22. Amos
AMOS
I take the stairs two at a time, moving toward the rooftop terrace.
Rome doesn’t sleep; it just exhales. From up here, the city is a sprawl of amber light and jagged silhouettes.
The dome of St. Peter’s sits on the horizon like a giant, glowing bell jars, and the air carries the scent of damp stone and diesel.
I lean my elbows on the cold marble railing, letting the breeze tug at my hair.
For years, this has been my ritual. Survive the chaos, find a high vantage point, and remind myself I’m still standing. But tonight, the victory feels hollow. The silence is too loud.
The heavy iron door creaks behind me. I don’t turn around. I know the rhythm of those footsteps.
"The view is better when you aren't looking for a missing kid," Baleigh says, her voice soft and slightly raspy from the day's stress.
She’s wrapped in a thick cardigan that swallows her frame, her hair a messy halo in the moonlight. She moves to the railing, leaving a respectful foot of space between us, but I feel the heat radiating off her.
"Couldn't sleep?" I ask, finally looking at her. The shadows under her eyes match mine.
"My brain won't shut up," she admits, bracing her weight against the stone. "Every time I shut my eyes, I’m back at that police station or checking the hospital lists again. Does that go away?"
"The replay loop? Not really. You just get better at fast-forwarding."
She doesn't reply. She just looks out at the city, her profile sharp against the Roman skyline. Usually, I’d have a line ready.
I’d make a joke about the coffee we’re going to need tomorrow or tell a ridiculous story about a similar night in Prague to make her laugh.
The words sit in my throat, heavy and useless.
We stand there for a long time. The only sound is the distant hum of a scooter three streets over and our synchronized breathing.
There’s no performance needed tonight. She saw the cracks in the armor today, and strangely, I don't feel the urge to patch them up.
Having her here, standing in the quiet wreckage of the day, is the first time in a decade I haven't felt like I'm holding up the sky on my own.
"You make it look so easy," she says, her shoulder grazing mine. "The way you handled that mother on the phone, the way you navigated the local bureaucracy... it’s like you were born for the friction."
I let out a dry, jagged laugh. "I’m just a very good actor, Baleigh."
I turn my back to the city, leaning my weight against the railing so I can see her face. The irony isn't lost on me. I spend my life jumping across borders, collecting passport stamps like they’re badges of honor, but tonight, the miles feel like a weight.
"The truth is, days like this leave me feeling hollowed out," I say. I wait for the familiar urge to pivot to a joke, but the impulse doesn't come. "I’ve spent twelve years being the guy with the map and the emergency plan. I’m the constant for everyone else, which means I’m the variable in my own life. I’ve lived out of a suitcase so long that I don’t think I have a 'home' to go back to.
Just storage units and empty apartments. "
I glance down at my hands, resting on the cold stone.
"I use the humor because people stop asking questions if they’re laughing. It’s a great way to keep everyone at arm’s length while making them think I’m right there with them. But lately... the quiet is harder to ignore. It’s lonely being the only person in the room who isn't allowed to panic."
I expect her to offer a platitude, something about how exciting my life must be. Instead, Baleigh turns fully toward me. Her eyes are dark in the moonlight, searching mine with a terrifying intensity.
"I don't think you're just acting, Amos," she says quietly.
"I’ve watched you. I see the man who stays up late checking the rosters long after everyone else is in bed.
I see the way you notice when a student is homesick before they even realize it.
You aren't just a guy with a joke; you're the person who catches everyone when they fall. You’re a protector. "
She reaches out, her hand hovering just inches from my arm, hesitant.
"Everyone relies on you because you're the most reliable thing they’ve ever met. But I see the cost of that. I see that you’re tired, not just from the day, but from carrying it all by yourself."
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. It’s not a confession; it’s a mirror.
She’s stripped away the charm and the travel-weary cynicism with a few sentences, leaving me standing there on a Roman rooftop, more exposed than I’ve been in a decade.
I realize I’ve been waiting for years for someone to look past the smile, yet now that she has, I’m not sure how to breathe.
The space between us collapses like a bridge giving way.
One moment, we’re standing there, raw and exposed, and the next, her hands rip at my shirt, pulling me in.
