home. My home, I guess I should say. He’s lived in a cabin at his parents’ ranch since Thanksgiving, and I’ve lived alone in our house. He hasn’t stepped over our threshold since then, but I hope he will tonight.

I may have been the one to ask for space. I might not be any closer to knowing how to fix our future. But I know what I want right now.

And it’s Beau.

The truck comes to a stop at the end of the driveway, and a thick silence hangs heavy between us. Electricity crackles in the air, steel to flint, waiting to catch fire.

My eyes slide over to him. His hands are still tight on the wheel, knuckles white. The sight of it makes my mouth dry. I don’t know that he’s ever looked this raw to me, barely hanging on to his sanity, or maybe his self-control. I want to press it and see what happens when it snaps.

He clears his throat, loosening his grip. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

I should say I’m fine, that it’s just a few feet away, that the snowfall is thick enough that I won’t slip, even if I’m still a little tipsy. But I don’t, and his relieved sigh rends the still air in the cab between us.

We’re quiet as we climb out of the truck and walk the short distance to the door, the silence hanging heavy between us.

The porch light has died since he left, and I’ve been too lazy to replace it, so we’re bathed in darkness.

It makes the moment feel more intimate, the air between us more electric, the reasons I asked him to leave more hazy.

It’s too dark to see him, but I feel his stare all the same.

We’ve always been opposing magnets, drawn to each other in a way that feels instinctual.

Twelve years together, and I know him more than myself.

I know that he won’t ask to come inside.

He’ll wait for my decision, test that patience he’s been hanging on to by a thread while I’ve been trying to figure things out these past few months.

I know I shouldn’t ask him inside. I know what will happen if I do.

But suddenly that doesn’t seem like the deterrent it should be.

My skin hums in a way that I haven’t felt in so long, longer than the few months he’s been gone, and electricity sparks in my veins. Need and want settle low in my stomach.

Years’ worth of memories flash through my mind. I know how he will feel. I know how he will make me feel. And I want it. I want him.

“Beau…” I trail off, and I can feel him tense as he waits.

I can’t help it, I lean into him, and I tell myself it’s to escape the cold.

But it’s not, and we both know it. His hands find my waist and grip hard .

Hard enough that sparks prick behind my vision in the most delicious of ways.

A gasp rips out of me when he presses my back against the door, the movement causing his chest to brush against mine.

I can feel every line of his hardness against my curves.

I am on fire.

His breath is warm on my neck as he leans in, lips brushing the delicate skin there, mustache scraping.

I know it’s going to leave a mark, but I don’t care.

Everything feels like too much right now, in the best sort of way, making my knees weak enough that I have to grip his forearms to keep myself steady.

But he doesn’t go any further, and it has my patience wearing thin.

“What do you want, Elsie baby?”

I know what he’s doing. He wants me to say the words, to ask him. I’m ready to beg.

“Come inside?”

That’s all it takes for his lips to crash into mine, stealing what little breath I had left.

Nothing feels like this. Like Beau. Like us.

My hands find his hair and his find my ass, lifting, pulling my hips against his until stars dot my vision.

We line up perfectly, always have, and my body moves on its own, rolling against his in a way that has us both groaning.

I don’t know how the door gets open, but suddenly we’re stumbling into the living room and Beau is kicking the door shut behind us, leading me to the bedroom like he has hundreds of times.

When we lived in Utah, we stumbled through our living room of our apartment too many times to count, ending up on the floor or pressed against whatever piece of furniture we could find.

But this is the first time we’ve woven through the maze of this particular house.

We never felt this kind of frenzy here, and the thought makes a pang slice through my chest.

It’s swiftly doused the moment Beau walks through our bedroom door, however.

All rational thought leaves me when he drops me onto the edge of the bed.

He’s breathing hard. We both are. His hair is mussed from my hands, and his chest rises and falls with deep breaths.

It’s all I can make out of him in the darkness.

I want to turn on all the lights and strip him bare and watch him as he falls apart, but there’s no time.

So I just drag him down on top of me and sigh into the familiar slide of his lips.

His tongue tangles with mine, and my breath hitches when his hand finds the bare skin of my thigh beneath my skirt.

This is the first time I’ve gotten dressed up in months, and I’m suddenly grateful for it.

Grateful that he doesn’t have to rid me of pants to touch me.

Grateful that I can feel his calluses on my skin for the first time in far too long.

Grateful for the way his eyes flare at the first touch of soft lace.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers into my neck.

It feels like a hit right to my solar plexus.

The way he doesn’t say he missed this , that he said he missed me .

Because I feel the same, even though it was me who asked him to leave.

Sure, I’ve lain awake at night, the sheets sticking to my overly warm skin, missing the way his hands and mouth and body feel on mine, but I’ve missed him more.

His presence. His laugh. His ability to make the dark days seem brighter.

And there have been so many dark days.

But I don’t want to think about that now. Not when his hands are wandering, when he’s saying “arms up, Elsie baby” while pushing my shirt over my head and dipping his mouth to the skin exposed. Not when I’m desperate for more, for everything, for him .

So I push the thoughts down and reach for the hem of his shirt and then the button of his jeans.

I drag my hands over skin that’s always so much warmer than mine.

I move my palms over the hard planes of his chest, feeling his heart hammering against my hand.

I love that he’s as affected by this as I am.

His lips find my neck again, and a strangled sound slips out of me when he bites down there, hard enough to leave a mark that will have me blushing into the mirror when I discover it in the morning.

My fingers tighten on his biceps, pulling him harder against me, loving the way his body molds with mine, his mouth trailing down my neck, over the swell of my chest, tongue leaving a trail of wetness.

When his eyes connect with mine in the darkness from where he’s halfway down my body, I think I might pass out. Nothing has ever felt this good before. Nothing has felt like having him here with me right now.

I’m frantic then, hands moving fast and gripping hard.

I touch the places that make him gasp and groan, loving the sound of it, memorizing it, like I’ve ever forgotten.

His skin is hot enough to burn, warm like he’s been baking in the summer sunshine all day instead of bundled in winter coats to ward off the bitter cold.

He feels like sunshine and tastes like something decadent.

I want to devour him.

But it seems like he’s going to beat me to the punch, his mouth slipping lower.

I want to fight him, to have my turn first, but his strong hands pin me down, fingers tightening on my thighs.

I hope there’s fingerprint-sized bruises there in the morning, another memento to remind me this actually happened, that it wasn’t another desperate dream I woke up from in the middle of the night, alone in our bed again.

His teeth bite lightly into my hip, and I feel him smiling against it at my gasp. There’s no use fighting him now, so I sink into my mattress that doesn’t feel cold and empty for the first time in months, hands gripping the sheets, the only thing tethering me to reality.

I’m weightless and burning, feeling too much all at once.

Starlight and moonlight pour in through the windows, making everything feel that much more magical, but I hardly notice any of it.

I’m lost to sensation. To feeling. To skin and sweat and heat and Beau.

To shattering apart for him, the sounds of my gasps and moans filling the quiet of our bedroom.

I shiver when he whispers that he loves me as he settles his body over mine, fingertips pressing into the skin on my hips, hoping he doesn’t notice that I can’t work past the lump in my throat to say the same. Even though it feels as if the words are clawing to break out of me.

For tonight, I make myself forget. The gnawing emptiness that’s been spreading through me for the last nine months. The nights I’ve spent alone in our bed since I asked him to leave. The tears I wish I could shed. The way my heart has broken over and over and over again.

I forget it all and disappear into need and want and desperation and Beau .