Skye couldn't go to Jeffrey yet. Actually, she was planning on avoiding him for at least the day, maybe the next. Time between breaking up with Dušek and telling Jeffrey the reason why would be healthy. Wise. She was far too upset to have a decent, fair conversation with him now.
Also, she was terrified. Two overwhelmingly vulnerable conversations in a single day might be enough to land her in a psychiatric hospital. She could crack, she really could.
She would have to figure out something to tell her family, but she still had a bit of time. It was early. Most of them would still be in bed. She hoped her canceled wedding wouldn't affect Rosalind's. Rosalind had planned her wedding long before Skye, and she had been generous enough to share it with her. If Skye's poor decision making skills trampled on her sister's day, she would have yet another thing to be guilty about. Either way, she knew she owed both Rosalind and Tommy one hell of an apology. She would get that out of the way as soon as they were awake and finished with breakfast. Bad news was best delivered to those with full stomachs – especially when one of the receivers of said bad news was Tommy Geiger.
Skye hadn't wanted to wander aimlessly around Arundel while she waited for them, in case she ran into Jeffrey, or worse, Dušek. She wasn't sure he had yet left.
So she had hidden away in one of the house's many sitting rooms and shielded herself behind a closed door. She now was perched on a leather couch, staring blankly at an oil painting, as she had been for the past hour. She hadn't cried yet, not since her blubbering breakdown with Dušek. There was pressure in her chest, a weight on her shoulders, but no tears. Not even one.
She examined the brushstrokes slashed across the canvas. They seemed to create a flower of some sort, but that was up for interpretation. She thought that art was supposed to bring out a person's emotions, but she only felt empty.
Sometime later, her phone rang. She checked to see if by chance it was Rosalind, but it was Jeffrey. She silenced the phone and flipped it over so that she wouldn't watch the call fail. Whatever he wanted could wait. She hoped he would be easy to dodge.
She sat and sat, still so bizarrely dry-eyed, and she would have stayed there for another hour or two, had she not been discovered.
The door opened and Jeffrey stuck his head inside. "Skye! Thank god."
He came into the room and quickly shut the door behind him. So much for being easy to dodge.
"Hey," she said, not as casually as she would have liked.
"You didn't get any of my calls?"
Aside from the one, no. "What calls?" She picked up her phone. Her stomach plunged as it would if she were thrown from a six-story window. Jeffrey had called her nine times in the last twenty minutes. "Oh. No, I didn't. Sorry."
"Well, I really have to talk to you."
Skye looked up, noticing for the first time that Jeffrey was rather agitated. Uncharacteristically so. Her stomach, having already plunged, changed course and hurtled up to her throat. She gulped.
There was no way he knew, was there?
"Okay. Shoot." Skye's voice came out strained. If Jeffrey knew… well, things were about to get very rough, indeed.
"Did I do something to you?"
That was unexpected. "Of course not."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." Skye furrowed her brows.
"Then…you're not mad at me too?"
"What's wrong with you?"
Jeffrey laughed shortly, and he blinked as if to clear himself from a daze. "Your fiancé just swung at me."
Skye was on her feet before the last word was out of his mouth. "Dušek hit you?"
No. No, no, no. He'd said he wouldn't do that. He'd calmed down. He'd told her to find Jeffrey. Wished her luck!
Jeffrey shook his head. "I said he swung at me. I ducked – well, I sort of ducked, and my dad sort of yanked me out of the way, because he was there, and apparently he's better at anticipating— you know what, never mind. What matters is that Dušek definitely tried to clock me in the face."
Jeffrey was shaken, pale enough that Skye could pick out every one of his freckles, and twitching his hands at his sides.
Skye swore to herself. Dušek, why? So this had to happen now. Maybe he'd done it on purpose, for just a bit of revenge, to force her to have this conversation before she was ready. She'd mess it all up, she knew she would.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
Men could be so fucking pigheaded. Hadn't she sworn to the ends of the earth that Jeffrey had no direct hand in what she had done? Hadn't Dušek believed her? And why was it that people were so often apt to blame not their partner – the one who had truly faulted them – but instead the person they had faulted them with? It was a gross and inane bit of misjudgment.
"When I asked him what I did, he said I should ask you, so—" Jeffrey hastily crossed the room and sank onto the couch. "What did I do?"
"Nothing. I promise."
"Really? People don't throw punches without a reason!" Jeffrey snapped, then he sighed and shoved his hand through his hair. "That was rude. I'm sorry. I'm just freaked out."
"I know. It's okay."
"I've never had that happen before." Jeffrey folded his hands in his lap, but quickly unfolded them to instead drum his fingers on his knees. "I know he didn't like me much at first, but I thought I fixed that. I spent half the day with him yesterday, and he was fine! I can't figure out what went wrong."
Not only did Jeffrey not know her secret, but he didn't have the slightest inkling of what it was. A sinkhole, right then, would have been a great blessing. If only the earth would open beneath her feet and swallow her whole.
"I'm so sorry. It's my fault. He's angry with me. I'm the problem." Skye sat next to Jeffrey. "I really fucking pissed him off."
Jeffrey's mouth stretched into a thin line, almost a smile. "I'm not following you, sorry."
"Jeffrey—" Skye had been about to simply come out with it, but she faltered. She was so unprepared, and Jeffrey was not helping with his inability to guess. What wasn't he following? What was the one thing Skye could do that might motivate Dušek to swing his fist at him?
Unless Jeffrey didn't love her, and he didn't think she could ever love him. Skye put her head in her hands and ripped at her hair.
"Hey." Jeffrey gave her shoulder a quick scratch. "I'm sure you'll work it out. You're getting married for a reason, right?"
Oh, why wouldn't he just shut up? Every word off Jeffrey's tongue seemed designed to push her to a nervous breakdown.
She shook her head and whispered, "You're making this so hard."
It had already been hard. What Jeffrey was making it was unfeasible.
"Okay." He leaned away, his hand now off her shoulder and back in his lap. "Sorry."
Skye pushed her hair out of her face and forced herself to drop her hands. She heaved a sigh so large that she whimpered at the end of it. And what the fuck was that? She whimpered now? Because of a man?
Only when it was Jeffrey, and only when she was about to change their relationship forever, for better or for worse. She would just have to spit it out.
"Dušek isn't…" She stiffened with resolve and shifted in her seat to face Jeffrey. "He's not my fiancé anymore."
Jeffrey took six seconds to respond. Skye counted. All he said was, "What?"
