Chapter 4 - Seven Years of Hunger

Val

His words landed in my stomach like a sudden flame — he’d been looking for me all this time.

“I can take you home,” Chris said, voice low and a touch raw. “But… if you want, we could stop by my place first. Coffee. Or,” his eyes darkened, “be adults about this.”

It was déjà vu in the best and worst way. Years ago I’d been the one to make that choice. Now he was the one offering it.

“Let’s go,” I whispered.

The drive felt endless and electric. We talked little; every accidental brush of his hand, every glance at the gearshift sent shivers through me. When we reached his apartment he barely had the door latched before his mouth was on mine — urgent, fierce, like everything that had waited seven years was collapsing at once.

“You have no idea,” he rasped against my lips, “how long I’ve wanted this.”

The composed professor was gone. This was Chris — precise and dangerous and entirely his. We stumbled inside, hands greedy, tearing at buttons and fabric with an almost clumsy desperation. Jackets landed in a heap. My dress slipped loose under his hands.

He laughed against my mouth, some of the ache in him finally giving way. He lifted me easily, my legs locking instinctively around his waist as he carried me through the living room. The sofa was closer than the bedroom, and he set me down there with no less tenderness than if he’d carried me to a bed.

“God, I missed this,” he breathed, pressing his palms at my lower back to keep me against him. His lips found my throat, leaving warm, impatient kisses that had me breathless and laughing in the same heartbeat.

“Chris—” My voice came out thin, part plea, part warning.

“You say it the same way,” he murmured, voice rough. “Like you always have.”

He steadied himself, eyes on mine, as if checking permission and finding it. The kisses deepened, messy and grounding. His hands moved over me like they’d memorized the map of my skin. I clung to him, fingers tangling in the back of his shirt, our breaths coming and going out of sync.

At some point the urgency softened into something slower, fiercer in another way — not frantic, but intentional. He paused to search my face, as though wanting to save this image in him. “Tell me you want this,” he whispered.

“I want you,” I answered without hesitation. The words surprised me with how easily they fit.

He smiled, a sharp, relieved thing, and pulled me close until I could feel the steady of him under my cheek. We moved together in a rhythm that felt older than the night — familiar, honest, and full of the reckoning of lost time. It wasn’t neat or rehearsed; it was real and very much ours.

When the waves of it ebbed, we lay tangled on the sofa, the city muffled outside. His hand smoothed my hair, his forehead pressed to mine.

“I’m glad you came,” he said softly.

“Me too,” I breathed, and in the quiet that followed, something heavy and certain settled between us — a fragile, fierce promise that neither of us would pretend away this time.

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For a long time we just lay there, tangled and ruined, our breathing ragged. His forehead rested against mine, his hand still gripping mine like he was afraid I’d vanish.

I laughed weakly, glancing at the ruined sofa cushions. “Your couch will never forgive us.”

He chuckled, the sound rough but real. “Worth it.”

My heart squeezed. Because it wasn’t just sex. It was years of hunger, of loneliness, of two people colliding again when they never thought they would.

Later, when the world slowed, I curled against him, my cheek rising and falling with his chest. He stroked my arm in lazy circles, watching me like I was something fragile.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whispered.

“Making sure you’re real,” he said, voice steady but eyes too raw. His thumb brushed my cheek. “That this is real.”

Emotion clogged my throat. “Promise me you won’t disappear again. Please.”

He exhaled hard, pressing his forehead to mine. “I have complications, Val. Things I can’t ignore. But I swear I’ll fight like hell to come back to you. Because this—” his hand pressed to my heart, “—this is what’s been missing all along.”

Tears burned my eyes as his lips found mine again, softer this time, lingering.

And for the first time in years, I let myself believe.

We stayed like that, wrapped in each other, until the weight of morning pressed between us. Eventually, reluctantly, we untangled. Tomorrow was my first day at Heartfelt. And we both knew we’d have to face the world as if none of this had ever happened.

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