Nothing like this.
Maybe a case could be made for dopamine and whatever other hormones were released when you were getting steady—and mind-blowing—orgasms on the regular.
But it was more than that.
I didn't even like cheapening it to that for a moment.
Because there was the sex. Which was amazing. There was companionship with a man I was finding I deeply respected, genuinely enjoyed getting to know on deeper levels. There was the enjoyment that came with teasing a teenager, poking at just the right places to get a reaction, but also sharing moments of imparted wisdom, of mutual interest. There was satisfaction in the little things. Like a clean kitchen. Like a home-cooked meal. Like sharing conversation and food and being fully, completely present for a change.
My mind often raced all over the place. Thinking of jobs. Of coworkers. Of my past. Of my possible future. Of what I was going to watch on TV while I stuffed my face with takeout.
I was never fully immersed in the moment.
Until I came here.
I realized with no small stab of guilt that I hadn't even thought about my crew back home in days. Those people who had taken up the dominant places in my head. And I damn near forgot them for a short span of time.
Even realizing it, though, the thoughts rushed away, immediately got replaced with new thoughts.
Like what it meant that after all these years, this was where I found my happy.
In this home.
In this country.
With these people.
Especially Christopher.
I knew things were new.
I understood that deep connections often took a lot of time. But even knowing that, I had to admit that what I felt toward him was deeper than any connection I'd had with anyone else.
Which was saying something. Because I had spent a Russian winter in a shack with my crew, with no way to get away from them. I'd camped out in countless hotel rooms with Kai, bullshitting about life. I'd been to birthdays and Christmases and baby showers with those people.
They had more of my time.
But there was no denying that Christopher had more of me.
I had given it to him. Fully. Without hesitation. All my stories poured out, tripping over each other in their desperation to finally be told, to be heard, to be understood.
And he did.
God, he did.
He understood.
I never could have anticipated just how good that would feel. To be seen. To be heard. To be understood. And cared for not despite all of that, but because of it.
There was no denying the fact—and believe me, an insecure voice had tried—that Christopher did. Care for me.
He often reached for me first.
And not just sexually.
He reached for my hand. He grabbed my knee under the table. He pulled me up against him when we all watched movies in the living room. He was always finding excuses to be near me, to put his hands on me.
He went out of his way to make me coffee. To bring me sweets when he happened to go into town. To praise my meals even when they didn't come out even halfway edible.
He cared.
How much, well, I couldn't answer that. Because I hadn't asked. It seemed invasive and premature to do so when I hadn't even fully figured out how much I cared for him, what it meant that I cared that much.
I wasn't stupid.
This time spent in this place—this was us playing house. This was not real life. This was not what our reality would be like.
If we both came to the conclusion that this was something serious, something we didn't want to let go of when we eventually emerged from this paradise, what did that mean for the future?
Because we both had lives.
In different corners of the world.
The idea of giving up my career and my friends pierced me. Yet the idea of going back to them and leaving Christopher behind was equally as painful.
But I knew one thing about life.
'Having it all' was an illusion.
No one got everything.
Only children and fools thought they could.
The rest of us understood that life involved sacrifices.
But what was I supposed to sacrifice here? What could I give up without feeling like a part of me was being ripped away? Without feeling like I would be living half a life afterward?
"I give up," Christopher declared. Those were big words for a man like him, one so used to getting everything he wanted. "He's like a dog chasing after a bitch in heat. Hey," he called, voice losing the edge of frustration laced with the barest hint of humor it often had when speaking of his brother. "Are you alright?" he added, moving closer, dark eyes boring into me.
Usually, I prided myself in my poker face, in the fact that no one could see anything that I didn't want to show them.
But that was another thing about Christopher. He saw through me. I couldn't hide from him.
And, what's more, I didn't want to.
"I'm okay," I told him.
"I think we can do better than okay," he decided, eyes full of promise as he moved closer, as he reached for a hand towel, holding it out to me, making me realize my hands were still in the steadily cooling water. When I pulled them out, they were pruny and stiff as I dried them.
I barely got a chance to hang the towel off the handle on the side of the island before he was there, yanking my arms over my head, pinning them against the cupboard with one hand as his other anchored around my lower back and his lips sealed over mine.
I'd been kissed before.
I'd been kissed silly before.
But with Christopher, this was the only time something as simple as a kiss could completely wipe my mind clean, leaving not a trace of any of the worries I had been contemplating the moment before.
I don't know how long we stayed there just like that, but I knew my lips felt swollen and tingly, that my body was coming alive, getting all kinds of ideas about what we could do to keep my mind from overthinking anything for a good, long while.
It was the clearing of a throat that managed to interrupt the floating nothingness in my head.
Not enough to stop kissing him back, but enough to be aware we probably needed to move our activities to somewhere with a door. Maybe even a bed.
"I am going to need you to get your hands off of her," a voice said.
I knew that voice.
I knew that voice as well as I knew my own voice.
Hearing it was an ice bath to my overheated system.
Because it didn't belong here.
In this world.
In this new, secluded, private, blissful world I had come to know and love.
It belonged in my other world. One that was fulfilling, but painfully status quo.
Christopher seemed to regain his full composure just a second before I managed to do so, lips and hands releasing me, turning so fast I could barely catch the motion, every muscle in his body tensing at the unfamiliar voice as he used his body as a shield for mine.
If I wasn't so completely and utterly shocked, I might have been able to appreciate just how sweet that was.
But all I could seem to think was: What the hell was Quin doing here?
"Quin?" My voice croaked out of me, making Christopher half turn, looking over his shoulder at me, brows pinched.
"Quin?" he asked.
"My boss," I agreed, giving him a nod.
His body didn't lose its tension. If anything, it got even more rigid as he moved to the side, allowing me to look across the room, finding Quin standing there in a slightly rumpled blue suit, eyes purple-smudged from lack of sleep.