So Skye set her left hand on the cushion between them to display her very bare ring finger. She had only worn an engagement ring for a day, yet her hand looked so empty without it. It also looked right, she realized. She never should have put that ring on. She hadn't wanted to. She only had for Dušek and his mother, but she had thought that was due to her usual disinterest in jewelry. Maybe it had been a sign.
Jeffrey's mouth dropped open slightly, and he snapped it shut as soon as it did. He sat up straighter, but he pulled farther away from her – a move that did not make Skye feel too good about her chances. She scoured his face for anything that might signal that this news was good for him. Aside from his obvious surprise, he was unreadable.
"What happened?"
"I called it off."
"Why?"
Skye's jaws clamped shut. Her brain knew that she had to tell Jeffrey eventually, but her body said no. Her heart beat so quickly she was afraid it might give out and kill her – because a love confession, to Jeffrey in particular, could easily be the death of her.
"You seemed so happy," he said softly. His brow creased, but with a short shake of the head, confusion fell from his face. "Did he hurt you somehow? Do I need to hurt him? Because I— I won't, but we can pretend I will, on principle. I can send him a strongly worded email."
He was trying to make her laugh, and if Dušek really had hurt her, he probably would have.
Instead, Skye pried open her unwilling jaws and, in a regrettably hushed voice, she said, "He didn't do anything wrong. I think…I think I did."
She knew that she had, but it felt better to speak about it as if she weren't certain. She thought about what Dušek had said, when he had told her that their relationship had never been real. She hadn't wanted to believe that, but there was probably some truth to it. She had been prepared to marry Dušek, but one person's claim that Jeffrey loved her was all it had taken to erase the future she had seen with him. The future she saw now had Jeffrey at the end of it.
"Then, you can fix it," said Jeffrey, well-intentioned but hopelessly misguided. "Obviously I don't know what you did, but I don't have to. I know you, Skye. You fix every mess you make."
If Jeffrey kept talking, Skye might never tell him anything. She would die with the secret that she had fallen in love with him, and try as she might, she couldn't justly love someone else. She would die a coward, alone. She had to say it before he talked her straight out of the room.
She swallowed in preparation, but her voice still trembled. Was she about to cry? She didn't even say the right thing. She just picked up where he had left off, like the weak, pathetic fool she was. "Not this one. Not with him. I won't."
"Oh." Jeffrey's lost look returned. "I don't understand."
He couldn't be bothered to venture a guess – the thought of her leaving her fiancé because of him, evidently, nowhere near the realm of possibility. Skye could only think of one reasonable explanation for that: Mrs. Tifton had lied to her. She had fed Skye a sob story about Jeffrey and his broken heart, a diabolical plot to put a stop to her friendship with him at long last. It was more than that – it was a plot to simply ruin her life.
Common sense told Skye to save herself now, before she drifted too far out to sea and she drowned. Dušek was the only person she had told about Jeffrey, and he wouldn't say anything about it. He wouldn't want to. She could stay safe from this, foil Mrs. Tifton's plan. She had done so before; she could do it again.
It's too late, Skye's inner voice whispered to her. You're too far gone. Maybe it was blind hope, but she could also admit that such a plot might be too diabolical for Mrs. Tifton.
She would forge onward. Whatever happened would happen: if it indeed was all a farce, she would have to trust herself not to let it ruin them. She would have to trust Jeffrey, because having an answer – even one she didn't want – would be better than a lifetime of wondering what if.
"Can you close your eyes for me?" she asked. Proven miserably inadequate with her words, she would have to try for some show and tell. It would be easier if he wasn't looking at her.
"Uh…why?"
"Just do it."
"M'kay." Jeffrey shot her a strange look before he closed his eyes.
Skye hesitated – please don't hate me.
She kissed him. It was a brief, slightly panicked kiss, and Jeffrey's eyes flew open, round with shock.
"Skye," he said, his voice quiet and rough.
She kissed him again, slowly this time, experimentally. She didn't need to experiment. She knew this was right. Some secret part of her always had.
Jeffrey let the kiss happen, but he didn't react to it. Skye leaned back in her seat. She meant to smile at him, to say the words she had already imagined herself saying time and time again, but none of that panned out. Her mouth refused to lift; the words were imprisoned in her voice box. She stared at him, waiting. Hoping.
He stared back, and nothing happened. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them looked away.
It was agonizing, how long it took Jeffrey to finally say, "You kissed me."
"Uh huh."
"What does that—"
The confession burst out of her in a mingled hurry. "I think I might be in love with you."
Jeffrey turned his head away from her, then back again. He seemed to be confirming she was truly there. "You think you might be?"
Skye shook her head. Now she smiled, but it was unforthcoming. "A couple of self-conscious modifiers. Let me say it again, better this time."
Jeffrey wiped his thumb across his mouth and stared at it, as if there, her kiss would be visible. "Okay."
Skye shifted closer, her leg pressing into his. The night before, such a touch had made him move away, but today, Jeffrey left his leg where it was. He was frozen, intently watching her, his expression guarded.
She carefully wrapped her hand around his arm, afraid he might spook, and though it rippled with tension under her fingers, he let her do that too.
"I'm in love with you, Jeffrey," she whispered.
She leaned into him, incertitude rendering the movement unsteady. She felt Jeffrey's lips twitch as if to kiss her back, but his hand then rose to her chin, and he gently guided her away. Skye's heart stuttered and sank.
"Sorry, um…" Jeffrey stumbled over his words. He looked at the door, and Skye started to think he really would make a run for it. "You canceled your wedding, you broke up with Dušek," he summarized carefully. He turned her way again. "And you did that for me?"
Skye nodded. Her throat was dry and scratchy. "Does that make me crazy?"
"Of course it does."
"Okay." Skye stood on shaky legs. It was time to find a shovel and bury herself in the backyard. "Okay, okay, okay. I'll go."
"No, stay." Jeffrey got up with her. "Please."
She turned her back on him to hide her flaming face. She chewed her thumbnail as she said, "You're not making me feel super confident right now."
"This is a lot for me to process."
Skye paced. She babbled, "No pressure or anything. If you don't agree— I mean, if you don't feel the same way, it's fine. Really. We can forget the whole thing. Let's forget it."
A soft sound behind Skye made her stop with the pacing. She whirled toward Jeffrey.
"Are you laughing?"
Yes. He was laughing, and shaking too, because he was trying to hide it from her.
"Skye, you called off your wedding."
She set her jaw. "Why is that funny?"
