26.0 #2
Her head stayed against my shoulder, her breathing steady. My hand brushed her knee without meaning to, then didn't move away.
After a while, I said quietly, "You ever find any salon spaces you liked?"
She made a soft noise, half laugh, half sigh. "A few. Nothing perfect."
"What's wrong with them?"
"One's too small. One looks like it hasn't been cleaned since 2004." She tilted her head slightly, smiling against my shoulder. "There's one I liked. The owner takes twenty percent of your weekly sales. It's not terrible, just..."
"Just what?"
"I don't know." She looked up at me, curls framing her face. "It feels like settling."
I studied her for a second. "You don't have to work if you don't want to, Amira."
She scoffed, playful. "Don't start with that."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." She nudged me with her knee, smiling. "You're forgetting I actually like working. I just want something that feels comfortable."
"I get that," I said. "But I still don't like the idea of you stressing over a job when I can—"
"Don't finish that sentence," she warned, smiling harder now.
"—when I can help," I finished anyway.
She rolled her eyes, soft laughter spilling out. "You and that savior complex."
"Complex?"
She smirked. "Yeah. You can't stand when I don't need you."
I tilted my head. "Who said that?"
She shrugged. "Your face."
I laughed then — a quiet, low sound that made her smile widen. "You know, most people would say thank you when someone offers to pay their rent."
"Most people aren't me."
"That's true," I said. "There's only one of you."
The line hung there, heavier than I meant it to. She looked at me — really looked — and the smile on her face softened.
"Why do you always say stuff like that?" she asked quietly.
"Because it's true."
She shook her head, but the edges of her mouth still curved up. "You really think you're smooth, don't you?"
"I know I'm smooth."
Her laugh came out softer this time. "You're ridiculous."
"Maybe." I brushed a strand of hair from her face. "But you're still sitting here."
That made her pause. Her eyes flicked between mine, something unspoken pulling tight in the space between us.
"I missed you," she said finally — so soft I almost didn't catch it.
The words hit like a spark.
I didn't think. Just leaned in and kissed her.
It started as memory — the kind of kiss that reminded you exactly how dangerous history could be. But then it deepened, turned into something hungrier, like all the restraint we'd been pretending to have had reached its limit.
She shifted in my lap without hesitation, straddling me, her knees pressing into the couch on either side. My hands found her waist automatically, sliding under her shirt, tracing the warmth of her skin.
Her breath hitched when my fingers grazed higher. "Brooks—"
"Yeah?"
"Nothing," she whispered, kissing me again — harder this time.
The sound she made when I tugged her closer sent heat through every part of me that had missed her. The slow drag of her body against mine, the taste of her, the way her fingers threaded through my hair like she'd been waiting for permission — it was all too familiar and too new at once.
I let my hands roam, memorizing everything again. The curve of her hip. The soft spot beneath her ribs. The sound she made when I found the right rhythm.
She broke the kiss long enough to look at me, eyes glassy and wild. "I knew you couldn't handle just being platonic."
"Not true," I tried to disguise the grin fighting to come out.
She nodded her head, "It is true. Very true actually."
I smiled, breathless. "I think you like to argue."
"Maybe," she whispered, rolling her hips against mine, slow and deliberate. "Maybe I just like proving you wrong."
"Then keep going."
She laughed against my mouth, low and breathy, and that was it — the last thread of control snapped.
She stood first, backing toward the hallway without a word, every step deliberate. Her fingers brushed mine as she turned, and I followed — pulled more by instinct than choice. The air between us felt charged, the quiet kind of dangerous that came right before surrender.
Her room was dim, lit only by the lamp on the nightstand.
The light caught on her skin, soft gold across her shoulders, the edge of her collarbone.
She stopped near the bed, one hand braced on the frame.
When she looked over her shoulder, her eyes found mine — steady, certain, undoing me all at once.
I closed the distance slowly. My hand found her arm, tracing down to her wrist before I turned her toward me.
The second our mouths met again, everything changed.
It wasn't like before — not gentle, not searching.
It was hunger. The kind that felt half like ache, half like memory.
The years between us burned off in seconds.
I felt her breath catch against my tongue, the small sound she made when my hand slid to the back of her neck, when her fingers hooked in my shirt and dragged me closer.
Her body pressed flush to mine, heat and heartbeat and something that felt too close to home. The kiss deepened, roughened — her mouth opening wider, her hands gripping harder.
I backed her toward the bed, the edge hitting the back of her thighs. She didn't sit. She pulled me down instead, her fingers threading into my hair, kissing me like she'd been waiting years to remember how.
My hand found the hem of her shirt, slipped beneath it, dragging up along the soft curve of her waist. She trembled — not from hesitation, but from recognition. The kind that lives in the body long after the mind tries to forget.
She broke the kiss just enough to whisper my name, barely audible, but I felt it everywhere.
"Amira," I said back, rougher than I meant to.
She reached for me again, pulling me down until our foreheads touched. The air between us was hot, our breaths uneven. When her lips brushed mine once more — slower this time, surer — I knew there wasn't a line left between us to cross.
Her hands slid down my chest, fingers catching the buttons of my shirt. The scrape of fabric, the sharp inhale she took when my hand trailed down her spine — it was all noise and heartbeat and want.
The kiss shifted again, deeper, needier — the kind that pulled everything else out of focus.
When her back hit the mattress, I followed her down.
Her legs parted for me instinctively, like her body already knew mine again, even after all this time. I braced above her, foreheads still pressed, eyes locked. There was nothing coy in the way she looked at me now — only fire. Only hunger.
"You sure?" I asked, my voice barely holding together.
She didn't answer right away. Just slid her hands up my chest, to my jaw, pulling my mouth down to hers. The kiss she gave me was everything — filthy, certain, desperate — the kind that answered every question without a word.