33. Wyn

I become aware that something is amiss as soon as I open the door to my apartment. Bridget's face holds a strong clue for one thing, but for another, I'm hardly able to step inside. Every surface, including the floor, is covered with roses. Pink, lilac, yellow, and white. The entire apartment is awash with them. Bunches and bunches of them. Mixed bunches that are a riot of pastel colors. Plain bunches that are an excessive repeat of the same bloom.

Bridget raises a big spoon to her mouth, blows on the stew she's cooking, and tastes it gingerly. She considers it, adds a dash of red pepper flakes, and then says, "You've got some ‘splaining to do, Wyn Foster."

"Did it come with a card?" I ask hopefully. Derek left the office as soon as we were both dressed, and I was about halfway through the expense report before it dawned on me that we hadn't made a firm plan about where to meet.

"I put the card in your room," she answers with disdain. Then she slips on a pair of oven gloves and asks me to open the front door for her. "I'm going to Anton's. And I'm taking the stew with me."

To Bridget's eternal shame, Anton has proved himself to be less of a fuck boy and more of a man with four sisters who all visit him regularly, and it seems the overtight T-shirts were a result of a serious laundry mishap. Anton has been slowly replacing the T's that shrunk, something I suspect Bridget now finds herself rather reluctant to see happen.

She's off, and I'm left picking my way through a maze of blooms to the bedroom. I open the door, forcing it a little and stepping over a massive arrangement of my very favorite flower—David Austin Juliet roses—to enter my room. Their blooms are dense and fragrant, dusty pink on the outside and soft peach on the inside. I reach down, running my palm over their velvety petals, inhaling their sweet, summery scent.

A man clears his throat, and I levitate briefly from fright. As soon as I land, I double over, laughing and gasping, fighting to get air into my lungs as it rushes out of me.

Derek is here. He's on my bed, stark naked, lying on his side with one hand propped under his head and the other resting on his hip in a position favored by female porn stars in the late nineties. He's smiling broadly, teeth clamped tightly onto a small white envelope.

I make my way to him when I've recovered enough to do so and take the envelope from him, opening the card and reading what's written inside.

I'm yours

Before I have time to react, he takes my hand and pulls me onto the bed, rolling onto me and holding me down with the full weight of his body.

"Anything." He plants a light kiss on the tip of my nose. "Anything you want, bunny, it's yours. Anything."

"You included?"

"Me especially."

Oh fuck me, I'm dizzy.

My brain has been severely starved of oxygen from the laughing and gasping, or I'm still in the alternate reality from before.

"Where am I?" I ask, grinning like a damn fool.

Derek kisses me again. This time on my lips and then my forehead. His lips are warm and soft, stamping a sweetness into me that makes the long bones in my legs turn to liquid. "You're home."

He undresses me slowly, kissing every inch of skin he uncovers as I quiver beneath him and strain to get closer to him. When I'm bare and he's holding himself up over me, hips and hard cock resting on mine, I take his head in my hands, palms on his cheeks, fingertips on his temples. I search his eyes over and over, asking a question.

Every time, the answer is the same.

Derek is mine.

As much as I'm his. He's mine.

My heart bursts.

Sings.

Weeps.

Our bodies grow hard and hot where we're touching, a fine sheen of sweat gluing us together. Chest to chest. Heart to heart.

"Are you sore, baby?" he asks.

I shake my head, eyes not leaving his.

He leans down and kisses me. Tongue parting my lips and finding mine, sweeping into my mouth and claiming every part it touches. It's a kiss from the movies. A kiss songs will be written about. A kiss with a beginning and a middle but no ending.

He prepares me as he kisses me. So gently that I'm almost unaware when one finger becomes more. So gently that when he slides into my tender, bruised hole, I feel no pain at all. He moves like water. Like air. Like we're one. One thing that didn't exist before.

When it's over, I'm different.

I'm changed, and I won't be the same ever again. I know it.

Derek has a dazed, glazed expression that tells me he feels the same.

At least, that's what I think until he tries to talk.

"Ing goo."

I whip upright and check his pupils. They're severely dilated. His eyes are so dark that I can't tell if one is more dilated than the other. "Are you okay?"

He doesn't reply, and the switch from bliss to blind panic is instantly flipped.

Holy fucking fuck. I knew I should have read that article my mom sent me on how to identify signs of a stroke. I knew it. I told myself I'd come back to it, but I didn't, and now look what's happening. I've finally found the man of my dreams, and I'm going to lose him.

"Goo," says Derek again.

Oh, Jesus, my heart can't take it. I only just got him, and now he's dying. "Derek," I yell, not even trying to stop the hysteria from seeping into my words, "Are you having a stroke? Do you need me to call 911?"

I don't know if people know when they're having a stroke because I didn't read the goddamn article, but Derek isn't most people, so I can only hope he'd know if he was having one.

He laughs softly and pulls me down. "I'm fine, baby. I'm just goo. All goo. My bones are goo. My brain is goo. My insides too. Just goo, goo, goo, and it's all because of you."

I'm not entirely reassured, but I'm starting to think that a medical crisis is not what I'm dealing with here.

"Is goo good or bad?" I ask, leaning up to check his pupils again to be on the safe side.

He starts laughing. A low, bubbling sound that works its way up from his belly and pours tenderly into the space between us. "Goo's love, baby, that's what goo is."

Derek keeps talking nonsense about love and goo. I laugh and cry at irregular intervals as he babbles. He holds me and lets me, wiping my tears when I cry and laughing with me when I laugh.

When it's pitch dark and quiet out, and Derek is lying still beside me, I lean over and kiss his cheek and whisper, "I'm goo too," into his ear.