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He is not Mu.
She is focusing all her energy on this one single thought as this man – who is not the man she loved, the man she lost – kisses the spot of tender skin under her right earlobe. This man who to all genetic and physical effect is Mu and yet not to her (not yet, not like this).
He regards her like a question mark and even now – with her pressed into the mattress and her fingers twisted around the iron board above her head – his touch seems almost tentative to Murrue.
She hurries him, arching up to meet his mouth, hard, and her eyes tightly closed and he smells like Mu and tastes like Mu and his skin gives in like Mu's under her touch and it's selfish and wrong and she should hate herself for it but it's the only thing that makes sense right now, the weight of him above her, the soft pressure of his fingertips across her wrist, and the way he is looking at her, not like he remembers her (he doesn't, he says he doesn't – yet), but like he loves her anyway.
Murrue has missed that look.
She watches him frown ever so slightly – but she still can read every shift, every crease, every gleam of light in his eyes – when she props herself on one elbow and grabs the waistband of his trousers, fingering the belt.
`Are you sure?´ He asks, his voice hitching in the last moment when he feels her pull down his clothes and reach her hand between their bodies.
That's her answer, a mute hurry - she is better off not thinking.
This man – this man who is not Mu, can't be, her mind races, doubt creeping in through waves of heat and need and recognition – may be looking at her with worry and carefulness but his body betrays him, he is hard and he groans when Murrue gives him no warning and guides him inside her.
Not the same man, maybe, but the same sense of arrival and simple exposure, the skin underneath the skin, places of vulnerability that Murrue thought she had closed forever (twice) and that this man – who is not that man yet but the possibility of yes lurking underneath, a maybe, maybe sprouting from the impossible like wild weeds through winter snow – unlocks them with something as simple and small as his breathing against the curve of Murrue's neck. Her lips twist into a silent oh because this is it and what was she expecting after all? This is what she had wanted. What she had been planning for when she took this strange man's hand and brushed her thumb over his palm and invited him into her bed and locked the door and held him against her.
He doesn't move at first. Murrue twists her hips and she can hear his breathing punctuated with other, low-tone noises from the back of his throat. He buries his face in the pillow, besides her head, a particular – and merciful – kind of restraint in the way his body holds together, still, frozen, all the muscles tense and quiet until Murrue thinks she can just about hear his bloodstream.
She puts her hand on the back of his neck, damp and hot and he shivers, like it's been years since anyone has touched him there (it's been years, she has not stopped to contemplate what kind of solitude he's been through as well – she will let herself be selfish for a little longer now).
`Please,´ she whispers in his ear, her voice sounding alien even to herself, raw, like the hissing of a storm across thick woods, or like a leaping river, or like a fish gasping for air, unafraid of death but terrified of incompleteness. Please, her voice is dark.
He moves, finally.
Murrue has not forgotten a single moment, not even one second of the few precious days she spent with Mu. Every second carved itself out on her skin so when this man – and Murrue doesn't know who he is, but she doesn't know who he isn't either, anymore – moves his hips and starts fucking her it's easy to move with him, to match his thrusts, like they had never stopped doing this, like there wasn't a moment when they have not been together, the blueprints of each other's desire have never been lost or forgotten.
This is not Mu. But it is the same. Not a memory. Not the indulgence Murrue has been looking for, and fuck consequences and guilt. This is not repeating history. This man kisses her face and calls Murrue's face in quick, pained breaths and when he calls her name it doesn't sound like he remembers. It sounds like he knows her.
This is not what she wanted, what she thought she needed. (She thought she needed something that was not Mu but something that was enough, something warm and desperate and hurting and alive. She did not plan for love.)
Murrue doesn't know this man – not yet – but so many details are the same: his slow and deep thrusts, the colour of his hair when she twists her fingers around and pulls him down for a kiss, the taste of him, salt from sweat and something so familiar, as familiar as the first time (the first time with Mu, she thinks, Mu, Mu, Mu, panicking, and just the memory of that name is what almost makes her come).
But she is not kissing Mu, she is not fucking Mu, she doesn't have her legs around Mu's back.
He says `sorry´ when he comes, quick, rough, and holding her hand, squeezing until it hurts (the pain surprises Murrue, it means he is here, and she is here with him) and he smiles at her, a bright open smile, and he kisses her forehead.
This is not what Murrue wanted, but she got it anyway, she got this man, and she is holding his hand, too, whether he is Mu or not.