Erin's Night (IV)

The elevator released them into the Master’s Suite with a sound like a sigh of relief. Erin took the lead, padding across the entryway without the faintest hint of self-consciousness, her green skin almost phosphorescent in the hush. It wasn’t that she was used to being naked—she just looked like she’d never considered there might be another option. The battered hiking shoes grounded her, laces dragging, a tiny rebellion against the perfection of the place.

Andy trailed behind, rolling his shoulders, the last few days trying to settle into his bones all at once. He had the feeling of having run a marathon while carrying a glass of water and trying not to spill a drop. Erin’s presence, and the day he had spent with her, was a counterweight: easy, physical, radiating heat even as she flicked on the overhead lights and let the room fill up with life again. How had he never truly noticed before, how she lightened his day by being in it?

The kitchen glowed in the way of expensive hotel suites—chrome, glass, and the eternal, flattering light of a world without dirt or error. Erin moved through it with the energy of someone who belonged. She gave the counter a double-tap as she passed, then bent to open the fridge, breasts swinging with zero apology, and laughed aloud when she found dinner waiting for them.

“Looks like Mildred is still on her ‘eat more color’ crusade,” she said, pulling out a tray of steamed broccoli, carrots, snap peas, shredded chicken and rice so white it nearly gleamed. She placed it on the counter with a flourish. “She must think you’re running a triathlon tomorrow.”

Andy slid onto one of the island stools, watching her. He wasn’t trying to be obvious about it, but Erin had a way of catching every glance and spinning it back at you, like sunlight off a pond.

“I think she just wants to see if you’ll ever object to her plating,” he said. “Pretty sure you’re her favorite muse.”

Erin grinned, unwrapping the covered bowl with an operatic flourish. “I’m her only muse, and you know it.” She gave him a look—mock stern, but with a curl at the edges—and then started scooping vegetables onto two plates. It was, as always, far more food than anyone could eat.

They ate at the high table, the food barely more than a vehicle for conversation and the physical pleasure of sitting side by side, bare knees bumping under the counter. Erin ate with her hands, sometimes, pinching snap peas like edamame and flicking the empty pods across her plate. When she laughed at his joke about the relative phallic-ness of carrots versus asparagus, her laugh doubled her over, making her breasts sway wildly, nearly knocking over her glass. She righted it without missing a beat.

It was so natural—so much like the old days—that Andy nearly forgot to be weird about any of it. When she wiped a stray grain of rice from his chin, her fingers lingered a second too long, just to see if she could make him blush. (She could. She did.)

Between mouthfuls, they told stories about the day. Andy let her rib him about his overblown sense of responsibility, but Erin never let the teasing go too far. She always looped it back with a touch, a glance, a silent undercurrent that said: You’re safe. I’m not leaving.

When the food was gone, Erin licked her fingers clean (slowly, with intent, eyes fixed on Andy) and then flopped onto the couch, stretching her whole body the length of it like a cat discovering the concept of furniture for the first time. Andy cleaned up—some things, even in paradise, never changed—and then joined her, their hips pressed together in the middle of the sofa.

After a while, the world outside the Suite quieted—no more singing birds, only the sound of breaking waves. Andy and Erin drifted from couch to bed, shedding the last daylight with the same easy rhythm as the removal of shoes, the tossing of a forgotten sock. The bedroom was an aquarium of calm, all indirect lighting and cool sheets and the hush of the surf at the window.

They stretched out together, Erin sprawled diagonally across the comforter, her long legs bare and her hair a mess of copper at the pillow’s edge. She lay with her head on Andy’s chest, her hand flat against his ribs, feeling the shape of his breathing.

For a while they spoke in murmurs, the sort of nonsense talk that belonged to late nights and to people who knew each other’s sleep face as well as their own. Erin asked about the most embarrassing bug Andy had ever squashed; Andy countered with the time she’d broken a glass and, instead of cleaning it up, carefully outlined each shard in highlighter so nobody would step on them, like a **** scene. He didn’t think it was possible to be as relaxed as he felt in that moment, but every time Erin laughed, he realized there was still more tension to wring out of his system.

Erin’s laughter faded, replaced by a hush that spread out from her chest like the afterglow of a spent firework. She lay with her ear pressed to Andy’s ribs, listening to the rhythm beneath. For a minute, he thought she’d drifted toward sleep, but then her hand balled into a fist, and she pressed it hard into his side, as if testing whether he was real.