Jeffrey's smile dropped away. "It isn't."
In two strides he was in front of her, hooking his fingers into the belt loops of her jeans and drawing her – a stumbling mess of nervousness and doubt – into his chest. He bent to her quickly, before she'd even caught her balance, but it wouldn't have mattered if she had. He was finally kissing her, frenziedly, and that would have knocked her off kilter on its own.
Skye flung her arms around his neck, all her fear and her guilt and her self-denial abandoning her as if by teleport – there one moment, then gone without a trace. Her heart erupted out of the cage she had put it in, and it wasn't the most pleasant feeling. So long she had neglected herself, ignored what was right in front of her, and now she was starving. She could not be satiated. The longer she stood wrapped in Jeffrey, learning the taste of his lips, the feel of his tongue, the beat of his heart against her chest, the more that she hurt for him. Her desire, a once slumbering beast, had awoken, and from the inside out, it devoured her.
Jeffrey knotted one hand in her hair, his other arm tightened around her shoulders. Skye stepped into him, too desperate for his touch and kiss and body to realize that she had started backing them up.
Jeffrey hit the wall, and the kiss broke – both of them jumping, then laughing, at the unexpected impact.
"Sorry," said Skye, already out of breath, her laugh making it worse. She could barely ask, "Are you okay?"
Jeffrey pushed her hair back from her face. His addictive mouth turned up in a suggestive smile, and he said, "I've been thrown into a few walls before. I can take it."
"Oh, really?" Skye was engrossed in that image. She knew a lot about Jeffrey, but this version of him was a stranger to her, one that she was aching to get to know. "By who?"
"Who cares?" He grabbed her face and kissed her gently. So close to her that she felt his breath on her lips, he said, "I love you. I have always loved you."
"You could have started with that, you know." Skye laughed off the skip of her heart. "You scared the shit out of me."
"I didn't mean to." His arm curled around her back, pulling her in closer. "My brain just buffered a little bit."
"A lot," Skye corrected with a teasing smile. She ran her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, and back down again. It was fascinating how well and how long she had known him, without ever knowing what he really felt like under her fingers. "Your brain buffered a lot."
"I know." He grinned. If that embarrassed him, he wasn't put off by it. "You don't get it – how many times I've played this scene out in my head. I had a hard time understanding that it was actually real."
"It's real," said Skye. "But no more talking for now, okay?"
They could get into that later, and they would, but Skye was presently too distracted by what he could do with his mouth to fairly focus on what he might say. Her skin prickled, begging for the return of his kiss.
"Yeah, okay."
Jeffrey pushed up her chin, his hand light on her throat. Skye's pulse pounded beneath his thumb. She wanted him to take it – whatever it was he'd wanted with her. He could have it all.
But Jeffrey had never been much of a taker. He kissed her slowly, like they had all the time in the world. Skye didn't have the patience for it, her body was pulsing with unmet need. She slid her fingers into his hair and kissed back harder. They were close to the door; she could just reach the handle. She fumbled with it until it locked, and then her hand was on him again, under his shirt and climbing up his back.
"Jeffrey," she gasped.
He kissed across her face and whispered in her ear, "You said no more talking."
Skye shuddered. Her breaths were short, her heartbeat loud in her ears. "I know, but—" Her arm had crept entirely under his shirt; she curled her hand around the back of his neck. "I want you to fuck me."
Jeffrey's mouth slowed to a stop at the corner of her jaw.
"I'm serious," Skye whispered, panting shallowly. "Right now. This very minute."
It was fast of her to ask – a great leap from nothing, to suddenly something, and just as suddenly, to everything. Sensible people (and Skye prided herself on sense) didn't do things like that. To hell with sense. She already knew and trusted Jeffrey, and as of this present moment, she was obsessing over him, just as she had told herself for ages and ages that she would never obsess over any man. And what of it? She was shameless.
He leaned back just far enough to look at her, where he could see that she was indeed serious. "You really are crazy."
"Maybe." Skye did feel so. She felt new; this version of herself as foreign to her as this version of him. She wanted things she had never wanted before. She wanted to know what he felt; he could show her what it was like to wake up believing he'd lose her forever, only to instead be given what he'd lied about wishing for. She wanted his gratification to take her over. She wanted him to prove why she'd been wrong to hide from him. He could make a fool out of her, if she let him, and she would. She already felt a fool; she wanted it verified.
"Do you want to?" she asked. "Is that something you've thought about at all?"
Jeffrey's eyes lingered on her face before they traveled down every inch of her, noticing her, fully and openly, for the first time since she had told him he could.
"Skye," he laughed softly at the question. He snapped his eyes from her hips back up to her face. With brazen honesty, he said, "I've thought about fucking you every way I know how."
It was such a deliciously raunchy sentence to come from Jeffrey's mouth that Skye had to wonder if she'd fantasized it.
"I didn't know you could talk like that," she said, the thrill of it trembling her voice.
Pink tinged Jeffrey's cheeks. "Only sometimes."
"Well." Skye pushed her hips forward until she felt him throb against her. "Keep going. How many ways do you know?"
The smile he gave was both teasing and nervous. He shook his head. "I'm not telling you that."
"Okay. Don't tell." She walked away and took off her shirt, which she threw into his face. "Show me."
He caught her shirt, and he mumbled a curse.
Skye wasn't as confident as she was pretending to be, but she'd hidden her longing for him too long. Now that it was allowed to show itself, she would act on it or be crippled by it.
"Come on," she said, sitting on the couch and sliding out of her jeans. Her false confidence slipped, and her voice quivered when she said, "Can you do more than think about it?"
Caught up in her almost naked state, Jeffrey, quite eloquently, said, "Uh…"
Skye laughed and unhooked her bra. She shrugged out of it and dropped it at her feet.
Jeffrey shook himself out of a trance, stuttering, "I don't— I'd have to go get—"
"I have an IUD," said Skye. There would be no unexpected babies popping out of her. "Are you going to give me syphilis or something?"
Jeffrey's mouth twitched up. "No."
"Then don't worry about it."
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, and he followed her. Skye grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and pulled him to her as she lay onto her back. The kiss started slow, but soon it was taken over by heat and carnal passion. Though Skye's heart still beat her ribcage like a battering ram, she couldn't remember what she was so nervous about.
Skye barely noticed when Jeffrey lost his shirt, and soon, there weren't any clothes separating them at all. He leaned over her to kiss at her throat, and she craned her neck as if to display it for him, but really she was peeking at him.
