When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

Hand over her heart, he asked, “Say it again?”

  She didn’t have to ask him what he meant. Her lower lip wobbled. “I love you.”

  His eyes drifted closed, his grin beatific, like he’d been waiting to hear that for the longest time. And who knew? With all his silences there at the end, maybe he had. When his eyes opened again, his lips parted, too. “I love you. Every piece of you.”

  All her torn-up edges seemed to knit. Not closed, perhaps, but no longer gaping. She was held together by his presence. His acceptance of who she was.

  The meeting of their mouths was softer this time, slower. He skimmed his palm down the center of her chest, tracing the edge of her breast before cupping its curve, sending showers of sparks off in her flesh. His thumb tweaked the metal running through it, and he moaned.

  “Did you miss that, too?” She placed her hand over his, firming his grip.

  “Would it be crass if I said yes?”

  “Not even a little.”

  Because really, what more could she want? A man she could kiss and talk to and laugh with and fuck. One who loved her like this.

  And fuck her, but his body didn’t hurt his case one bit. She ground down on him with a groan. “I have definitely missed this.”

  He was hard beneath her, the thick ridge of his cock hitting her exactly where she needed it—except not, because she needed him in her, hot and wide and filling her up.

  “That reasoned discussion we’re going to have,” she panted, interrupting herself to scrape her teeth over his lip, “we’re not just putting it off to kiss, right?”

  Because all these weeks without his mouth on her, without the promise of ever sliding her lips over his again, they’d been torture. But so was this emptiness, this screaming need under her skin reminding her just how long it had been since she’d been touched. Since he’d made her come.

  He slipped his hands under her shirt and bucked his hips. “There are a lot of different kinds of kissing,” he conceded.

  “How about the type where you’re inside me?”

  He moaned against her mouth. “Best fucking kind.”

  And then his hot palms were less holding her than gripping her, and she was airborne, shrieking in delight as he manhandled her onto her back in the center of the bed. Settling over her, he pushed the fabric of her top higher, kissing across her cheek to her jaw and down the column of her throat. She spread her legs and pulled him down, and when he pressed his hips to hers, she outright whined.

  Shaking her head, she plucked at his shirt. She wanted so many things—wanted his cock and his mouth and the smooth flesh of his chest, muscled and warm—and she wanted it all right now.

  And it hit her as he sucked at the skin beneath her collar.

  She could have it. All of it. This wasn’t just a fuck and it wasn’t just a handful of weeks. Whatever way she didn’t get to have him tonight she could try tomorrow. She loved him and he loved her, and somehow—somehow they’d make it work.

  She got to keep him.

  A laugh bubbled past her lips. Adam lifted his head, turning questioning eyes on her. “Are you okay?”

  “So okay.”

  So deliriously, impossibly happy.

  She pulled his mouth back up to hers, tasting his tongue and reveling in the sting of his teeth against her lip ring. Between kisses, they managed to get their tops off. She cursed at her sports bra and smiled at the dull thuds his shoes made as he kicked them to the floor. Their stupid grins kept getting in the way, but neither of them could seem to bring themselves to stop. When he ran his fingertips under the hem of her shorts, thumbs slotting into the hollows of her hips, she lifted up.

  Naked, she spread her legs. Watched his eyes go dark and wide as he stared at her.

  Then he was pushing the rest of his clothes off his hips, taking a single, slow stroke of his own curled palm around his length before resting his hand on her thigh.

  When he dropped onto his elbows before her, she clenched her eyes shut tight. Threaded her fingers through his hair and held on against the breath of air he blew over slick flesh. But she still hadn’t been ready—hadn’t been prepared. His tongue was as hot and clever as it had been when he’d done this before, his lips as sweet when he pursed them around her clit, but the pleasure hit her harder, making a warmth gather deep.

  Because it wasn’t just the sex, for all that the sex was a relief. It was being so close to a person again. To this man.

  A bare few minutes of his mouth on her had the pressure in her belly coiling, the heat rising to the point where she drew her thighs up, tensed every muscle. Scratched at his scalp and sucked in a breath—

  Only to have him draw away.

  Her eyes snapped open, her grip going iron in his hair, but he shook free of it, dragging a wrist over the wetness smeared across his lips. He climbed her body like a man possessed and claimed her mouth. The hot line of his cock bobbed against her skin, the tip slick, and she pulsed helplessly around nothing, bucking upward with her hips.

  “I want—” He panted, palm curling around her thigh.

  “Fuck yes.”

  She threw him off her long enough to get an arm flung out to the side. She pulled open a drawer and fumbled for a condom, but when she went to get on top of him the way she’d tried not to dream of doing for weeks now, he shook his head and got a hand around her wrist. Tugged her down to lie beside him until their fronts were flush, the hard points of her breasts pressed just right against the plane of his chest. He put his hand to her side as he licked his lips, darting his gaze between her mouth and her eyes.

  “Like this?” he asked.

  Together. Face-to-face and on even ground.

  Throat dry, she nodded and leaned in.

  They lay there side by side, kissing as he got the condom on. Without breaking from her mouth, he pulled her in, hitching her thigh over hips, and oh hell yes. She reached down between them to curl their hands together around his cock.