Andy had grown used to the way Erin's moods changed the light in a room. Earlier, in the kitchen, she'd been all shine and motion, her laughter ricocheting through the empty space like fireflies against glass. Now, with the day gone and the hush of the Suite wrapped tight as a winter coat, it was as if she'd deliberately dimmed herself to blend with the velvet dark. He could feel her anxiety humming against his ribs, a subtle but persistent tremor, even before she spoke.

"Can I ask you something?" she said, her voice pitched so low it barely made the leap between their bodies.

Andy shifted on the pillow, propping himself up to see her face. There was something almost childlike about the silhouette cast by the lamplight—her wild hair a corona, eyes wide and seeking. "Always," he said, and meant it.

But Erin didn’t look at him. Instead, she traced a line across his stomach, slow and speculative, her fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake. She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, it was only as a distraction, a way to keep from looking up.

"I know I put on a happy face, but… I still don't know how to feel about this," she said, accentuating the word this with a sweep of her hand over her thigh, where the skin was a soft, almost minty green in the aftermath of transformation. She let her palm rest there, splayed and unmoving, the contrast between her skin and his so stark it was almost comical. "I mean—I know it’s not going away. I know you’re probably tired of hearing me process it out loud, but—"

"Never," Andy said, the word sharp enough to cut through her apology. "Say whatever you want."

She nodded, but didn’t smile. Instead, she drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them close. There was a time when Erin would have sprawled across the bed, limbs everywhere, as if the world had to make space for her. Now she made herself smaller, conserving some internal resource. Andy felt a pang at how carefully she moved, like a person testing the limits of a new, uncertain gravity.

"It's just… sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, and I don't even recognize the person. I know every inch of my body is technically me, but it’s like I’m wearing somebody else’s skin. And then I touch it—" She paused to knead the taut flesh of her thigh, the motion almost angry. "—and it’s not the same, Andy. It's not even close. I keep thinking it’ll get better, the way you get used to a scar or a bad haircut or whatever, but every time I try to ignore it, it just gets louder."

She looked up, eyes shining but not yet crying, as if tears would be a concession she wasn’t ready to make. "I used to know exactly how I fit together," she said. "What it felt like when you kissed me, what it felt like when I sat in the sun too long, even what it felt like to stub my toe on a rock. But this—" She flexed her foot, toes green and perfect, unmarred by calluses or memory. "It’s like I got upgraded, but nobody asked if I wanted it. And now, I can’t even remember how the old skin felt, just that I miss it."

She waited, maybe hoping he’d leap in, but Andy let the silence breathe. He knew, from too many late nights in the past, that if you interrupted Erin too soon, she’d stuff the rest of her confession away, and then it would come out sideways—coldness, sarcasm, the old trick of pretending she didn’t care.

"I haven’t felt actual hunger since the transformation," she continued. "Not even once. I don’t think I ever will, unless I screw up and let myself go without sun. I guess it’s supposed to be a gift, but it just feels wrong, you know? Like… I’m not even sure if I’m human anymore." She shrugged, then added, "Does that make me less… me?"

Andy started to speak, but Erin held up a hand, forestalling him. "It's not just that," she said, her voice tight as a wound. She rolled away and sat up, hugging her knees and staring at the far wall, where Katherine’s painting hung like a silent witness to the argument. The shadows cast by the canvas stretched long and thin, drawing a line between old and new. "Every time I change, I keep thinking it’s the last one. But it never is. What if I wake up tomorrow and I’m… I don’t know. Covered in leaves, or my hair is moss, or I can’t walk anymore because I put down roots in my sleep?" She let out a laugh, hollow and edged with panic. "What if I’m just a weird, naked shrub by the time this is all over? What if that’s what you’re stuck with?"

The question hung in the air, heavier than gravity. Andy propped himself up, leaning in to catch her gaze, but she wouldn’t give it to him. Instead, she kept watching the painting, as if Katherine might offer advice from inside her little painted eternity.

"I’ll water you twice a day and play Mozart for you in the mornings," Andy said, trying for lightness. "They say it’s good for plant growth."

Erin snorted, but the smile died before it could reach her lips. "Don’t. I’m serious."

"So am I," Andy said, gentling his tone. He reached for her hand, and at first she let him take it stiffly, but then her fingers twined with his, needier than she’d admit. "If you turn into a shrub, I’ll buy you the best soil money can buy, and we’ll plant you in the garden. You’ll get the best light in the house."

She almost laughed, but it sounded like she was on the verge of tears. "Stop it, Andy. I mean it. What if… what if you don’t want me anymore, once I’m not even close to who I started as?"