Well, that was that. Officially they had no physical secrets. Skye looked away just as fast, reeling from the sight of him so exposed, but then she glanced again. There was no reason she shouldn't.
He slid his hand up her stomach, over her chest, and a sudden laugh bubbled in Skye's throat. She shoved it down while Jeffrey traced his lips across her collarbone, but much to her own dismay, she quivered.
Jeffrey leaned on the arm he had braced above her shoulder, looking down at her with a growing smile. "Now it's my turn to ask you – are you laughing?"
Skye nodded, since there was no point in denying it. She said, "I'm sorry," and a vocal laugh burst out of her. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but she was too late to stop it.
"It's because we're naked, isn't it?"
"I think so." Skye quaked. She apologized again, but still she laughed. "I can't— shit, I can't stop!" She stole another downward glance, and this time she was obvious about it. Though it was exceedingly rude to laugh while she did, she had told the truth. She couldn't stop. "Your dick is really out."
"I actually noticed that."
"That's so fucking wild." Skye cackled. She convulsed with waves of utter hysteria, and she surrendered to it.
"Are you on drugs?" Jeffrey teased.
She bit her lip to better settle down. She brushed her fingers across his mouth. "You're the drug."
He snorted. "Does that line work on all your boys?"
"You tell me."
He kissed her, and Skye was perfectly, appropriately serious, until his hand rose to her chest and he whispered, "Hey Skye, your tits are out."
"I hate you. I hate you so much!" Pressure mounted behind her ribs, another laugh threatening to break her.
Jeffrey dropped his hand between her thighs. "And – if you can believe it – so is this."
"Stop! Stop, I'm going to laugh!" And then she did, violently, despite the work of Jeffrey's thumb, and despite her ever rising annoyance with herself.
Jeffrey took his hand away and simply watched her shaking fit. "I hope this isn't my performance grade."
Skye shook her head. "No, you're great. I'm insane!" To prove it, she laughed all over again.
Jeffrey did with her.
"You're smiling," she noted happily.
"Well, what do you know?"
"Does that mean I'm not pissing you off?"
"What?" he said. "Of course not."
Skye was glad about that. She'd started to worry that she might offend him. "Just me then. I'm pissed – beyond pissed. I can't fucking stop laughing!" So badly she wanted to, but that was evidently outside her power.
Jeffrey's lips pressed against his own laugh, and he raised his eyebrows at her while she continued to howl. "If this is too much for you—"
"Don't say it!" Skye lightly lay her hand over his mouth.
With his words hardly muffled at all, he said, "We don't have to do this right now."
Skye clamped her hand down harder to quiet him. "Wrong." Her laughter was stubborn. Even now, it remained. She repeated, "Wrong, wrong. We absolutely do."
Jeffrey grabbed her wrist and tugged her hand from his mouth. "I'm not sure you're in the best mindset at the mo—"
"Oh just shut me up," Skye interrupted. She jerked him into a kiss. That would stop her wretched laughing.
Or so she'd thought.
After a period of her intermittent giggling, Jeffrey pulled back an inch. "Skye—"
"Nope." She kissed him again. "Nope, there's nothing funny." Another kiss, but even more laughter. She insisted, "Not a thing. I'm naked, you're naked, and that is—" Damn it all, she laughed again. She finished anyway. "Completely normal!"
Jeffrey kissed her while she was in the middle of that same laugh. She thought that the spell had finally run its course, but all too soon she had to break away to keep from snorting in his face. So, he kissed down her chest, and all the while Skye wriggled with unfortunate laughter. She covered her mouth with both of her hands, which did successfully stifle the noise, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel her twitching. She was lucky that he was comfortable enough with her that his ego had not been wounded.
"Help me!" Skye cackled. "I have no control. Jeffrey, get me to stop! I'm begging."
"Roger," he said, pushing her legs open.
Skye was shot through with feverish expectancy (she hadn't been hinting at him to go down on her – honestly, she hadn't – but if that was his big idea, she wouldn't tell him no), and she was such a jumble of jitters that her poor brain couldn't keep up well enough to respond correctly. Her legs spasmed, along with an onslaught of loud laughter.
"You're not going to make this easy on me, are you?"
"I am so very sorry," Skye managed to say. "But apparently not."
"Here." Jeffrey hooked his hands behind her knees and pushed them into her chest. "Hold these. Laugh away, but please don't kick me."
He wasn't helping her by saying things like that. Skye wrapped her arms under her legs and held them back. She decided that if she failed so miserably to rein in her giggles that she did somehow kick him, she'd shut herself up by sticking him right down her throat. Then she would be physically unable to laugh. Problem solved.
It didn't end up being necessary. Jeffrey solved the problem just fine on his own. Skye's laughter stalled when his lips grazed her inner thighs, and it died altogether at the first brush of his tongue. When she stilled, at last silent, he glanced to her face and said softly, "That's it."
Skye let out a shaky, vocal exhale. Her muscles tensed with anticipation. She would not laugh again.
Jeffrey knew it. He leaned back. "Okay, good enough."
Her mouth dropped open. That wasn't fair.
Jeffrey grinned. "Kidding."
His mouth siphoned power from her, growing more forceful, almost authoritative, the weaker that it made her. She was spellbound by his tongue. She let her legs drop, squirming, and she loosely wrapped them behind his head. He ran his hands over her thighs while he smothered himself in her, and he looked so good when he did. He was mesmerizing to watch.
"You really—" Skye gasped. She almost forgot the end to that sentence. "Really know how to make a girl stop laughing."
Jeffrey winked. "Mm hmm."
So much of that did Skye in – the eye contact and easy confidence, the vibration of his voice, the drive of his tongue. Her following whimper could not be helped.
Jeffrey stayed between her legs until they were shaking. They fell off his shoulders as he pressed feather light kisses up to her face. "Any laughter in there, Skye?"
"No," she said, breathless and a little bit dazed.
His lips tugged upward. "Good."
Skye stared at his familiar face. She gawked at him, truth be told. She felt as if she was seeing him for all he was for the very first time. She didn't know why she had ever looked elsewhere for what only he could give her.
"You're good—" Skye stopped, mortified, because her words were slurring. Point proven. "You're good at that."
"That's the idea." He noticed the slurring. She'd tried to hide it, and he said nothing about it, but she could tell that he had noticed.
"No, really," said Skye, thinking hard about every word so it came out clearly. The buzz was fading, and speech started to come easier. "How many times have you done that?"
He laughed. "I don't count."
