Chapter 16 #2
She didn’t flinch. She just begged louder.
“Harder,” she said.
So I gave it to her.
My hand slid from her hip to her waist as I drove into her with everything I had. Her moans broke apart—ragged, gasping, desperate. Her head dropped between her arms as her body tightened around me.
“Tariq—”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I’m not.”
Her legs buckled. I felt the shift—her climax coming like a wave she couldn’t stop. She cried out when it hit her, screaming my name as her body clamped down around me, pulsing, shaking. Milking me. I bit down on my lip to keep from following her.
I slowed. Let her ride it.
Thrusting deep. Steady. Until her breath came back.
Then I pulled out.
She whimpered.
I lifted her onto the table, spread her thighs, and dropped to my knees.
She tried to close them.
I didn’t let her.
“Tariq, I—”
“You can.”
I licked her slow. Deep. Tasting her, devouring her. She was still trembling. Still swollen. Still mine. I sucked her clit into my mouth and her legs clamped around my shoulders. Her back arched.
Her second orgasm crashed through her quieter but just as fierce. Her fingers gripped my head. Her body curled around my mouth.
I stroked myself while I tasted her. On the edge again.
When I couldn’t take it, I stood and slid back inside of her, feeling her still fluttering walls caressing me as I gave her everything I had left to give.
The kitchen looked like a storm hit it. But all I saw was her.
Still tasting me. Still glistening between her thighs. Still everything.
Later, we were in her bed.
The chaos we’d made in the kitchen felt far away now. Reduced to memory. To heat still lingering in our bones. Here, everything was slower. Breathing slower. Thinking slower.
She lay sprawled across me like she had nowhere else to be, cheek resting over my heart, one leg hooked over my thigh.
Her skin was warm from the shower we’d taken together, the faint scent of her soap mixing with mine.
My hand rested at the small of her back, tracing lazy circles, not trying to start anything—just needing to touch her. To confirm she was still there.
The room was dim. A lamp on her nightstand cast a soft amber glow that barely reached the walls. Outside, the city hummed its usual late-night rhythm, but in here it felt sealed off. Quiet. Safe.
Just us.
“You’re staring,” she murmured without lifting her head.
“I’m not,” I said.
She smiled against my chest. “You always get real still when you’re staring.”
I exhaled, fingers continuing their slow path along her spine. “Just… taking a minute.”
“To do what?”
“To not be anywhere else.”
That made her lift her head.
Her eyes searched my face—not playfully, not teasing. Really looking. Like she was measuring the truth of what I’d said.
“I like having you here,” she admitted. “After everything. After all the years we spent orbiting each other, missing each other, or getting it wrong… this feels different.”
“It is different.”
“How?”
I thought about that before answering. About fires. About walking into structures not knowing what would give way. About how most of my life had been built around staying ready to lose.
“This time,” I said slowly, “I’m not waiting for it to fall apart.”
She studied me a second longer, then let her fingers drift over the scar on my shoulder. The one she always touched like she was smoothing it out of existence.
“You used to keep me in the distance” she said. “Even when you swore you weren’t.”
“Yeah.”
“And now?”
I slid my hand up her back, settling it between her shoulder blades, holding her there.
“Now I’m tired of shutting you out.”
The words sat between us. Heavy, but not frightening. Just honest.
She rested her chin on my chest again, quieter this time. Thoughtful.
“I caught myself earlier,” she said. “When you went to rinse those glasses… I was listening for you. Like—really listening. The way you do when someone lives with you.”
I huffed a soft laugh. “That’s a dangerous habit.”
“I know.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Then she said, almost casually, “Have you ever thought about trying it again?”
I didn’t pretend not to understand what she meant.
Living together.
Not the past version of us. Not the younger one that ran on instinct and stubbornness. This version. The one that had already broken once and somehow found its way back.
“Yeah,” I said. “I have.”
Her fingers stilled against my chest. “Recently?”
“Since the night you fell asleep in my arms and didn’t even pretend you were going home.”
That earned me a small laugh.
“I remember that.”
“You left your toothbrush the next stay” I added.
“That was not intentional.”
“Didn’t say it was.”
She shifted slightly, propping herself up on her forearm now, looking down at me. There was no rush in her expression. No pressure. Just openness.
“I’m not asking to recreate something,” she said. “I don’t want us trying to redo what we already lived.”
“Good,” I said. “Because that version of me didn’t know how to love you like I wanted you to stay.”
“And this one does?”
“This one wants to never come home, and you not be there ever again.”
That seemed to land somewhere deep inside her. I saw it in the way her shoulders softened. In the way she leaned down and pressed her forehead to mine instead of kissing me.
“Maybe we don’t decide tonight,” she whispered.
“Maybe we already did,” I answered.
She smiled at that. We stayed like that for a long time. No more heavy talk. No need to define timelines or logistics or whose place made more sense. Those were details. They’d come.
What mattered was the quiet. Her breathing evening out. My hand still moving against her back.
The strange, unfamiliar feeling of not bracing for impact.
For once, there was no alarm waiting to sound. No call dragging me away. No distance creeping back in.
Just her weight over me. Just the steady rhythm of something we were finally allowing ourselves to build.
And I realized I wasn’t thinking about the next fire. I was thinking about breakfast. About where she kept the coffee. About whether there was room in her closet.
About staying.