  Together, they dragged the head of him over her slit, across her clit, and back down, and the moment seemed to last forever, all shared breaths and intimacy. Anticipation and love.

  Then finally, she tilted her hips forward. Stared straight into his eyes as she let go. Skimmed her hand up his chest to rest it warm over his heart.

  And he pressed forward.

  “Jo,” he groaned as he slid home. Eyes drifting shut, he gripped her hard by the hip, and she tightened her leg where it draped over his waist. He looked to her again, and her lungs stuttered, an unbearable ache behind her ribs.

  Because he’d been open for her before. He guarded nothing, where she guarded everything, but in that moment it felt like there were no walls. Nothing between them.

  Gaze glowing and warm, he lifted the corner of his mouth. He touched her face and cupped her cheek.

  “I never thought I’d get to have this again,” he said, and it made her eyes sting.

  “Neither did I.”

  “But we do. We get to—”

  They got to share this. Maybe for the rest of their lives.

  The words seemed to get stuck in his throat, but she heard them anyway. Bridging the bare gap between them, she captured the soft warmth of his lips. She shifted her hips.

  And it was the slowest, softest fuck of her life. Probably because it was so much more. For the longest time, they rocked as one. He stayed buried deep inside her, and she’d never felt so full. So complete.

  But eventually, the low heat that built with every hint of pressure against her clit overwhelmed her.

  “Adam…”

  He nodded, skating his hand down the length of her spine. “I’ve got you.”

  Gripping her hip, he slipped a thumb between them, a single point of strength to grind against as he lengthened his strokes. Driving into her, he hit that perfect place inside and rubbed at her clit. She whined, straining.

  “Yeah, baby?” He thrust in harder. “Can you come for me? Like this?”

  As if she could stop herself.<
br />
  As if she ever could have stopped herself for falling for this man.

  When it finally hit her, she strained to keep her gaze on him, to not look away for one instant, one second. Blackness blurred the edges of her vision as she shattered. Against his lips, with all the breath that she had left, she said, “I love you.”

  Following her over, he gripped her tight. “I love you.”

  And she believed him.

  So. That had gone about a billion times better than Adam had dared to hope it would.

  He and Jo lay curled up together in the center of her bed, on their sides and facing each other, the sheet pulled up to just beneath their arms. Their legs and hands tangled in the space between them, and he had never felt so secure, so in love with another person in his life. He was here, and this was real. Everything around him bloomed in brilliant color.

  Stroking her knuckle with his thumb, he stared at her. She’d bleached and redyed her hair to the roots since the last time he’d seen her, the once-blue strands past purple now and simmering into a deep magenta, warm and beautiful and just like her.

  “Would you ever have said anything?” he asked, speaking into the quiet space they’d created around themselves.

  “Probably.” A wry smile stole across her lips. “Earlier today I was half convinced I should drive out and set up shop outside your place.”

  “I would’ve loved that.”

  “I think I would’ve. Eventually.” She squeezed his hand. “I hope I would’ve. But I was scared.”

  “Of me?”

  Her smile wavered. “Of how much it would hurt if you said no.”

  “You couldn’t honestly believe I would.”

  She shrugged, and the protectiveness that’d flared up inside him that summer rose anew. Of course she could believe that of him, and worse. Her whole life, she’d practically been trained to.

  Well, he’d just have to spend the rest of his life showing her she didn’t have to.

  Lifting her gaze, she asked, “What flipped the switch for you?”

  He chose his words carefully. “It was talking to Shannon, actually.”

  She didn’t flinch. Just ghosted her fingertips against his.

  His chest filled with air a little more easily.

  The things Shannon had said had resonated so deeply within him. It had him tied up in knots for days. The whole time, he’d been itching to get in his car and drive, but he’d had responsibilities. He’d finished out his classes and stayed in Friday night getting all of his work done for the weekend. Then this morning, he’d gotten up and gone. Twelve hours straight across half of the Northeast and the Midwest to arrive here, at her address. To see her form retreating down the road, and it had been too much, literally watching her run from him.

  So he’d stopped her, and nearly gotten decked for his efforts. Right until she’d realized who he was, and all the walls he’d been ready to set up siege against had crumbled before him.

  And she’d said the words he’d been waiting for, the ones he’d come here specifically to ask her for.

  He licked his lips. “I realized—she helped me realize—you were afraid I settle too easily, but that was exactly what I was doing with you. Settling for less than what I want.”

  “And what is it that you want?”

  His throat burned. “Everything.”

  She swallowed, her gaze flickering between his hand and his eyes. “It’s funny. My dad had this thing he used to say when I was a kid. ‘You don’t ask, you don’t get.’”

  “Oh?”

  “He was an asshole about a lot of things, but he wasn’t wrong about that.” She tiptoed her fingers higher up his wrist toward his forearm. “I’m glad you’re asking.”

  “Does it mean I’m going to get?”

  Looking at him straight on now, she said, “Everything that’s in my power to give you.” Her smile flickered. “It isn’t going to be easy, though. Twelve hours isn’t exactly commutable.”

