“Izzy,” he groaned, his grip tightening in my hair to gently pull me away. The lust in his eyes dimmed the sting of rejection. “I don’t want hours. I want nights. Days. Weeks. I want to haul you into a room and lock us away until I know every inch of your body, taste everywhere you like to be kissed, explore every way to make you come, and then listen as your voice goes hoarse from screaming my name. That’s . . .” He shook his head.
“Yes. That’s a yes.” Everything he’d listed sounded fantastic.
“I was going to say madness.” He grinned, and I melted at that flash of dimple. “And I might kick the shit out of myself for saying this next week, when I have every second of this moment on constant replay in my head, but I want the one thing we don’t have, Izzy, and that’s time.”
“I know. Me too.” I wanted a chance, a real, unhurried chance at what we might be. “Does that mean you’re done kissing me?”
“Fuck no.” He kissed me long and slow, the tempo changing into an unhurried, thorough seduction. “I’ll kiss you whenever you ask, Isabeau Astor.”
“Promise?” I smiled against his mouth.
“Promise.” He made good on it, kissing me until our skin puckered in the water. He kissed me as we dried off, as we walked to his truck, and before and after our very late lunch.
He kissed me until my lips were swollen and I knew every line of his mouth with the same familiarity he did mine.
Then my bag was checked, the book he’d chosen was tucked into my carry-on, and my throat tightened with every step as he walked me to the security checkpoint at the airport.
What if the time we wanted never came?
What if this was all we’d have?
What if—
“Stop.” He turned me in his arms and cradled my face. “Whatever you’re thinking, just stop.”
My eyes stung, and I knew it wasn’t from salt and sun. “What if you don’t come home?”
His brow knit and he leaned in slowly, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll come home.”
“You don’t know that.” The fabric of his shirt was soft in my fingers as my fists clenched against his chest.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m ridiculously hard to kill.” He hugged me tight, resting his chin on the top of my head.
“You say that like it’s going to stop me from worrying every day for the next year.”
“No.” He gripped my shoulders and leaned back, looking at me with such intensity that my breath caught. “Don’t do that either. Don’t you dare sit around and worry. Don’t waste your life waiting on me, Izzy.”
My lips parted, but there were no words for the way my heart teetered on the edge of his demand, ready to fall . . . or to break.
“I won’t do that to you.” He cradled the side of my face, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “You are worth so much more.”
“And if I want to do it to myself?” Shit, was that my voice breaking?
“Don’t,” he begged, his voice fading to a whisper. “You just uprooted your whole life for someone. Don’t wish away the months for someone else.” He lifted a brow. “And don’t think this has anything to do with me not wanting you, or some bullshit. God, what I would do for you if I just . . . could.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“We’re—” He swallowed and took a stuttered breath. “We’re us. Nate and Izzy.”
“Undefined,” I whispered, remembering his earlier words that it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to try and label the unexplainable.
“If you want to write, then I’ll do the same. If you don’t, then I won’t pressure you. I want you to have every single opportunity you want for yourself in DC.”
“Even if that opportunity means someone else?” I challenged. Maybe it was childish, but I didn’t care. Not when we were about to take the gift fate had given us and squander it over him not wanting me to wait.
He held my gaze with steady, unwavering eyes and nodded. “Even if that means someone else. Every second I’ve had with you is a gift I’ve never deserved, and I refuse to think of you back here, missing out on . . . anything because of me.”
“And in a year?” I leaned my cheek into his palm.
“Could be less—I just like to prep for the long haul.”
“What happens when you’re home?”
He sighed, then lowered his head and kissed me like we weren’t in the middle of the airport. He kissed me like there was no one watching, and nothing waiting for us on the other side of tomorrow. “You know the best part of not defining this?”
“My begrudging freedom?” I muttered.
He laughed. “No. The possibilities, Izzy. That’s what we are. Possibility.”
Possibility. The same reason he loved the sunrise.
Everything in me screamed to hold on, but I let him go, because that’s what he wanted and, honestly, probably what I needed. I’d just gotten out of a two-year relationship. Jumping into another when I was bound to sabotage it with my unresolved baggage was the last thing I wanted to do to Nate. If there was ever a shot to be had when it came to us, he was right—it wasn’t now.
I kissed him one last time and stepped back. “Just . . . don’t die.” They were the last words I remembered from the crash, but they seemed to fit this occasion too. I wasn’t sure what that said about us.
“Not planning on it.” A corner of his mouth lifted, but it wasn’t a full smile.
I blinked. “That’s what you said—”
“I know.” He backed away, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “I remember everything about you. Now get on that plane so I can remember this too.”
“Possibilities?” My chest ached so deeply that it hurt to breathe.
“The very best of them.” He gave me a grin, flashing that dimple, and disappeared into the crowd.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IZZY
Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan
November 2021
“Serena!” I wrapped my arms around my shocked older sister, locking them above the backpack she wore, and held on tight, my heart beating so wildly I half expected it to jump out of my chest. It worked. She was here. Every string I’d pulled to take Newcastle’s place had been worth it because she was here. It was almost too easy, too simple, but I wasn’t about to curse my good luck.
I was bringing my sister home.
“Iz?” Serena tensed for a second before her arms closed slowly around me, her camera caught between us, secured by the neck strap. “Isabeau?” Her hands moved to my shoulders, and she pulled back, her brown eyes wide as she scanned my face. “What the actual hell are you doing here?” she shouted, something akin to horror etching her features, two lines appearing between her brows.
“Tell me how you really feel.” There was no stopping my smile. I’d found her. Well . . . Nate had found her. She looked like she could use a solid month of sleep and might need to wash the very serviceable button-down shirt and blue headscarf I’d inadvertently pulled down by hugging her so tight, but those were all easy to remedy.
“I’m not kidding!” Her fingers dug into my shoulders, and her voice pitched higher in panic. “You shouldn’t be here!”
I blinked. Thinking she might have been annoyed at my interference and actually seeing it were two different things. “But I came for you.”
“You what?”
Okay, she was a little more than annoyed. She was pissed.