"Well, how many people?" It wasn't important, but she wanted to know. Frankly, she was curious how many women had beat her to him. How many had been smarter than she had.
"Five." He dropped a kiss to her mouth. "Now six."
"But you only have three ex-girlfriends, right?" said Skye.
"Right."
"So who were the other two?"
He laughed louder. "Long stories."
"Later, then," said Skye. She did want to hear about that, but not now. He had only made her want him more. She pulled him into a rough and hungry kiss, her craving close to oppressive. She kissed him until she had not a breath left, and then she went limp, her legs falling loose around him. She pushed her fingers through his hair as he sucked on the crook of her neck. Shivers shot down her spine.
"I'm down for anything," Skye said, heaving ragged breaths. "Whatever you want to do."
"That's a dangerously wide open door," Jeffrey mumbled into her neck.
"I mean it," said Skye. "I'm yours."
Jeffrey looked right into her eyes. "Say that again for me." He cracked a smile. "I feel like I'm dreaming."
He wasn't afraid to admit that he had been pining for her, and Skye loved it. She thought that she shouldn't; it was insensitive, and it trivialized how he'd hurt watching her date and fall in love and get engaged, but she was selfish. It pleasured her. It was a relief, and it made her feel special. How scared she had been that he might not want her.
She took his face in her hands. "I'm all yours." Forever, if he wanted.
She kissed him and kissed him, her desire on the brink of bursting her apart. She whispered, "Now fuck me."
He smiled against her lips. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, but that was all he did. That was alright for a while, but Skye soon said again, "Jeffrey, fuck me."
He rubbed his palm over her thigh, sucked kisses over her throat. Skye twisted under him, pulled him closer with her legs.
"Jeffrey," she said.
He acted like he hadn't heard her. He kissed her neck, ran his hands up her ribs, around her shoulders. He still waited.
"Are you going to make me beg?" Skye complained.
"Could I?" It was a curious question, not a proud one.
"No," Skye said, knowing full well it was a complete lie. Not wanting to fall into a trap so obvious and so embarrassing, she added, "Don't try it."
He looked up with a wicked smile. "Never."
But he continued to hold off, teasing her with his touch and taking it no farther.
Skye wriggled, her legs tightened around his waist. She was dangerously close to the word "please". Instead, she said, "Do you know that you're torturing me?" It was only a marginal improvement.
His laugh was low and right next to her ear. "Yes."
So this was on purpose. She couldn't think of a good comeback, too fixated on the stroke of his fingers between her legs. She said the first lousy thing that popped into her head. "Well, then you should stop."
"Sorry." Jeffrey traced her jaw with tantalizingly slow, open mouthed kisses. At her lips, he murmured, "I like seeing you want me."
He was making her pay for it, all the years he had privately wanted for her. Good plan, she had to give him credit. She gave him credit for the honesty too. It sent a tremor pulsating to her core. He kissed at her chest, slathering it with heat from his breath and his tongue. Her back arched off the couch, and she slid further beneath him when it settled back down.
She felt his smile on her skin. "See, you've got to stop doing that," he mumbled, kissing to the dip in her neck. "It's addicting – the way you squirm."
"Oh, you—" Skye groaned. He'd keep this up for an hour if she let him. She grabbed his shoulders and shoved him against the back of the couch, jumping into his lap and locking her legs around his hips. "You're such a fucking tease."
"I can't help it."
"Whatever. I'll do it myself." She reached down and grabbed hold of him, ready to make good on that promise. Ready, that is, until he was in her hand. She took a moment to look, to process the reality of that feeling – a feeling that, only twelve hours ago, had not been one she'd seen coming. A smile plucked at her mouth.
Her grip made Jeffrey wriggle. "If you laugh right now, Skye—" He playfully warned. "Immediate rain check."
She squeezed him, thrilled by the pulsing she felt against her palm. "I'm done with that."
She fit him against her, and with his eyes still on hers, he pushed up. Skye's mouth opened in a sharp gasp, the second before she put it to his lips. They were wrapped in each other's arms and legs, their deep, slow kiss mirroring how they pressed together.
The raw intimacy of this moment was something that Skye would never fully recover from. She'd fucked before, and she'd made love before, but never so personally. She wasn't the most spiritual of persons, but she was discovering that was a flexible arrangement. Theirs was a spiritual bond reinforced by physical connection, and there was nothing, and no one, that would ever break them. Skye was at war with herself – at peace with the present, yet overcome by the ache of past deprivation. For perhaps the very first time, she existed in complete solidarity with herself. She was lost in the realization of a fantasy she had never let herself partake in.
She clung to Jeffrey, hugging him, releasing her regret to the rhythmic rocking of their hips. She had held him at an arm's length for so long, denied what he really meant to her. She had been afraid, perhaps not only of what she could lose if she told herself the truth, but also of what she might gain. He held a power over her that she had been so reluctant to allow him, but she'd been wrong to be. It wasn't dangerous – the intensity of such love and vulnerability – it was beautiful. She had no more walls; her heart was open and his to hold. It always had been, even while she had lied to them both. This was her repentance, and he brought her absolution.
Her eyes stung behind closed lids. She kissed him harder, emotion shuddering in her chest. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. She could weep from relief, from disbelief, rhapsody. So close she had been to missing out on this – on them – but she had Jeffrey now. Under the wire.
She broke away from his mouth. She had to see him, and once their eyes met, they were tethered. An entire world existed in Jeffrey's eyes, love and lust, their past and future. There she stayed, as her breath grew shallow and her body quavered with tension and bliss.
"I love you." She escaped from the pull of his intoxicating eyes to hug him closer and glide lingering kisses up his neck.
"I can't— I can barely believe you." His arms were tight around her lower back, guiding her over him.
She told him again. "I love you." She moaned it in his ear. "Jeffrey, I love you. I love you."
He closed a fist in her hair, tugging her back from his neck so that he could kiss her again in a fast tangle of tongue.
"You don't know what—" Jeffrey groaned against her mouth. "What you're doing to me right now."
Skye did know. It was all there in his labored gasps, his wandering hands, his frantically beating heart.
Without warning, he flipped her onto her back. A surprised cry jumped from her lips as she bounced onto the couch cushions. He crawled over her, and his eyes (usually bright) were unfamiliarly dark and untamed, trained on her heaving chest.
But he was just looking at her, and she couldn't pause now. She latched onto his neck, ready to make him kiss her again. He didn't let her. He knocked her hands away, his mouth falling into a forewarning smirk.