The first brush of her lips against mine is teasing, testing—like she’s waiting for me to laugh it off, to retreat behind the joke. But I’m done retreating.
I cup her face, thumbs tracing the sharp line of her cheekbones, and kiss her properly.
She tastes like exhaustion and the cheap espresso we choked down hours ago, and something sweeter underneath—hope, maybe, or just the lingering ghost of the wine we never got to finish.
Her fingers slide into my hair, tugging just hard enough to make my breath hitch.
Rome hums below us, indifferent to the way my pulse is hammering.
The wind carries the distant chime of church bells, the occasional shout from a street over, but all I hear is the hitch in her breath when my mouth finds the curve of her neck.
She arches into me, her body warm and pliant against mine, and I swallow the soft noise she makes.
"You’re shaking," she murmurs against my jaw, her hands sliding under my shirt, tracing the tense lines of my back.
"Adrenaline crash," I lie, but she knows. She always knows.
Her laugh is quiet, breathless. "Liar." She presses closer, her lips brushing my ear. "It’s okay to need something too, Amos."
The words unravel something in me. My hands tighten on her hips, pulling her flush against me, and for the very first time in years, I let myself want without calculating the exit strategy.
The city blurs into streaks of gold and shadow, but she’s solid, real—her heartbeat thundering against my chest, her fingers mapping my skin like she’s memorizing the terrain.
I don’t know who moves first, but suddenly we’re stumbling back toward the rooftop lounge, her back hitting the weathered couch with a soft thump. She pulls me down with her, legs wrapping around my waist, and for once, I’m not thinking about tomorrow.
The moment her hands slide under my shirt, skin against skin after months of glancing touches and stolen glances, everything narrows to the heat of her mouth on mine and the pulse hammering in my throat.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders like she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she loosens her grip. I don’t plan to. Not tonight.
She kisses like she’s been starving for it—all teeth and breathless little gasps when my tongue drags along hers.
My hands fumble with the buttons of her blouse, but she’s quicker, shrugging it off in one impatient motion.
The fabric pools around her bare shoulders, and fuck, she’s not wearing anything underneath tonight.
Just a thin cotton camisole with lace at the edges, the kind that makes my fingertips itch to trace every inch.
I don’t ask permission. Just bend my head to press my lips to the fluttering pulse at her throat and feel the hitch in her breath when my teeth graze the sensitive skin there.
Her hands fist in my hair, pulling just hard enough to make me groan against her collarbone.
“God, you’re impatient,” I murmur, dragging my mouth lower, nipping at the swell of her breast through the fabric.
Her laugh breaks into a gasp as my fingers skim up her ribs, thumb brushing the underside of a nipple. “You talk too much,” she counters, twisting her hands in my shirt and hauling me back up to her mouth.
The protest dies in my throat when her hips rock up against mine, heat and friction igniting under my skin.
I swallow her moan, pushing her back against the cushions, one knee settling between her thighs.
My fingers trail down her stomach, skimming the waistband of her shorts before slipping beneath.
She’s already wet, already arching into my touch with a shuddering exhale that warms the side of my neck.
“Eager,” I tease, but my voice cracks halfway through the word when her hand slips into my waistband, fingers wrapping around my swollen cock with just enough pressure to make my vision blur.
She squeezes, slow and deliberate, thumb swiping over the head, and—fuck, she knows exactly what she’s doing.
“You were saying?” she breathes against my mouth as she claims my lips again.
I bite back a curse and dissolve all as branching it into raw need.
For once, I can’t think. Don’t want to strategize or calculate or plan the next fucking step—I just want her, here, now, with my hands tangled in her hair and her breath hot against my skin.
The sofa groans under us as I lift her just enough to drag those shorts down her thighs. She kicks them off, half-laughing, half-panting as I behold her beautiful, flushed skin beneath me. I settle between her thighs, hands hooking under her knees to spread her wider.
"Fuck me, Amos." her voice is a breathless pant that goes straight to my crotch. I don't know how I'm going to keep it together.
I don’t let her finish. Just dip my tongue into her, slow and deep, savoring the way she tenses, the way her hips jerk when I swirl tight circles around her clit.