Andy knew she wasn't ready for his answer, yet, so he stayed silent, running his thumb over the ridge of her knuckles. He could feel her pulse, fast and fragile, like the heartbeat of a hummingbird.

She let out a ragged breath, then barreled ahead, words tumbling over each other in their rush for daylight. "I keep running scenarios in my head, you know? Like—what do I even tell my parents, if we get out of here? Hi, Mom. Surprise. I’m a photosynthetic nudist now, and your future grandchildren might be acorns." Her voice wobbled, but she pressed on. "Will I even have kids? Is that still an option, or did Arabella take that away too?" She blinked fiercely, once, twice, as if blinking could erase the possibility. "Would you even want a family with someone who isn’t… fully human?"

Andy tried to interrupt, but she squeezed his hand so hard the bones protested. "Don’t say it doesn’t matter," she said. "It does. Don’t tell me it’s all the same to you, because that’s bullshit and you know it."

He exhaled, then nodded. "Okay. I won’t."

There was a long pause—long enough for the surf outside to assert itself, hissing and crashing in the night. Andy could feel the tides shifting in her, a slow recalibration of the self.

Finally, she spoke again. "I don’t want to be a trophy in your harem, Andy. I don’t want to be the weird sidekick, the comic relief, the ‘well, at least you’re unique’ girl." She turned to face him, jaw trembling but eyes clear. "What if I’m just a fetish to you? What if you wake up one day and realize you want a normal life, with a wife who doesn’t need greenhouse lights to survive winter? I’d have no one to blame but myself for coming back here. For letting myself want this again."

Andy wasn’t sure if Erin meant that word, but he noticed it. The phrase want this lingered, sour and uncertain, until Erin scrubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand, almost angry at the dampness she found there. "Sorry," she said, voice smaller now. "Ignore me. I just needed to get it out."

Andy waited a beat, then another, before reaching up to tuck a loose curl behind her ear. It was soft and so perfectly her that a lump formed in his throat. He let himself hold it there for a moment, feeling the pulse and heat of her, before he spoke.

"First," Andy said, "let’s address the obvious: you’re not a fetish. Or a sidekick. Or comic relief. You’re the only person who’s ever managed to convince me the future might not be something to run away from." He shifted closer, so their knees touched, and rested his forehead against hers, letting the warmth of their skin blur the boundaries. "And I’m never going to wake up and wish I had a different you."

He let the words settle, waiting to see if she’d believe them.

She rolled her eyes, but he felt the shudder go through her. “You say that now,” Erin said. “Wait until I molt for the first time and it looks like the world’s worst weed-whacker exploded in the bathroom.”

Andy couldn’t help it—he laughed. “We’ll get a Roomba and make it a contest. Whoever sheds less gets to pick dinner.”

She closed her eyes, letting the joke wash over her, then opened them again. “You’re making it sound so easy. Like I should just adapt.”

He touched her cheek. “You don’t have to adapt. You just have to be. The rest is my job.”

She shook her head, not angry, just tired. “It’s not fair. You didn’t sign up for this.”

Andy’s smile was small, but real. “Neither did you. But here we are.” He let the words linger, then went on. “You said you’re scared of losing yourself. I get that. But you’re still the same Erin who stayed up all night arguing about climate policy with me in college, the same Erin who stole my hoodie for six months and claimed it was a ‘hostile takeover,’ the same Erin who made me love waking up next to you.” He slid his hand down her arm. “All this? It’s just surface area. You’re the same underneath.”

She ran her tongue over her lips, as if tasting the words before swallowing them. “You’re so sure.”

He shrugged. “I spent years being unsure. It got me nothing but regret.” He looked her in the eye, letting the moment land. “I’d rather risk being wrong than spend another day pretending this doesn’t mean everything to me.”

Erin blinked, startled by the **** of his honesty. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

She slumped forward, their foreheads touching, her breath mingling with his. For a while, neither said anything. Andy just stroked her back, feeling the strange but not unpleasant slickness of her skin, the way it seemed to radiate warmth, almost feverish.

After a while, she spoke again, voice so small he almost missed it. “What if I get worse?” Erin asked. “What if, someday, I can’t go outside because I’ll scare people? Or you? What if I become something you can’t even look at anymore?”

Andy cupped her chin, gentle but unyielding. “I will always look at you,” he said. “No matter what.”

She tried to smile, but it flickered. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Andy said. “And if the worst happens, and you can’t go out in public, I’ll build you a greenhouse. Or a solarium, or whatever the hell you want.” He kissed her, soft on the brow. “I’d miss the beach, but I’d miss you a thousand times more.”

