With a breathless laugh, I said, "Brat," in a way that had only ever been an endearment. He pressed against me and I trembled with the effort to hold still, blunt nails scrabbling on the scarred wood of the counter and my toes curling inside my loafers.

"Oh, God," I groaned, my breath fogging up the wood beneath my cheek. "Just for you," I murmured, my brain a buzzing haze of always and yours and more, God, more. It was absurd, how well we could play one another— all the fine-tuning of having been together for years, with none of the loss of passion.