He cups and suckles one of my breasts. I gasp. The tug of his mouth on my nipple makes my back arch.

He parts my legs with one hand, and his fingers caress my inner thighs first. I stroke his jaw and press a kiss on his lips and he rewards me by swirling his tongue inside my mouth as he caresses my folds, gently with two fingers. He teases me with a fingertip.

I feel his fingers slide, first one, then two. Then he’s plunging deeper and slower.

“Ohhh. I . . . Callan.”

He starts kissing a wet path down my abdomen as his hands part my thighs. My eyes widen when he pushes my legs wider apart and then he’s tasting me. I gasp and press instinctively up against his mouth as his tongue probes. I moan, and he groans in reply and moves his lips in a hot trail up my abdomen, kissing my nipples again and then my mouth as he eases his fingers back into the place where I most ache.

He takes my breast in his hand and drags his tongue across the tip of my nipple, then covers it with his mouth.

I’m trembling, and he vibrates with urgency.

He looks at me and touches me at the same time, eyes coasting the swells of my breasts to the pink tips, which are puckered to the point of pain as I pant beneath him.

He winds a path with his lips down between my legs again. His hands remain on my breasts; he scrapes his thumbs over the peaks, then there’s the heat of his mouth at my sex, and I’m melting, pulling him up by the hair, wanting his weight on top of me and his skin against mine.

I writhe, and he curses softly when he realizes how much I need it, need him.

He leans over, and I hear the rustle of his slacks as he pulls out a condom and rolls it onto his hard cock. He leans over me, and I rub my legs against his thick, muscled, hair-dusted calves, then wrap them around his hips. And then he’s inside me.

That first thrust feels nearly orgasmic.

We’re not speaking.

But suddenly, we’re fucking a little wildly and making a lot of noise.

Without the walls to contain them, the noises we make seem to go on forever. Groans and moans as we make love, more like mating, a little animal and a lot hot. His hips rolling and his ass flexing, his back muscles bunching beneath my fingers, my thighs squeezing around his hips, my ankles locked at the small of his back.

“I’m in so deep,” he whispers. His hair falls over one eye and I brush it aside.

Adorable.

He’s so adorable.

My ruthless Chicago shark in the woods, as natural as if he’d been born here, from the earth, and me too.

“So fucking deep,” he grits out as he grabs my head and crushes my lips with his, never stopping his kiss, never stopping the rhythm, until I’m unraveling between him and the warm blanket beneath me.

We lie there sated for a little while, not even covered by the extra blanket. Our skin looks radiant in the moonlight, sweaty too.

He draws me to his side and brushes my hair back, then strokes his hand absently over my shoulder as he asks me, “You okay?”

Maybe it was the intense lovemaking, the intense emotions of the day, but something in me breaks loose, and I start crying from one second to the next.

He moans as if it pains him to see me cry and I bury my face in the nook of his arm, feeling him squeeze me. “You’ll be okay,” he promises, his lips buried in my hair and moving against my scalp.

“Yes,” I say, nodding, amazed by how much I needed to cry, how much I am not trying to stop crying because it just feels right to cry in his arms.

I didn’t bring tissues and just when I start to try to dry my face, he holds me by the jaw and licks up my tears, even the ones that trickled down my neck.

I clutch his hair and kiss the top of his head as his warm tongue laps me up, turning my feelings back to desire rather than loss, love rather than grief.

“Are you really going back tomorrow?” I ask him.

“I have to.”

I swallow. “Would you mind if I stayed a few days? I just want to support Mom and Dad.”

“Take as long as you need.”

“I will. Not too long. Otherwise it’ll be time for me to get back here again,” I say.

The thought of the end of my internship and my time in Chicago feels a bit like a mood killer. The thought of a ticking clock on my time with Callan is also an aphrodisiac, and I’m determined to binge on him before I leave, just like I can tell—by the way he starts kissing me and ravaging my body hungrily—that he’s determined to binge on me, too.

I visit Nana at the cemetery every day for the next few days. I am mad and sad and guilty and more. “I always thought I would be able to talk to you when I fell in love, Nana. Now what do I do?”

The next day I ask her, “Should I tell him I love him?”

The last day, “If I should tell him I love him, send me a sign.”

I hear rustling behind me, glance up at a tall oak to spot two squirrels fucking.

“What is that supposed to mean? Really, Nana!”

I’m mad again as I pack my bags, then I just want Chicago. It’s not that I love the city any more than I love Texas, but it’s what’s in it that I crave most.

Strange how homesick I was for Chicago. I hadn’t realized how much until I’m back and feel the warm wind in my face when I step out of the cab and I walk into my apartment building. I hadn’t told anyone I was on my way back. I even booked a ticket on a commercial airline and flew—on my own. I vomited only on takeoff and landing. I call that a small victory.

He’s the first one I call. I get voicemail, so I leave a message.

“Hey. I’m back. Just wanted to say hello. Call me later.”

He immediately texts me.

In NY

meeting

couldn’t pick up.

Back around 2 a.m.

When are you getting in?

I’m in! Left you a message. Though I’m probably turning in earlier than 2 tonight. I might be too tired to hear the door. See you tomorrow?

Looking forward to tomorrow

Miss Roth

Oh, Mr. Carmichael, you know, so am I.

I’m smiling when I lower my phone, but my smile soon fades when I think of how soon I’ll be leaving again for good.

Wynn’s the second one I call, because she left a thousand and one messages on my phone, apologizing for not being able to come to the funeral. The moment I tell her I’m in town, she tells me she’s coming over.

They say good friends never ask if they can come over, they just do.

It makes me happy to have found one in Wynn.

“Sorry about your grandma,” she says the moment she steps into my apartment and gives me a huge hug. “I had a gallery opening of a new artist, I couldn’t get away, everything was falling apart. My thoughts and prayers were with you. Are you okay?” she says as she pulls back to study me.

“Yes. And you?”

“Okay.”

“You look pretty. Where are you going?” I ask, eyeing her soft blue strapless dress.

“To have dinner at Emmett’s restaurant,” she confides.

“Oh! Did he finally—”

“Oh no! He doesn’t know I’m coming.” She grins, but her eyes look sad. “Maybe he’ll join me. Maybe he’ll just see me and . . . I don’t know. We can finally talk things out.”

“You’re not going alone.” Before she can protest, I head into my closet to change into a swirly black skirt and a black top. I still don’t feel like wearing colors, even though I know Nana would want me to.

Thirty minutes later, Wynn and I are at Emmett’s newest haute-cuisine restaurant, called Pear. I’m so famished, I could lick my plates dry—the food is phenomenal—but Wynn hardly takes a bite. She keeps glancing around the restaurant. My heart hurts for her because she’s trying not to make it seem like she’s looking around.

We ask for the check, and there’s still no sight of Emmett. The waiter sets it down on the table and says, “The tab is taken care of.”

“I . . . oh, well thanks,” Wynn says, breathless. “Can I say thank you to the chef?”

“He’s terribly busy.” Obviously the fact that he doesn’t even hesitate means he was already given instructions not to allow this to happen.

My heart now aches for Wynn, but Wynn won’t have it.