And then he took hold of her ankles, thrust them straight over her head. Skye rocked back, breath stagnating, her body coursing with fresh energy.
"Is this okay?" Jeffrey asked.
When she nodded, he kissed her. This was almost— almost rough. Skye hadn't known that Jeffrey could be rough. She surrendered the last bit of her control, which was something she always made sure to never lose. She let him have it, because Jeffrey – Jeffrey Tifton – looked in this moment like he wouldn't make it another day without her, and the sun would swallow Earth before she ever, ever again let him think he would have to.
The thought was on her face. It had to be. She was fascinated by him and how much he wanted her. How he'd hidden it so well, but could now make it so obvious.
Her own want must have been just as transparent. Jeffrey studied her face, smiling at whatever it was he saw.
"Skye." He said her name on a labored gasp. "Why'd you run from me?"
He was playing with the power she had lent him. Trying it on. Testing its limits and its effects on them both. It only gave him more of it, and Skye – she was hooked on it all: his curiosity and indulgence, her unreserved trust in him. She'd never gifted it to anyone so readily. Certainly no man.
He leaned down to kiss her, and in doing so, pushed her legs farther back. Pleasure swept through her in waves. He waited for an answer, and when she gave none, he said, "I want to know why."
Why was too complicated to confront like this. Skye couldn't think well enough to try. To form even the simplest of words took work. She did the best she could. "I don't— I don't know."
Maybe he had hoped for a concrete answer, but he didn't look disappointed by her lack of one. It put an open grin on his face, one that was quickly torn away by exertion.
"I dreamed about you— about this. I hated it," he grunted. "And myself – I hated myself – because I thought you would hate me – if you knew."
Skye's first impulse was to say she was sorry. She didn't. She wouldn't go that far.
Her hands had been off of him for too long. She couldn't well reach him while he held her down, so she ordered, "Let go."
Jeffrey released her ankles, and her legs sprang forward, landing on his shoulders. Skye grabbed for his necklace and hauled him into a kiss. The move was so sudden and swift that he virtually flattened her. Skye's feet thudded to the couch, and Jeffrey settled himself into a more comfortable spot, both of them giggling at the near mishap.
They calmed down – Jeffrey first, and Skye was happy to follow. Once more, they took it slow, making the most of their first time together, because they could only experience it once.
Tension built on tension – Skye could hardly stand it – and then it released, leaving her limp and trembling. She found just enough strength to hang her legs on Jeffrey's back and tug him into her.
"Your turn," she whispered.
He laughed weakly. "Oh thank god."
Very quickly it became obvious he'd been holding out for her, though for how long, Skye couldn't guess. Almost on command, Jeffrey's face dropped into her shoulder, and he was done. He stayed there a moment, gathering his wits. Skye lay her hand on his neck. It was quiet; together they listened to their commingled, rapid breaths.
Jeffrey pressed a long kiss to her collarbone before he rolled away, squeezing himself against the back of the couch. They looked at each other at the same time and laughed the same muted laugh. Skye flipped onto her side.
"Was that weird?" she asked.
"Do you think it was weird?"
"No."
His smile was dazzlingly big. "It wasn't weird."
Skye inched closer, tucking her leg between his. "Not disappointing at all?"
It was a lot to live up to, his dream version of her. She didn't know what she would do if she couldn't.
Jeffrey opened his mouth, shut it, and then said, "It was perfect."
"You hesitated!"
He laughed at the horrified expression on her face. "I was going to say it was a little disappointing – just to tease – but I decided it would be mean to lie."
"Good choice." Skye swatted him in the chest with the back of her hand. "I would have been forced to beat you up."
"Hence, why I thought better of it."
Jeffrey plucked a stray strand of Skye's hair off her face and kissed her cheek. As he pulled his arm away, she noticed a bit of ink scrawled across his inner arm. She gently twisted his elbow to see it better.
"You have a tattoo." A quote in what looked, logically, to be German.
"You're only seeing it now?" His smile poked fun at her.
"I'm sorry, but I was distracted," said Skye. "You know, by your various other body parts."
"Very distracted, apparently, because I have four."
"Four?" That was embarrassing. Had she really been so caught up in libido that she had neglected to spot even one of his tattoos? "Let me see."
He sat up with a laugh. Skye did too, close enough to him that they still brushed limbs. He turned to show her the tattoo on his shoulder blade, a colorful, leafy image of the Point Mouette town sign, but what should have read 'Est. 1956' instead bore the year in which Jeffrey had met his father.
"Sentimental," she said, reaching out to touch it. "Cute."
"They're all a little sentimental." Jeffrey leaned back. "I put that one back there so my mom won't ever see it."
Skye scoffed, both a little irritated that he still felt the need to tiptoe around his mother about Alec, and amused that he did do it for her. "She really hasn't gotten over it? You don't think she's even a little happy for you?"
"Nope. I don't." He raised his arm (the one without the German writing) so Skye could see the ornate, antique key down his tricep. "I got this at the same time. It's supposed to be for her, but that's kind of awkward now, since she claims to hate Arundel. This is the key to the house they used when my great-great grandfather first had it built. I have the actual key around here somewhere. I'd show you, but I can't remember where I put it."
Huh. Skye had always thought that Jeffrey wasn't especially attached to Arundel, but maybe Mrs. Tifton had had the right idea. Maybe it would have been cruel of her to hold her wedding at the estate, which Jeffrey apparently cared enough about to commemorate on his body. He would have carried that reminder around with him forever.
"I'm a little surprised by that one," she admitted. "I didn't expect – I don't know, I wouldn't have thought you'd get a tattoo for her or for Arundel. Not to say that's weird or anything, but… yeah, I'm surprised."
Jeffrey shrugged. "I guess. I've got good and bad memories here, but that's every house, right? It's still my home, and she's still my mom." He turned his arm to see what he could of the tattoo. "And I just think this looks cool."
"It does."
"Also," Jeffrey laughed. "It did occur to me that if she ever sees the Point Mouette one somehow, I could say that I've got one for her too."
"She doesn't know?"
"Oh no. I wear sleeves around her. She hates tattoos, and she's already on me enough about wearing all this—" He lifted one of his ring-clad hands to pull at the chain around his neck. "So I keep everything hidden."
"She's not a jewelry fan either?" Skye had decided that she herself was, at least when it was on Jeffrey. She never would have any use for it personally.