She laughed, shaky but real, and wiped at her eyes. “God, I love you,” she said, almost shocked by her own candor.

Andy grinned. “I love you too.” He ran a thumb over her cheek, then down to her neck, pausing at the spot where her pulse beat just below the skin. “And for the record, I love the way you taste now.” He smiled, sheepish. “It’s like basil and mint and sometimes a little bit of lime. It’s better than any perfume you ever wore.”

Erin snorted. “That’s the nerdiest way you could have said that.”

Andy shrugged. “I thought you liked nerds.”

She let out a real laugh then, the sound filling the room. “I do,” she said. “I really, really do.”

They fell together, side by side, limbs entwined on the bed. Andy tucked the blanket around her, even though he knew she didn’t get cold anymore, and Erin curled into him, her skin cool and smooth and alive.

For a long time, they just lay there, listening to the slow thrum of the ocean outside the window. Every now and then, Erin’s hand would find its way to Andy’s, and he’d squeeze, a silent metronome to keep her grounded.

At some point, Erin rolled over, her back pressed to his chest, his arm looped around her waist. She reached up, running a finger along the inside of his forearm.

“Will you tell me, if I start to lose myself?” she said. “If I get weird, or scary?”

Andy kissed the back of her neck. “You’re allowed to be weird. I won’t let you be lost.”

She sighed, content. “Okay,” she said, and closed her eyes.

As sleep drifted in, Andy listened to her breathing, steady and sure.

The hour that followed was a wash of half-dreams and slow, animal comfort. Andy drifted in and out of sleep, sometimes surfacing just long enough to feel Erin shift beside him, skin cool and smooth beneath his palm. Every time he woke, she was closer, as if the distance between their bodies could be measured in molecules and she was determined to dissolve them all.

At some indeterminate moment—neither night nor morning, but the grey belly of liminality—Andy woke to the feeling of her watching him. Not just a glance, but a persistent, almost searching study. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, and there she was, propped on one elbow, face inches from his, auburn hair spilled across her collarbone, her gaze open and unguarded.

“Hey,” he said, voice sanded down by exhaustion and honesty.

Erin tucked a leg over his, pinning him. “You said I could ask anything,” she said. “Right?”

“Always,” Andy replied, mirroring her words from hours before.

She hesitated, searching for the landing strip that might hold her question. “Do you ever wonder if this… us… is just nostalgia? Like maybe we’re trying to rewrite the story because it ended badly, and now we want to change the ending?”

Andy didn’t flinch. “I wonder it every day,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s nostalgia. I think it’s unfinished business.”

Erin arched a brow. “You always said closure was a myth.”

“It is,” he said. “But so is the idea that people move on and never look back.”

She stared at him, weighing the truth in his words. “Is it closure you want? Or a future?”

Andy took a long breath. The question hovered, buoyant with its own gravity. He knew it was time. Strangely, all he felt was calm. “Can I ask you something first?”

She nodded.

He brushed a thumb across her cheek, remembering what she had said earlier in the evening. “What do you want this to be, Erin?” he asked, voice barely a whisper. “Do you want a future with me? Do you want marriage, or a family, or just us—without bonds, without names, just the way we are now?”

For a second, she looked stunned. Her pupils widened, breath caught. He recognized the reaction—he’d seen it a thousand times before, the way she braced herself for disappointment, the way she always, always expected the other shoe to drop.

But then her face shifted, and the old, sharp Erin surfaced. “You never asked me that before,” she said, and her voice quivered with both accusation and awe. “Not in all the time we were together.”

He nodded. “I know.”

She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling, hands folded behind her head. “You always said you didn’t believe in forever. That you wanted to live in the moment. I thought it was some kind of bullshit Zen thing, but really I think you just didn’t want to promise anything you couldn’t deliver.”

He rolled with her, close enough to watch her pulse throb in her throat. “That was true,” Andy said. “But it’s not anymore.”

She closed her eyes, as if daring herself to say the next words. “I want a future, Andy. I want all of it. Marriage, kids, the whole fucking mess.” She laughed, the sound bitter-sweet. “Maybe that makes me a dinosaur. Maybe I’m just as old-fashioned as my mom, deep down. But I want to wake up next to you for the rest of my life. I want to grow old with you. I want to get mad at you for leaving your socks everywhere, and then fuck you senseless on the laundry room floor. I want it all.”

She rolled onto her side, facing him. Her voice was suddenly very small. “But I’m not the girl you met in college anymore. I’m… this.” She gestured to herself, the green skin, the nakedness, the impossible curves. “I can’t wear clothes. I can’t go outside unless it’s cloudy, or I’ll get so horny I can’t think straight. I’m a plant, Andy. I’m not normal. I can’t give you a normal life, even if I wanted to.”