  Nothing with Jo had ever been easy. Then again, maybe that was why it was… “Worth it.” He clasped her hand in his again, holding on. “Besides, it’s not forever.”

  “It’s not.” She considered for a second. “Just a year. So next fall…”

  “We apply to the same places and hope for the best. There are plenty of grad schools, and it’s not like either of us is bound by geography.” He’d prefer someplace closer to his family, but he’d already spent three years the whole height of the country away from them. He’d go where he needed to. If Jo went with him, he’d go anywhere.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Playing devil’s advocate, though, you really think it’s a good idea, planning our grad school experience around this?” With her free hand, she gestured between the two of them.

  He’d given this a lot of thought, actually, while he’d been driving. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her he’d prepared a speech.

  Rising up onto his elbow, he grasped her hand more firmly.

  “Listen, I know it wasn’t a perfect metaphor, but what we said right before we left. Maybe, someday, if the stars align…” Just thinking about it made his chest go tight. “Here’s the thing. The stars… We study this stuff. We can predict where every visible point in the sky is going to be ten, twenty, one hundred years from now. We know the statistics and the odds. Next fall”—he paused, taking a deep breath—“we make them align.”

  Sure, there’d be some waiting involved, but it wouldn’t be hopeless or idle. It would be with the two of them in their own separate cities, on opposite ends of the same wire, putting things in motion.

  Her body curled toward him, and her eyes shone. “You really think we can make it work.”

  “I know we can.”

  Because she wasn’t a comet, and he wasn’t some idle stargazer, watching her burn past from the ground.

  She was a star. Maybe they both were. A binary system, two points of light circling around each other and spiraling closer. Drawn in by gravity, fueled by a fire as old as the universe itself.

  And he was never letting her out of his orbit again.

  Epilogue

  One year later…

  “If everyone would please take their seats?”

  Jo’s heart did a weird, fluttery thing in her chest. She glanced around the room, and it barely took any work. Adam wasn’t exactly hard to miss, standing a full head above most of the rest of the crowd, but even if he hadn’t been, her gaze just seemed to go to him.

  And his to her.

  Craning his neck, he caught her eye and smiled. Jo excused herself from the rest of the group she’d been talking to and made her way over to him.

  As she approached, Adam held out his hand, and she slipped hers into it. “You ready for this?” she asked.

  “Born ready.”

  They found a couple of empty seats near the middle of the room. It took a few minutes, but everyone else settled down soon enough.

  Adam leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You want to put any money on this?”

  She rolled her eyes at him, but it was all bravado. Nerves had her jostling her knee up and down, tapping the heel of her boot in staccato against the ground.

  The year she and Adam had spent apart had been one of the best and worst of her life. She’d missed him constantly, but there’d still been that connection. Text messages and phone calls and the occasional visit. Over winter break, she’d spent one awkward day at her father’s house and then headed down to Florida for a full week with Adam and his family, and it was the least alone she’d felt in her life.

  When the time came, they’d coordinated their top picks for graduate programs. Adam hadn’t gotten into her top choice, but they’d both been accepted at her second.

  “I don’t want to hold you back,” he’d said, his voice guarded over the phone.

  And it had taken her a minute. A long, anguished minute. But her priorities weren’t the same as they’d been before. “You’re not.”

  He never d
id. He held her up. Supported her and everything she chose to be.

  So they’d packed up their individual apartments and moved into a tiny one-bedroom place ten minutes from campus, and things were great. So great she never could’ve imagined being so happy.

  But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t have a hell of a lot riding on this announcement.

  While this had been her second-choice school, it’d been one of her first choices for advisors. This past month, all the first-year students had interviewed with various faculty to find the one whose lab group they’d join, the one they’d spend the next four to five years working in close proximity with. It wasn’t make or break, but if she ended up with Maria… Dr. Maria Evans…

  Well. Then she wouldn’t be giving up anything. She’d have her boyfriend and her career and a top-notch professor to help her shape her dissertation. It’d be perfect.

  In a calming gesture, Adam placed his hand on her knee. The weight and warmth of his touch eased her nerves and her restless fidgeting. She forced out a slow, deep breath.

  Releasing her knee, Adam clasped their palms together. Then he trailed higher, letting his fingertips drift over the new ink on the inside of her wrist. It matched the tattoo he’d gotten on his shoulder, the one she loved to trace while they lay together in bed at night.

  Just a dozen points of deep black sewn into their skin, connected by the faintest of lines. A map of the Scorpius constellation.

  Their shared confirmation that their stars had aligned.

  And just like that, she didn’t have to work nearly as hard to keep her breathing easy and slow.

  As the room quieted down, the head of the department took the podium, welcoming them and congratulating them on surviving their first month as PhD candidates. “And now. The moment you’ve all been waiting for.”

  Jo hated this overly dramatic bullshit. Why couldn’t they just e-mail out their matches like normal human beings?

  She sat there on the edge of her seat, listening and applauding politely as pairs of students and mentors were called up.

  “Adam McCay?”

  Jo’s heart thundered as Adam released her hand and stood.

  The chair of the department smiled. “You’ll be working with Sally Durand.”