Page 77 of Where He Ended

But I don't really care about being broke. Money never meant anything to me. I took a job in Stutter's Valley, determined to make my own way, even as Dominic argued against it. It's not that he hates to see me working. He just can't stand to have me away from him.

I understand that.

Looking up at his solid jaw, how the fading sunlight makes his thin beard glimmer like the edges of autumn leaves, I let out a content sigh.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

Running my nails down his forearm, I bite my lower lip. “About how I can't even get angry at you when you look so damn good. What an unfair advantage you have.”

He slides closer to me, pushing our shoulders together. His head rests on one hand, the elbow propping him up. “You can't get angry at me because you think I'm hot? That's good to know.”

Laughing, I give him a tiny shove. He grabs me, halting my faux attack, and then rolls himself over my body. His shadow steals away the last of the sun. The sky is pinker than my cheeks, the moon a small ghost behind his ear. Dominic has more presence than an entire other planet. “Hi,” I whisper, meeting his eyes.

His smirk makes my heart beat quicken. “It's easy to tell when I'm getting to you. You start speaking in single words.” Sweet as sin, he kisses me. Our lips touch as little as a butterfly settling on a flower, but the sensation wakes up all of my cells. “But you don't need to say much,” he purrs. “I can read your every movement. I know what you want before you do.”

“And what do I want?” I ask.

“Me.” His mouth captures mine again. He's ravenous, all hints of his gentle teasing going away. Firm hands settle on my wrists, pushing them over my head in the grass. The motion pulls my thin shirt up until it exposes my stomach.

All the fuzzy sensations stop. He's quit moving, his lips leaving me. Through half-lidded eyes I stare up at him. He's looking into the distance over my head. I almost ask what he sees, but his wide, wondrous eyes keep me quiet.

Carefully I shift under him until I can see where he's staring. There, by the edge of the darkening trees, I see the deer from before. This time it's not alone. There's another one beside it, their black eyes and flared nostrils pointed our way.

Together, the pair considers us. Above me I can hear Dominic's heavy silence. He's holding his breath. This moment is magical for him, for both of us.

The deer don't bolt off. They extend their long legs, strutting into the grass before winding through the tree trunks and out of view. For several seconds afterward there's no sound but the whine of bugs in the June air. “They were watching us,” he whispers. “But they didn't seem scared.”

“Why would they be?” Reaching up, I brush my hand over his jawline until he looks at me. “They recognize that we're the same as them. Just two animals in love.”

He watches me with such sudden intensity that my mouth dries out. His kiss replenishes everything I need. Everything I am. Under the twinkling stars of that summer's eve, we hold each other closer than roots winding through the earth.

All of my thoughts revolve around him - all but one.

I'm sure that one of those deer, the first one I saw while I was lying here alone, is the same one my sister and I chased six years ago.

With a certainty I can't explain, Iknowit's true. A childish part of me believes it left to find its mate, coming back here to show me it wasn't alone.

I'm glad it found someone to love like I did.

---