Her bedroom had the same afternoon light coming through the curtains and the same books on the nightstand and the specific lived-in quality of a room that was entirely hers.

He came in and she turned and he was looking at her — not the room, her — with those dark eyes and the specific expression she had been cataloguing for six months and she felt it land completely for the first time and felt entirely ready for all of it.

She kissed him.

He kissed her back and his hands moved over her — her face, her shoulders, her back — and she felt the layers of the morning...