Her eyes flickered as she spoke. He remembered the way she used to glance away at difficult moments, sometimes fixing on nothing, sometimes searching for a window or a door—an exit strategy. Now, she was so deeply in her own body that escape was impossible. The fear behind her words was palpable, an old, familiar terror that had adapted right along with her evolving skin. “You’re supposed to tell me it’s too much,” she said, voice thin but unwavering. “That you can’t sign up for this. That you’ll love me as long as you can, but when it comes time to actually build a life with someone, you’ll choose normal. You’ll choose someone who can give you a house in the suburbs and holiday cards and grandkids who don’t photosynthesize.”

She said it almost challengingly, each word a gauntlet thrown at his feet. She waited, her whole body tense, clearly daring him to prove her right. Maybe hoping, in some corner of her heart, that he would do exactly that and put them both out of their misery.

Andy had thought about this moment for hours, days, maybe longer than he’d ever admit. This day had been a gift, in a way. It had cemented his beliefs. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he reached for her chin—not rough, but with a steadiness that told her the outcome had already been decided elsewhere, long before either of them had spoken aloud.

He tilted her face up to his, so that their eyes locked, and the current that passed between them was almost physical. She shuddered, a pulse of arousal shooting through her body, the direct eye contact triggering the first transformation Arabella had laid on her. Andy saw it: the way her nipples hardened instantly, the slick sheen appearing between her thighs, her lips parting to draw in a breath that almost sounded like a gasp.

But Erin did not look away. Not this time. She let it happen, eyes bright and wild, as if daring him to find fault or turn away in disgust.

Andy drew a breath, steady as a pulse. “Erin,” he said, voice low and deliberate, “I want to marry you.”

The words shattered the air between them. He watched her flinch—truly flinch, as if he’d hit her with a fistful of salt straight to the wound. She blinked, once, twice, and the tears that gathered at the edges of her eyes shivered but did not fall.

“Say it,” she whispered. “Again.”

He obliged, the answer already branded onto his heart. “I want to marry you, Erin Delgado. I want you to be my wife. I want to wake up to the greenest, weirdest, most beautiful woman in the world for the rest of my life.” The words came easier now, rolling downhill, unstoppable. “And if we can have kids, then I want that too. If we can’t, I want you anyway. I never stopped loving you, even when you left, even when I tried to convince myself you were just a chapter that ended badly.”

He pressed her hand flat to his chest. She could feel his heartbeat, wild and erratic. “Six years ago, I was an idiot. I thought I could outrun my own fear, but all I did was outrun the one person who made me feel at home in the world. I watched your memories in the Cabana, Erin. I saw how hard you tried to reach me, how much it cost you when I wouldn’t let you in. I let you go because I was scared, and I’ve regretted it every day since.”

She stared, openly stunned. He saw the thoughts flicker through her mind, the disbelief that someone would actually want her, truly want her, like this. The whole story of their past flickered in the tension of her jaw, the way her shoulders hunched, the way her body wanted to curl up and hide. He watched her fight it down, saw the moment she refused to let her own self-hate win.

She didn’t cry—not immediately. Instead, she let out a sound like a laugh that had forgotten how to be a laugh, a wet, fractured thing that was as full of joy as it was grief. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re going to propose to your mutant ex-girlfriend in a harem hotel full of supermodels and magical sex bombs.”

Andy grinned, slow and unrepentant. “I can be more formal, if you want,” he offered. “I’ll get Arabella to bake a cake and hire a string quartet, and I’ll get down on one knee the old-fashioned way.”

Erin rolled her eyes, but he saw how her body unclenched, how some of the terror leaked out of her posture. “You’re such an idiot,” she said, and then: “Don’t you get it? I’m not safe, Andy. I’m not stable. I keep changing, and I don’t even know if I’ll be the same person by the end of the next challenge, let alone the end of the game. What are you even signing up for?”

Andy thought about that for a long moment, then shrugged, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m signing up for you,” he said. “Whoever you are, however you change. I’m not in love with what you look like, or even what you can give me. I’m in love with you, the person who stole my hoodie and then my heart, the person who makes me want to be better, the person who can make me laugh even when everything feels pointless.”

He paused, searching her face for any sign that his words were getting through. “You’re right. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or next year. But I do know this: I’d rather have you, weird and unpredictable and sometimes impossible, than spend another day being safe and alone.”

