Page 107 of Better Hate than Never

Wordless, he pulls me closer, cradling my head, kissing me deep and slow. And for just a moment, that’s all the world is—the two of us, arms wrapped around each other, in a kitchen filled with memories—sad, beautiful, bittersweet—fading into the corners, making space for what’s to come.

I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss his jaw, his throat. “I need you.”

His hands settle low on my waist and rock me against him. “I need you, too.”

Christopher wraps my legs around his waist and walks us slowly through the kitchen, toward the foyer, where stairs lead up to the second floor.

I nuzzle his nose, then pull away just long enough to glance around, drinking in the truth of what Christopher said.

Nothing’s changed.

The family room’s just as I remember it, and through the pocket doors, the music room, too, where his mom taught piano, the dining room with the same table, same chairs I sat at as a tiny girl.

My heart twists. Now I know why he wouldn’t want just anyone to see this place. Because the polished, devil-may-care man with his fancythis, latestthat, lives in a home whose heart was built by his parents thirty-five years ago, a home rich with theirlingering presence and memory. The man the world sees doesn’t live here. The man holding me in his arms, who’s opened his heart, lives here, straddling memory and moving forward, living with what he’s lost, cherishing what he could keep.

I feel his eyes on me as he slows to a stop in the foyer.

“It’s as lovely as I remember,” I tell him.

He stares at me steadily as I meet his eyes. “I know I should change it.”

“No, you shouldn’t. Well, only if you want to.” I set my hand on his heart, soothing it. “I love it, just as it is.”

“You do?”

I nod, wrapping my arms around his neck again and pulling myself closer. “I love old things. The memories they carry of the people who touched them, who loved and lived with them. But I could see why you’d be wary of welcoming just anyone into this. If they didn’t know you... like I do.”

Drawing me close in his arms, he hugs me hard, his head resting on the crown of mine. We stand like that in the hallway, arms around each other, quiet, still. Against my hair, soft and hoarse, he says, “Thank you for saying that, Kate.”

A lump settles in my throat. I squeeze him tight in my arms. “Thank you for giving me the chance to.”

His sigh is heavy and content as I nuzzle his chest, listening to his heart’s steadylub-dub, lub-dub. Christopher bends his head until our mouths meet. We’re quiet as we kiss, as he walks us up the stairs and I cling to him.

“So,” I tell him. As we turn into his bedroom, it hits me like a freight train. Nerves wrack my system. He’s so experienced. And I’m so not. How many women has he had in this bed? How many wild, erotic things has he done that I can’t even imagine?

“So,” he says, kissing me, sweet and slow.

“This is where you...”

He gives me a funny look, flicking on the light switch. “Where I sleep?”

“You haven’t”—I jerk my head toward the bed—“you know, done it here with—”

Christopher stops abruptly halfway to the bed. “Katerina,no.” Resuming his stride, he walks us to the edge of the mattress and sits, holding me so I settle on bent knees, straddling his lap. “Listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

He sighs, running his hands along my back. “They’re not here. The other women I’ve been with. You’re the first and only woman I’ll have in my bed, and what I did before...” He clenches his jaw, then sighs heavily. “It was pleasurable for what it was, I won’t deny that. It was always mutual and consensual. It passed the time, it gave me relief—albeit faint and temporary—from wanting you and telling myself I couldn’t have you, but, Kate, this, here with you, in my bed, it’s new for me.”

Maybe it’s his admission that in some sense, he’s as inexperienced in this as I am, but it makes me brave enough to meet his eyes and tell him the truth.

“That helps to hear.” I toy with his hair at the nape of his neck, searching for the words I want. “Because... it’s new for me, too. Because I don’t have... I haven’t done... this... before.”

His brow furrows. “Haven’t done what?”

I stare at him, wishing it didn’t feel so vulnerable, that it didn’t feel so weighty, so exposed.

And yet, maybe I can love that weight, that exposure I feel as I think about seeing him, letting him see me.Allof me.

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