She was a particular supporter of him wearing it now, when he had nothing on but that. She was drawn to it, for some strange and unknown reason. Perhaps it was because it was another new and unfamiliar bit of him, and while he was unclothed, it was all the more obvious. New was enticing. There had been a time when Skye had known all there was to know about Jeffrey. She wondered when exactly she had stopped paying that kind of attention to him.
It didn't matter. He had her attention now, as no one ever had. As no one other than him ever could.
Jeffrey watched while she plucked at the woven bracelet on his wrist. "No. She says it looks trashy."
"Well, she's wrong. I like it," said Skye. "I like all of it. Show me your last tattoo."
She'd been trying to find it, but had failed. He put his left foot on the couch to show her the tattoo covering his calf – a musical staff spun around a treble clef.
"Okay, you can't make fun of me for not seeing that one," said Skye. "There was no reason for me to look at the back of your leg."
Jeffrey laughed and set his foot back on the floor. Skye was relieved. He'd been displayed a little too openly, sitting like that. She couldn't very well talk to him while he was.
"That's my first," he said. "It's about three years old, I think."
"Will you ever get another one?" Skye had never considered Jeffrey might be one for tattoos. It was a nice surprise.
"Probably not," he said. "I don't know, though. It's true they're addicting."
"I've heard that." Skye had considered ink for herself a few times, but she never went through with it. She couldn't decide on something worth permanence. "What made you start getting them?"
"One of my friends is a tattoo artist," he said. "And I'd already been thinking about it a while."
"You never told me that."
"I guess not."
"I thought you told me everything."
Jeffrey raised his eyebrows at her. "I stopped doing that a long time ago."
"Yeah, I know." Skye had only been teasing him. There was probably a lot she could learn about him now, just as there was much he could learn about her. They knew each other so well, but had come to know so little. He knew what the lowest points in her life had been and how they had changed her. He knew how she reacted to stress, what made her the happiest and what most annoyed her, but Skye would bet money that he didn't know the street she lived on or the name of the company she worked for.
"I missed it," she said. She continued to fidget with his bracelet. Even a change so small as that was a symbol of the distance that had spread between them. "I missed you."
He looked at her silently, lingering with those words a minute, then softly said, "I didn't know that."
"I should have told you." Skye tucked her hand inside his palm. "And I should have known what that meant."
He stared at their intertwined fingers. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, his mouth hinting at a smile.
"What?" said Skye. "You're staring like you didn't just fuck me into tomorrow."
Jeffrey laughed out loud and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Doesn't feel like real life. None of it does." He kissed her knuckles and grinned. "You broke my brain."
"Sorry."
Skye had meant for the following kiss to be short and sweet, but once it started, she decided it could last a little longer.
"Don't be sorry," said Jeffrey. "But do know that I will be taking three to five business days to recover."
"I'll allow it." Skye gave him an actual short and sweet kiss, then rubbed the tattoo on his bicep. "Okay, what about this? What does it say?"
She knew what it was about; that was obvious. She understood next to no German, but "musik" was self-explanatory.
"Without music, life would be a mistake," he translated.
"Can you say the German?"
"Ohne musik wäre das leben ein irrtum."
Skye blinked. He'd spoken so fast, she had hardly heard words. "One more time?"
He repeated the phrase, slower for her, and though she understood it no better, she could at least distinguish one word from the other.
"Are you fluent now?" she asked. She remembered that he had been trying to be.
"I still get tripped up sometimes, but yeah. I like to say I am."
"Sexy," she said without thinking about it. It seemed she had a penchant for bilingual men.
"I've got to tell you, it is a little weird to hear you call me sexy."
"Bad weird?" It wasn't a word she often used.
"No," he said, matter-of-fact. "It's my new favorite weird, actually."
"Good, because I think you are." What was truly weird was that she hadn't seen it before.
When they started kissing, Jeffrey lay back and took her down with him. She straddled his waist and braced her hands on his chest. Her hair fell in a curtain around his face. She could have launched into round two, but she was happier to simply lie there with him. There was no blinding lust pulling at her strings like a puppet master. She was fulfilled, untroubled, and right where she always should have been.
This kiss was soft and tender, long, one through which she could take the time to get thoroughly acquainted with his mouth, when she would be thinking of nothing else. It wouldn't lead to more; there were no distracting expectations. She kissed him just to kiss him, because she wanted to, and now she could.
Jeffrey's nose brushed against her face as he said, "I can't believe you did this."
"Hm?" She pressed light kisses across his cheek.
"Called off your wedding. Kissed me, fucked me, said you love me – take your pick."
Skye kissed his mouth, slowly, her tongue pushing past his lips, the passion of such a touch not sexual, but affectionate – a touch that nourished, rather than ravished.
"And here I was thinking we'd reached the end for us," he said, almost like the thought was funny to him now.
"Oh come on, Jeffrey. I'd never allow that." Skye pressed her mouth to the base of his throat. "I've needed you from the moment I met you."
He snorted, recalling her temper and presumptive, bitter comments. "That's a lie. Is that what you do now? Tell boldfaced lies?"
Skye laughed and kissed over his chest. "From the year I met you, then. And I still need you now."
He trailed his fingers through her hair. Softly, he said, "No you don't, Skye."
She opened her mouth, startled by the dispute and ready to argue, but he was smiling at her. Whatever he'd meant, it didn't upset him.
"Okay, you're right. I don't need you," she said. "That's the sad truth, isn't it? Nobody actually needs any one specific person. We all say we do, because it sounds good, but sometimes things happen and we find out that we were liars." She felt a speech coming on, an intrinsic need to prove to Jeffrey that, need him or not, she didn't dare let him get away. "Sometimes, moms get cancer and they die way too young. They leave behind their husband and four daughters, and none of them know how they will survive without her, but they do. Time goes on. The husband remarries. The girls grow up, and they're happy and successful, but their mom is still dead."
Guilt flickered on Jeffrey's face. It was subtle, but clearly there. "I wasn't trying to—"
Skye gently shushed him. She wasn't trying to turn the conversation dark either. Quite the opposite: she had a point to make. "They love their stepmom, and they wouldn't trade their new siblings for anything, but they still wonder all the time what life would have been like if their mom had lived. They celebrate her birthday, and sometimes they talk to pictures of her, because they still miss her. They have good lives; they don't need her, but they want her anyway."
Jeffrey smiled silently.