Her thighs tremble around my shoulders, her fingers knotting in my hair as I drag my tongue flat against her, again and again, until her breathing fractures into ragged gulps of air.
She tastes like salt and sweet juices and desperation, and I can’t get enough. Can’t stop. Every hitch of her breath, every broken gasp drives me higher.
When she comes, it’s with my name tearing from her lips and my fingers buried inside her, curling just right. I lap at her through it, drawing out every tremor until she’s boneless beneath me, chest heaving.
But she's not content to just lie there—she's hungry in a way that steals all coherent thought.
Before I can even catch my breath, before the aftershocks of her last orgasm have fully faded, she's twisting us over with shocking strength.
The sofa cushions shift under our weight as she settles astride me, thighs bracketing my hips, her palms flat against my chest as she rises up.
Christ, her eyes—wide and dark as spilled ink at midnight, pin me in place like she's casting some ancient spell.
There's not an ounce of hesitation in her, no playful teasing—just that unflinching intensity as she sinks onto me in one liquid, devastating movement that steals every last breath from my body.
Her muscles clench tight as she takes me in completely, and for one suspended moment the entire fucking universe collapses down to this—the exquisite sensation of her enveloping heat, the sweat-slick press of her thighs against mine, the way her lower lip catches between her teeth as she adjusts to the stretch.
The world goes blinding white behind my eyelids, synapses firing wildly as every coherent thought disintegrates.
Nothing exists beyond the dizzying rightness of her surrounding me, claiming me.
Not the creak of the sofa beneath us. Not the distant hum of Roman traffic twelve floors below.
Just her—her breath hitching above me, her fingers digging into my shoulders, the molten heat between her thighs where we’re joined.
It’s all-consuming, obliterating—like she’s carved out a piece of the sun itself and pressed it between our bodies.
Then she begins to move, and every synapse in my body erupts into static. My thoughts dissolve into primal sensation, reduced to the maddening friction of her body on mine, the slick heat between us, the shuddering sounds she makes with each desperate roll of her hips.
She moves like she’s spent lifetimes waiting for this moment—like she’s memorized me long before ever touching me.
Starts agonizingly slow, teasing, letting every inch of me sink deeper before withdrawing with deliberate, sensual strokes.
My fingers dig bruises into the curve of her hips just to keep myself grounded.
Her rhythm is methodical at first, maddeningly controlled, hinting at something wilder bubbling just beneath—but then, ah, then patience fractures.
Her control splinters, breaths ragged and broken, as she surges against me with reckless abandon.
No hesitation now, no sweet torment—just hunger, raw and demanding.
Her nails score possessive lines down my stomach, marking me as hers in the only way that matters, and I can’t help the groan that claws from my throat, rough and unraveled.
I grip her tighter, fingers pressed into the soft swell of her thighs, guiding but never steering.
No—this is her command. Every snap of her hips casts a flickering shadow against the Roman skyline behind her.
I whisper a declaration amidst our passionate movements: mine.
Mine in the way her body trembles when I thrust up to meet her, mine in the ragged hitch of her voice when her control slips, mine in the way she crashes against me like she’ll never get enough.
And God, I hope she doesn’t.
The pristine sprawl of Rome stretches behind her like a Renaissance painting smeared by motion, centuries-old monuments reduced to mere background noise as my world narrows to her—the flutter of her lashes when pleasure crests again, the way her teeth sink into that plush lower lip when I shift beneath her, the delicious clench of her body around mine as she shudders through another climax.
This time I let go completely, fingers bruising into the lush curves of her hips as I surge up to meet her one last time, following her over that trembling edge with a groan that resonates deeper than the Roman catacombs beneath our feet possibly could.
She collapses on top of me bonelessly, her skin slick with sweat and sticking to mine.
Chests heaving, hearts pounding—neither of us moves, neither of us speaks.
Words would cheapen this moment. She—Christ, she’s the only tangible thing anchoring me to earth right now.
The way her breath hitches against my collarbone, the lazy stroke of her fingertips along my ribs, the erratic staccato of her pulse where my lips press against her throat—she’s ruin and resurrection all assembled into one devastatingly beautiful woman.
And I’m utterly, irrevocably lost to it.