Her face falls. “Some imperfections aren’t so beautiful, Ren.”
“No. Perhaps not.” I slip my fingers through her hair. “But if they’re yours, I love them. And you love mine.”
She grabs my wrist, stilling my hand. “I need to explain this. I need you to understand.”
Smoothing her cheek with my fingers, even as she holds my wrist captive, I stare down at her. “I’m listening.”
Frankie holds my eyes as often as she can, before they dance to my body, the fire, my mouth, my hair. “Something my therapist said to me a few weeks ago… I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.”
I wait for her, listening in silence but for the snap and pop of the cured wood roaring in the fireplace.
“She said you can’t believe someone’s love for you until you think that you’re worthy of it,” she says quietly, staring at the fire. “You have to love yourself. And in that way, I think you are far ahead of me, Ren.”
“How do you mean?”
She sighs. “Some days I do feel cynical. Other days I’m optimistic. I think that on hard days, when everything hurts and everything feels difficult, I don’t find myself very lovable. And I know it’s not true, that I’m not allowed to struggle, that I’m not lovable when I do, but it feels…real.”
I pull her close.
Frankie blinks up at me, breathtakingly lovely, lit by the fire, bare and rain-washed, wary and hopeful. “Does that make sense?” she asks.
“I think so. I’m not saying it’s the same, but it reminds me a bit of when I spiral into old places from the bullied years. Telling myself I don’t fit, that I can’t get it right, that I’m not good enough because I’m not a ‘normal dude.’”
“What do you do when that happens?”
“Sometimes I call Ryder and just let him make me laugh. Other times, I reread a book that was the escape I needed at a critical moment in my past, that made me feel like I belonged. Most often, I just count down the minutes until I see you again. Because you, Frankie, have always made me happy. You have always made me feel like I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be, that it’s good.”
She sniffles. “How? I’ve always been so surly.”
I laugh. “Maybe that was why. You were the nicest surly grump I’d ever met. You cared. You seemed like you at least picked up on those parts of me that I tried to minimize. Like the parts that I felt made me weird were actually the parts you liked best.”
“Ren,” she says, cupping my cheek. “You are weird.” We both break down laughing as she strokes my beard and steals a kiss. “And so am I. But not everyone has to love us, just the people who matter. That’s what I told you, but you showed me: be yourself, and let those who are lucky enough to love you, love you for who you are.”
I wrap my arms around her, kiss her hair, her temple, her cheek. My lips find the corner of her mouth as she tips her head to meet my kiss. Slipping my hand around her back, I hold her close. “I love you.” I tap her bum and squeeze. “So much.”
She grins up at me. “And you love my butt.”
“It’s only fair. You love mine.”
Sighing, she kisses me, nuzzles my nose. “This cabin’s cozy. Let’s move here.”
“I don’t think so. You’d never leave. You’d wall up the windows with books and make Uber Eats use a four-wheeler to bring us Chinese.”
“That sounds like a brilliant existence.”
I smile down at her. “Where you go, I’ll go. I didn’t take you for a drafty Pacific Northwest girl but…”
As if only by the power of suggestion, she shivers, her nipples hardening in the cold. It makes parts of me harden, too. I stare at her, tenderly cupping her breasts.
“Excuse me. Eyes up, Zenzero.”
I don’t glance up. I kiss each nipple, swirl my tongue and lick until they’re stiff peaks and her breath comes shorter, faster. “What?” I ask.
“I—” She sighs, pulling me over top of her, taking my aching hard-on in her grip, rolling her thumb over the exquisitely sensitive tip. “I forget. I was going to argue about something, but this is much more enjoyable.”
“Frankie,” I whisper. Easing inside her, I hold her close.
“Ren,” she breathes against my skin.
My mouth finds hers, as I taste and savor and tease. As my hips roll, each stroke steady and reverent. My hands find the soft swell of her breast, the velvet between her legs. My fingers sweep over her, as her hands claim my shoulders, then neck, as she sighs, quiet cries that grow in desperation.
The room is a haze of firelight and candle glow. Smoky air and sweat and soft blankets tumbling to the floor. Her hands hold mine and tangle our fingers. Glorious, tortured need, sharp demand course through my body.
I call her name, pressing my body deep inside her. Frankie clasps me close and writhes beneath me, as the waves of her release catch me in their power and take me with them.
On a gasp for air, I turn her with me, our bodies close, our hearts closer. I kiss her hair, look into her eyes. And I stare at Frankie for long, quiet moments, memorizing firelight on her skin, the way flames dance in her eyes that watch me intently.
I push up on my elbows, carefully separating myself from her. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” Her hand trails down my chest. Her voice is tentative.
“You’ll see.” Giving her a kiss, I smile down at her. I was going to wait, but if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that the only right time to tell someone what they mean to you is the moment you know it. No more waiting. No more partial truths.
I sit up and hurdle the sofa, strolling down the hall until I find my jeans in a pile near the bathroom. Yanking out my wallet, I extract the paper and toss my wallet aside.
Frankie watches me reenter the great room, arms behind her head, a wide smile on her face. “I think you should slow down probably,” she says. “The floors seem slippery. You, rushing, naked, lit only by a fire… It seems dangerous.”
I grin at her, freezing for just a moment to let her feast her eyes, before I run at the sofa, stopping myself enough to gently land back on the couch with a flop.
She sighs. “One day I’ll turn you into an exhibitionist for me.”
“Here.” Pressing a kiss to her temple, I offer her the fortune cookie paper, pinched between two fingers. “You do the honors.”
Frankie unfolds the paper, spins it around and stares at it, then reads quietly, “‘Your love is the one you look upon.’ Oh, Ren,” she whispers, throwing her arm around me and kissing my neck. “This is insanely sweet. And thank goodness you weren’t ‘looking upon’ the wonton soup when you read it.”
I laugh as I kiss her back. “I’m so glad it was you instead.”
“You didn’t really love me at first sight,” she says skeptically. “That doesn’t exist.”
“I don’t know, buttercup. You walked through the door on my first day, and my heart kicked in my chest. Knocked the wind right out of me.”
“Hm. Well, for my part, I realized I liked you when I bumped into that fabulous naked chest.”