Chapter 14 #2
“Can’t think,” she corrects, already reaching for me with that determined look that means I’m in trouble in the best possible way. “Can’t remember why I was unpacking. Can’t do anything except want you inside me right now.”
“Well, when you put it like that.”
I let her pull me up, settling my weight carefully over her as she works at my belt with focused efficiency. Her hands are shaking slightly, and the knowledge that I did that to her makes heat pool at the base of my spine.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” she says, shoving my jeans down my hips. “This is a problem.”
“Easily solved.” I help her, kicking the denim away. My cock springs free, hard and aching, and she wraps her hand around it with the particular confidence of someone who knows exactly what I like.
“God,” I groan, my hips jerking into her grip. “Mei.”
“I love you,” she says, simple and direct. Her hand moves, slow and deliberate, and I have to close my eyes against the intensity of it. “Even when you’re being weird about nightstand drawers.”
The comment is casual, throwaway, but it makes my stomach tighten with guilt. Because I am being weird. Weird about the drawer, weird about the ring hidden under takeout menus, weird about the particular way I keep glancing toward the nightstand like it might spontaneously combust.
“I love you too,” I say, meaning it completely. “Even when you’re reorganizing my entire life without asking.”
“I asked,” she protests, already guiding me to her entrance. “Three days ago. I said I was moving in, and you said—”
The words cut off as I push forward, slow and careful, giving her body time to adjust. The sensation is overwhelming. Tight heat surrounding me, her body accepting me inch by careful inch, her breath coming in short gasps against my ear.
Fuck. She feels perfect. Like she was made for this. For me.
“What did I say?” I ask when I’m fully seated, my forehead pressed against hers.
“You said—” She pauses, her hips shifting experimentally, and the movement sends sparks up my spine. “I don’t remember. Something about forever. You were being romantic.”
I was being romantic. Panicking about the ring, actually, and whether three days was too soon to propose after she’d just agreed to move in. Whether I should wait. Whether the moment would be right.
Not romantic. Very not romantic.
“I’m being romantic now,” I say instead, and pull back slowly before pushing forward again.
“No?” She wraps her legs around my waist, changing the angle in a way that makes my vision blur. “You seem pretty focused.”
“Completely focused.” I build a rhythm, careful at first, then deeper as her body relaxes into the sensation. “On you. On this. On the way you feel around me.”
“Good answer.” Her hands find my shoulders, her nails digging in. “Very diplomatic.”
We move together, finding the rhythm that works. Her hips rise to meet mine, her body accepting me deeper with each thrust. The sound of skin on skin fills the room, punctuated by her gasps and my groans.
“Harder,” she says, her voice breaking. “Tovek, please. I need—”
I give her what she needs. Drive into her with more force, more urgency. The bed frame creaks beneath us. Her nails rake down my back, and the sharp sting of it makes me thrust harder.
“Yes,” she gasps. “Like that. God, just like that.”
I can feel my orgasm building at the base of my spine, but I’m not ready. Not yet. I want her to come again first. Want to feel her tighten around me, hear my name in her mouth.
I shift my weight, free one hand to slide between us. Find her clit with my thumb and press.
“Oh fuck,” she cries out, her back arching. “Tovek. I’m going to—”
“Do it,” I growl against her ear. “Come for me. Let me feel it.”
She does. Her body clamps down around me, her inner walls fluttering and clenching. The sensation pushes me over the edge. My rhythm falters as my own release crashes through me, my weight settling more fully on her as I empty myself inside her.
For a long moment, we stay connected. My forehead pressed against hers, both of us breathing hard, both of us probably crushing the packing paper beneath us.
Worth it.
“Your unpacking is everywhere,” she observes after a while, her voice lazy with satisfaction. “All my careful organization, completely destroyed.”
“We’ll fix it later,” I say, already reaching for the blanket at the foot of the bed. “After we recover. After we regain the ability to think.”
“Recover,” she repeats, that particular note in her voice that means she’s amused. “From unpacking?”
“From you,” I correct, pulling the blanket over us. “From the way you take over my life and make it better despite my best efforts to resist.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my chest. “Is that what I do?” she asks finally, her voice softer than before. “Take over your life?”
“In the best possible way,” I say, meaning it completely. “You organize my chaos. You make systems out of my disasters. You turn my mess of a bedroom into our home. You make me want to be better, which is honestly a miracle.”
“It’s not a home yet,” she points out. “We still need to find a place for the trophy. And figure out the closet situation. And probably buy more hangers.”
“We’ll figure it out.” I kiss the top of her head, breathing in the particular scent of her shampoo mixed with sweat and sex. “Right now, I just want to lie here with you and not think about unpacking or organization or anything except how much I love you.”
“Smooth,” she says, but she’s smiling. “Very smooth.”
“I have my moments.”
She shifts against me, propping herself up on one elbow to look at my face. “You’ve been thinking about something,” she observes. “Not just the moving in thing. Something bigger.”
My heart does a weird stutter-step. “What makes you say that?”
“Because I know you.” She traces the line of my jaw with one finger. “You get this look. Like you’re planning something. Like you’re waiting for the right moment.”
“Maybe I am,” I say carefully. “Would that be okay?”
“Plans are good.” She’s quiet for a moment, her expression thoughtful. “I like plans. Especially when they involve us. Together. Preferably with better closet organization.”
“Always together,” I say, the words coming out more forceful than I intended. “Whatever comes next, it’s us. Both of us. Building something that lasts. Something permanent.”
She smiles against my chest. I can feel the curve of her mouth against my skin. “Like the pantry,” she says softly. “Something that says we were here. That we built this together.”
“Exactly like the pantry.” I kiss the top of her head, my chest tight with emotion I can’t quite name. “Imperfect but real. Handmade. Ours.”
We lie there in comfortable silence, the afternoon light filtering through the half-drawn blinds, the scattered packing paper forgotten on the floor and the bed and probably in places we won’t discover for weeks.
The debt will be cleared soon. Then I can ask her the question that’s been burning in my chest since the day I carved a knife and whisk into cedar wood. Soon, the ring hidden in the nightstand can finally find its proper home on her finger.
But for now, I revel in her weight against my chest, her breathing deep and even, the particular intimacy of an afternoon spent unpacking boxes and making love on top of the ruins of her organizational efforts.
“Tovek?” she says after a while, her voice soft with approaching sleep.
“Yeah?”
“Next time I try to organize your stuff, maybe warn me if there’s something you don’t want me to find.” She pauses, her hand stilling on my chest. “I won’t go looking. I promise. But it would save you the anxiety.”
I laugh despite myself, the tension in my chest easing slightly. “Deal.”
“Good. Now let’s take a nap, and then we can actually find a place for the trophy. Properly this time. Without destroying all my work. And without sex. Probably.”
“Probably?”
“I’m not making any promises,” she says, already half-asleep. “You’re very distracting. It’s a problem.”
“Your problem,” I point out.
“Our problem,” she corrects. “We’re a team. We share problems. And closets. And trophies. And apparently a complete inability to organize anything without getting distracted.”
“I love you,” I say, meaning it completely.
“I love you too,” she murmurs. “Even though you’re a disaster. Especially because you’re a disaster.”
She falls asleep like that, her breathing deep and even, completely trusting.
Soon, I’ll ask her to marry me.