She stared at him, and for a second, he thought she might push him away, might laugh it off or tell him he was delusional. But then her eyes softened, a slow tide coming in after a long drought, and she let herself believe it.

“What about the harem?” she asked, voice smaller, almost a whisper. “You can’t just pretend they don’t exist. Claire. Emily. Liesa. It’s not just us anymore.”

Andy nodded, not missing a beat. “I know. And I won’t lie to you, Erin. I love them too. In different ways, each of them is a part of me. But you’re part of me too, in a way that no one else can be. You always have been. And that won’t change, no matter who else is in my life. It doesn’t make what I feel for you any less real. We’re all bound together, but the world’s big enough for more than one kind of love.”

She drew a shaky breath, the tears finally breaking loose. “I don’t deserve this,” she said, not as a plea for reassurance but as a statement of fact. “I don’t deserve you.”

Andy shook his head, and for the first time in years, he felt the old, reckless courage of his youth. “Neither of us deserves anything. But that doesn’t mean we don’t get to have it.”

She laughed again, watery and wild, and pressed her forehead to his, their noses brushing. They held there, a closed circuit of heat and electricity, the rest of the suite falling away until there was nothing but the axis of their joined breath.

He held her, their bodies pressed together, the salt of her tears mixing with the warmth of his skin. For a while, they just breathed each other in, the hush of the suite making a shell around them, a world reduced to the span of two bodies and the space between their hearts.

Andy kissed her, slow and deep, and when he pulled away, she was smiling through the tears.

“Then I’m yours,” she whispered, her voice trembling but sure.

Romantically Committed to the Master! +7 VP

Something broke open inside him at those words — the years of distance, the old silence, the fear that had ruled them both. He laughed, raw and unguarded, and the sound cracked something in her too, leaving them both lighter, freer.

She grinned, green and beautiful and more alive than she’d ever been.

Then, because neither of them could bear the space between any longer, they fell into each other, hands and mouths hungry for the future they’d finally dared to name.

They did not make it as far as the pillow before the first round was over. Erin ripped the robe from Andy’s shoulders and shoved him onto his back, her long fingers digging into the meat of his arms with a **** that was equal parts **** and gleeful. There was no finesse in it, at least not at first—just a collision of hungry mouths and hands, the kind of kissing that left teethmarks and bruises, that made silence impossible. Every gasp and laugh and whispered curse ricocheted off the high ceiling, so that Andy felt like he was inside a drum, reverberating with the sound of their animal need.

Erin straddled him, knees on either side of his ribs, the green of her skin so lush and alive that he couldn’t decide if she looked more like a goddess or a forbidden fruit. She was naked, always naked, and the only thing Andy could do for the first minute was stare at her—at the impossible convexity of her hips, the thick stem of her thighs, the way her breasts seemed to defy gravity and reason and every plausible law of anatomy. He traced the subtle veinwork beneath the surface, blue and violet lines spiraling across her chest, disappearing in the shadowed valley between her breasts. He spent a long moment just watching the way her nipples puckered at every shift in the air, the way they seemed to reach for him, hungry.

If anything, she wanted him to look. No—she needed it. She arched her back shamelessly and cupped her own breasts, lifting them to his mouth, her face a mask of playful arrogance. “You always liked these,” she teased, not waiting for him to answer before mashing one against his lips, smothering him in green warmth until he was breathless and dizzy. For a while, that was all they did: him suckling, her holding his head in place, both of them marveling at how right it felt, how little had changed in the deep grammar of their bodies.

It was only when Erin’s laughter turned to soft, ragged moans that she pushed his face away and looked down at him, eyes bright and wild. She gripped Andy’s cock at the base and slapped it, gently, against her own stomach, as if weighing it, measuring its heft. “Still got it,” she said, and then, in a voice that was suddenly grave: “I want you to put it in me, Andy. Now.”

Andy didn’t argue. He reached up, steadying her by the hips, and guided her down until the head of his cock slipped inside her. She was already soaking, her arousal staining both of them in a slick, herbal-smelling juice that made Andy’s stars go sideways. The moment he entered her, Erin gasped—a shattering, involuntary noise that echoed off the glass and made his skin break out in goosebumps. She sank slowly, inch by inch, the pressure exquisite, until her ass was pressed flush to his lap and Andy was buried to the hilt.

Neither of them spoke. For a long, suspended interval, they just held the pose, breathing hard, eyes locked. Erin’s hands were flat on his chest, her fingers splayed wide, as if she was trying to memorize the shape of his bones. Andy’s hands were on her hips, thumbs digging into the soft swells just above her pelvis. He could feel her pulse, the literal sap moving through her, every beat in time with his own racing heart.