Since he'd said nothing, Skye carried on. She had more comparisons, if he wanted them. "Or sometimes, kids don't have a dad, and they don't need one to be somebody with passion and talent and an all-around good vibe." He chuckled then. Skye did too. She poked him in the cheek with her knuckle. "But they're still curious about him. They want to know what it would be like to have him around. Life is fine either way, but then they find him one day, and life gets better."
Jeffrey's smile grew. "Yeah."
Skye laughed; she felt a little silly now that she'd said it all. "What I'm trying to say is that even if I don't need you, I love you and I want you, too much to ignore it."
He shook his head at her, like what she had said didn't make sense. "Maybe I'm imperceptive, but I really didn't know that."
"Me neither," Skye admitted. "I was too scared to tell myself that I wanted more with you, let alone tell you that." His skin was a magnet to her mouth. She only ever stopped kissing him for a minute at a time. "You were too important to roll the dice on. I preferred to be a coward than Icarus."
"You flew awfully close to the sun today," he said. "Into it, practically. You know that, right?"
Indeed, she had. If love was poker, she had bet all of her chips on a bluff and had somehow skated through with a victory. She could have lost everything.
"I was out of time." She rubbed her hand down his face and settled it in the crook of his neck. "Thank you for waiting for me."
"I wasn't," he said. "I did, but I quit that a long time ago. You just…" He trailed off with a laugh. "You haunted me. It was actually super pathetic."
Skye folded her hands under her chin and looked at him; he propped his head up on his elbow and looked back. She said, "I don't think so."
"Oh it was," he insisted. "I've been battling it since I was twenty-two. Not well, obviously, but still I battled."
"That's a specific number."
"No kidding."
They had been twenty-two when she started to date Dušek. Skye said, "Oh."
Jeffrey huffed a laugh. "I used to think that when you decided you wanted a boyfriend, it would be me. I stopped waiting for you when it wasn't. The problem was…" He turned up her chin, so she stretched to kiss him. He sighed into her mouth. He sounded almost miserable when he said, "You can't evict someone from your heart if they own it."
"I didn't—" Skye said, struggling, because his pretty words had disoriented her. "I wish I'd known."
"You weren't the only one afraid to roll the dice."
"At least you knew what you wanted. At least you didn't promise to marry someone else and then send them away."
"Yeah," he said softly. "I think…" His hand glided up and down her arm, the gentle touch raising her hairs. "I think I should have let him punch me."
"No!" Skye was horrified.
Jeffrey shrugged. "It makes sense now. I can't blame him."
She didn't care. "It's not what you would have done."
"Still."
"Still nothing."
Skye didn't want to talk about Dušek. She was happy here, lying with Jeffrey unclothed, and thoughts of Dušek would take that away from her. She deserved that, to be fraught with misery and guilt – later, she would get hit hard by all that she now protected herself from – but for the time being, she wanted to enjoy what she had gained, not suffer over what she had lost. Who she had so badly bruised.
She segued the best she could. "You didn't guess? Why he wanted to hit you – you really didn't guess?"
"Nope."
"Not even when I said I broke up with him?"
"Nope again."
"You are imperceptive."
Jeffrey smiled, but he was no less serious. "Skye, I don't let myself hope for those things."
"Didn't." She kissed him. "Past tense."
He put his hand to her face and outlined her lips with his thumb. He murmured, "Right. Past tense."
They lay in silence, trading soft kisses wherever and whenever they felt like it, stroking bare skin.
"Promise me something," Skye said after what must have been half an hour of peace and effortless, soothing security.
"Sure."
"Avoid me today."
"Okay." He chuckled. "Why?"
"Because." Skye lifted her head off his chest and waved her hand in a vague indication of their postcoital embrace. "If you don't, this will be written right on my face."
"Is it something you want to hide?"
Jeffrey didn't appear bothered, but in case he was, Skye said, "Is that okay? It would only be until after Rosalind is married. I'm going to be a big enough distraction as it is. I don't want to take more from her by telling people about you – us. It's an us now, isn't it?"
"Is it?" he said with a crooked smile.
"Yes," said Skye. "But a secret us. For now. I'll tell everybody after Rosalind and Tommy have left for their honeymoon. She cares too much about this wedding stuff. I don't want to upstage her."
"There's no rush." Jeffrey tucked her in and rolled over. Now Skye was the one on the bottom. He kissed her from neck to chest. "I like having a dirty secret."
So did Skye. There was something thrilling about it. Stimulating, she might say. It made her want to hide away with him forever and ever, but they would have to rejoin the rest of the world some time, and they would have to tell people too. Until then, she would enjoy sneaking around with him. Her mouth traveled over every inch of him she could reach.
"I'm a goner," she mumbled with her lips on his shoulder. "Addicted already. Do you shower in fentanyl or something?"
"Uh huh. You haven't heard? It's groundbreaking skincare."
"That explains it. I can't stop kissing you." Skye laughed as she continued to do just that. "I might never stop. You'll hate it."
"Not possible."
Skye outlined his jaw with light brushes of her lips. Her tongue even slipped out now and again. "What time is it?"
Jeffrey checked his watch. "Almost 11:30."
Skye pushed him off of her and bolted up. "What?"
The wedding – Rosalind's wedding, still very much on the schedule, was only two hours away. Two hours, and Skye hadn't yet told anyone that she would not be taking part. She was dunce. Selfish, irresponsible, and stupid.
"I haven't said— no one else knows—" She prattled, furious with herself for getting so carried away. "I have to find Rosy."
Jeffrey laughed at her while she scrambled for her clothes. "Don't hurt yourself."
Skye jumped back into her jeans. "I'm dead. Sorry, I have to go. Fuck, I'm so dead!"
She ran out the door, but halfway down the hall, she stopped. That was no way to leave him. She burst back into the room. Jeffrey was mostly dressed, except for his shirt, which he was picking off the floor.
Skye forgot to be worried about Rosalind, instead hit by the strength of the blessing it was to be able to leave the room – their sanctuary – and return to confirm that it hadn't all been a dream; this was her life now. A kaleidoscope of butterflies took flight in her stomach, tickling her into a giddy smile. She jumped on Jeffrey in a hug that almost knocked them both off their feet.
He caught her with a stumble and laughed. "Hello."
"I fucking love you."
"I love you back."
That was a better end to the highest high in Skye's personal history. She didn't want to let go of him, and she definitely didn't want to leave, but she had no time to dawdle.
"You know nothing. I never talked to you," she said. With one final kiss, she let him go and rushed for the door. "Love you. Bye. I'm off to my doom."
"Good luck," he offered with considerate seriousness.
She needed luck. Rosalind would kill her.