Page 139 of On His Mind

“I’m here in broad daylight, aren’t I?” He pushes a piece of hair back off my face gently.

“You are.” I tilt into his hand. “It’s so unlike you.”

He doesn’t answer that. He just looks at me, and there’s a whole conversation happening behind his eyes that never once makes it to his mouth.

I wind my arms around his neck. “What do you want, Percy?”

He takes my face in both hands. Leans down to kiss me — and I turn my head just enough that his lips find nothing but air, and I whisper against his cheek, “Tell me. Talk to me first.”

For a second he goes still. Then, in French, “C’est toi que je veux.”

I search his face to see if he means it. He does. It’s written across every part of him.

“Not in French, Percy.” My voice comes out unsteady. “English. I want to understand.”

“J’ai jamais rien voulu autant que je te veux, toi.” His forehead drops against mine, and his voice sinks to almost nothing. “C’est pour ça que je suis ici, là, maintenant. J’ai envie de toi tout le temps. Je t’aime.”

The words pour out of him, fast and sure, more than I’ve maybe ever heard him say in one breath — and I can’t understand a single one of them. It’s the cruelest thing in the world, watching a man who never has his words finally find a whole flood of them, in a language I don’t know.

“Percy.” It’s half a plea now. “I want to know what you’re saying to me.”

He whispers, “Just kiss me.”

“That’s not what you said.”

He shakes his head against mine, and I feel him smiling. “No. It’s not.”

I press one soft peck to his lips and pull back.

“Not like that.” His hand comes up to cradle the back of my neck. “Like the French.”

He leans in and kisses me the way I’ve missed. And I meet him just as hard, because I have missed this. A sound gets away fromme. I pull back an inch to look at him, and his pupils have gone wide and dark, and the heat of it drops straight through me.

I kiss him again and press the whole length of myself against him. He’s too tall for it; I go up on my toes and still can’t get close enough. So he solves it without a single word. His hands find the backs of my thighs and lift, and I wrap my legs around him.

“Bedroom?” His mouth is at my jaw.

I nod into his hair, and he carries me through the apartment like I weigh nothing at all.

He lays me down and follows me onto the bed, his weight settling over me, and he kisses me so slow and deep that my hands go clumsy at the hem of his shirt. Then the slowness breaks and we’re both pulling at fabric, at buttons, until there’s nothing left between us but skin.

When he finally moves inside me, I can’t keep quiet, and I don’t try. I hold his face because I need to watch him. He’s staring down at me like I’m the only fixed point in a spinning room, his breath gone ragged, everything he can’t say written plain across his features for once.

“I love you, Penelope,” he says. “I love you so much.”

And there it is. In English. In a voice that doesn’t shake.

“I know,” I whisper, pulling him down to me. “I love you too.”

Afterward, dressing on opposite sides of the bed, I try to make my voice light. “Would it be weird if I came to a game?”

“No.” He looks up, brow creasing. “Why would that be weird?”

I shrug one shoulder. “I just want to know you’re okay with it.”

“Yeah.” He pulls his shirt over his head, and there’s something almost shy in his voice. “I’m not on the bench this year.”

“You’re not?”