Then she moved. It started as a slow, rolling grind, Erin circling her hips in careful, almost mathematical patterns, as if she were taking Andy’s measure in a way that words never could. He felt her tighten, relax, tighten again, each motion deliberate, every micro-adjustment a new note in an unspeakable symphony. She was learning him all over again, the way she always had: through taste and pressure and the mathematics of shared sensation. He groaned, unable to help himself, and Erin smiled—a wide, sharp thing that was all teeth and challenge.

“Missed this,” she murmured, barely audible. “Missed you.”

She rode him with increasing confidence, her rhythm unpredictable, shifting from languid to brutal and back again. Sometimes she pulled almost all the way off before slamming down with a **** that nearly knocked the wind from Andy’s lungs. Other times she stayed low and ground down in tight, merciless circles that made him see lights behind his eyelids. Her hands roamed everywhere: clutching his shoulders for leverage, yanking his hair, tracing the hard edge of his jaw as if to reassure herself that he was real and present and not some fevered hallucination.

Andy tried to keep up, to reclaim some measure of control, but it was a losing battle from the start. He was too raw, too newly opened by the conversation, and Erin’s body was too perfect, too overwhelming. Every time he tried to change the pace, she overpowered him, pinning his wrists, holding his throat, sometimes just smothering his face with her breast until he surrendered. It was not domination, not exactly—more like a shared demolition, two people smashing through the last of their restraint with the joy of knowing the other person would catch them on the fall.

Erin’s moans grew louder, less controlled, and Andy felt himself slipping, the heat spiraling up his spine until he was certain he’d explode. He gritted his teeth, fighting for a few more seconds, but Erin must have sensed the finality in his body because she clamped down hard, her inner walls rippling and squeezing him in perfect, devastating waves.

He came with a shudder that started in his toes and detonated somewhere behind his eyes. Erin felt it first, the rush of heat inside her, and she bent over him, hair falling around their faces like a shroud. She locked her lips onto his and bit down, not hard enough to hurt but enough that he’d remember it for days. Her own orgasm followed, a full-body quake that left her shaking, skin slick and shining in the lamplight.

For a while, neither of them moved. Erin collapsed onto Andy’s chest, her face pressed to his neck, breathing in short, jagged bursts. Andy wrapped his arms around her and just held on, both of them stunned by the **** and the joy of it.

She started giggling first, a low, incredulous sound that bubbled into full-on laughter. “We’re a fucking disaster,” she said, voice muffled by the crook of his neck.

Andy couldn’t disagree. “I’d say we’re a controlled burn,” he replied, running his hand slowly up her spine. “Efficient, even.”

She snorted, and for a moment, the dark heaviness that had haunted their lives receded. They just floated in the silence, sticky and tangled and happy.

After a long while, Erin wiggled herself upright but left Andy still inside her, as if daring him to move or say something that might break the spell. She cocked her head, considering him with a sly, sidelong glance. “You’re still hard,” she noted, a flicker of mischief in her eyes.

“I’m motivated,” Andy admitted.

“Good, because I’m going again.”

He didn’t protest. He didn’t have the strength, but more than that: he wanted her to take him again, to finish what they’d started. Erin leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together, her breath warm on his lips. Then she started to ride him, slow and easy this time, her hands trailing up and down his chest, her hips rolling with a laziness that was almost hypnotic.

They stayed like that for ages, time thickening around them, the room fading out until all that existed were the points of contact where their bodies joined. Erin let herself soften, her bravado dissolving into something more tender, more ****. She kissed Andy everywhere: eyelids, cheekbones, the hollow at the base of his throat. She whispered the old, secret nicknames that nobody else would ever know, the private language of their past.

Andy felt the edge coming again sooner than he wanted, but instead of rushing toward it, Erin slowed them down, holding him inside her, rocking gently. She was in no hurry; neither of them were. When she finally came again, it was softer, a slow crest instead of a tidal wave, but it left her limp and glowing. Andy followed a moment later, and when he did, Erin slumped down onto his chest, laughing softly.

“You’re ridiculous,” she murmured, eyes closed. “You’re really going to marry me, aren’t you?”

“Already did, in my head,” Andy said. “I’m just waiting for you to propose back.”

Erin opened one eye and grinned at him. “If I do, will you say yes?”

“I said yes the first time I saw you in the greenhouse, freshman year, before you even knew I existed,” Andy told her, unable to stop the smile spreading across his face. “Everything since has just been paperwork.”

