Page 101 of Pull Me Under

He’s cold everywhere the water touched him. Chest, stomach, the hollow of his throat. I press my mouth to each place, trying to warm him, trying to chase away the Atlantic’s claim on his body.

‘Brynn—’ His voice breaks on my name.

‘I’ve got you,’ I whisper against his collarbone. ‘I’ve got you.’

It’s what he said to me, that first night. When everything was anger and edges and two people crashing together because they didn’t know what else to do.

This is different.

This is slow where that was fast. Tender where that was rough. His hands tracing the lines of my body like he’s memorising me, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t map every inch.

When he finally slides inside me, we both go still.

Eyes open. Breath held. The whole world suspended on this single point of connection.

‘Jude.’ I don’t know what I’m asking for. Don’t know what I’m offering. Just his name, the only word that makes sense anymore.

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know.’

He moves. I move with him. And it’s nothing like before – no desperation, no performance, no trying to prove anything to anyone. Just this. Just us. Just the slow build of what I’m terrified to call by name.

I come apart first, his name on my lips, his skin warm and slick against mine. He follows seconds later, his face buried in my neck, his whole body shuddering with the force of it.

After, we lie tangled together in my narrow bed.

The window rattles in the wind. The damp patch on the ceiling looks bigger than it did this morning. Somewhere in the village, a clock strikes midnight.

Jude’s hand traces lazy patterns on my hip.

‘I should go,’ he says, not moving.

‘Probably.’

‘My dad⁠—’

‘I know.’

He’s quiet for a moment. His fingers still.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I know that too.’

He shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to look at me. His face is soft in the darkness. Younger, somehow, without all the armour he wears during the day.

‘What is this?’ he asks. ‘What are we doing?’

I could lie. Could deflect with a joke, build back the walls we’ve just torn down. It’s what I do. What I’ve always done.

But he almost died tonight. And I saved him. And some things, once they happen, can’t be unhappened.

‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘But I don’t want to stop.’

‘Even though⁠—’

‘Even though.’

He kisses me. Soft this time. A question and an answer all at once.