She kissed him, an unhurried thing, and then slid sideways, pulling him with her onto the mess of sheets. They lay in the aftermath, bodies cooling, breathing slowing, the suite suddenly too quiet after the riot of their joining. “Then yes,” she said, “marry me.”

Andy tucked his arm around her, drawing her close, and let himself feel everything he’d spent years trying to outrun: the ache of wanting, the terror of loss, the impossible hope that this could actually last. He closed his eyes and pressed his face to Erin’s hair, memorizing the scent, the warmth, the—

Somewhere in the hush that followed, Andy realized they weren’t alone.

He’d forgotten, for a heartbeat, the painting on the far wall: Katherine’s wide, green eyes fixed on the bed, her hands pressed against the invisible membrane of the frame, her painted chest heaving with the illusion of breath. As Erin collapsed on top of him, she turned her head, and their gazes met. For a split second, Andy felt a jolt of something—pity, shame, arousal, all tangled together. Katherine’s lips parted in a perfect O, her body wracked by shivers that mirrored their own.

Erin saw it too. She held Andy’s hand, eyes never leaving Katherine. It was pure, unvarnished empathy—a glance that said, I see you. I wish you could truly feel this too.

Andy stroked Erin’s hair, kissed her brow, and for a while they just lay tangled together, the sweat cooling on their bodies, the hush settling over the Suite like a blanket.

But the night was not done with them.

They went again—twice more before sunrise. The second time, Erin rolled Andy onto his back and pressed her breasts around his cock, squeezing them together so tightly that he almost came before she even started moving. The sight of her, green and perfect, watching him with that sly, knowing grin, was almost too much. He let her fuck him with her tits, the slide of slick skin and the weight of her curves driving him to the edge in less than a minute.

When he came, it was all over her, pearly streaks glistening on her chest, and she looked down at herself with a kind of dazed, delighted surprise. “I never thought I’d say this, but I actually like them now,” Erin whispered, cupping herself and letting the come pool in the valley of her cleavage. “Arabella’s a sadist, but she’s not wrong.”

Then she straddled him again, sinking down until she was full, her whole body trembling. She fucked him hard, never breaking eye contact, and when she came, she squeezed him so tight he thought he might black out.

This time, when Andy looked to the painting, Katherine’s hands were balled into fists, her body frozen in the moment of climax, a tear painted on her cheek. Andy wondered if the sensation was **** or bliss, or if, for Katherine, there was even a difference.

The third time was slow, almost ceremonial. Erin wrapped herself around Andy like a blanket, guiding his cock into her with infinite patience. She moved in gentle, rocking pulses, her face buried in his neck, their bodies locked so tight that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Andy stroked her back, hands following the ridges of her spine, the subtle shiver that ran through her when he whispered, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

She came in waves, her whole body shuddering, and Andy let go at the same time, emptying himself into her with a kind of exhausted gratitude. After, they lay together in the darkness, Erin’s head on his chest, his hand tracing lazy patterns across the small of her back.

“Are you real?” she asked, voice muffled by his skin.

He laughed, soft. “I hope so.”

She nipped his shoulder, then sighed. “I’m never leaving you again.”

“Never,” Andy said.

They slept, curled together under the moonlight, bodies slick with sweat and love and everything in between.

He dreamed the old nightmare. The riverbank mud sucked at his feet like a living thing, the black water churning, its icy fingers dragging him down, filling his lungs. Laura's silhouette burned against the opposite shore, her hair whipping in a wind he couldn't feel, her eyes twin points of fire. Her mouth stretched open in a scream that shattered against the roar of the current. His muscles seized with the cold, limbs betraying him, each **** lunge forward plunging him deeper into the undertow.

This time, though, Erin's fingers dug into his, her nails drawing blood as she anchored herself to him. Her breath scorched his ear: "Not alone anymore." She hurled herself into the current beside him, her body a shield against the river's rage. The water still tore at them, Laura still unreachable. Then Laura vanished from the far bank. In her place hunched a figure in ashen robes, black beard pointed like a dagger, face carved from granite. Its eyes—pinpoints of fire—regarded Andy without emotion. The figure held his gaze for one heartbeat, two, then dissolved into nothing, leaving Andy gasping awake in the darkness.

He woke in the dark, heart thundering, skin cold and clammy. But Erin was there, tangled around him, her body still humming with the aftershocks of their night together. He held her tight, let his breathing slow, and whispered into her hair, “I’m here. I’m here.”

He stayed awake a long time, watching the shadows play on the ceiling, letting the weight of the past settle.