We stay like that for another second, and then I let go.
"Whatever you say, big bro." I push him gently toward Erin. "But can you both leave now? We're going to have make-up sex."
Callahan groans behind me. Erin snickers, already reaching for Rome's hand, and Rome looks disgusted and pained in a way that brings me enormous joy.
"Ooh, the best kind," Erin says, and starts dragging Rome toward the door. "You know what that's like, right, babe?"
The door closes behind them before we have to hear what Rome says, but Erin's squeal echoes in the hallway anyway.
I turn around slowly, and Callahan is standing in my kitchen with an expression I've never seen before. It's hungry, yes. It's always hungry when he looks at me like that. But there's a patience behind it I haven't seen before.
"So," I say. "Make-up sex."
"You just had to announce it to your brother."
"He'll survive." I take a step toward him. "Will you?"
He watches me approach, his eyes darkening, that muscle in his jaw doing the thing it does when he's holding himself back. "Remains to be seen."
"That sounds like a challenge."
"That sounds like a promise, Trouble."
I stop in front of him, close enough to feel the heat coming off his body, close enough to see the pulse jumping in his throat. My hands find the hem of his shirt.
"You know what's different about this?" I ask, my fingers tracing the warm skin just above his waistband.
"Tell me."
"We have time." I look up at him, and the truth of it hits me all over again, a wave of relief so strong it almost takes my knees out. "We actually have time."
"Yeah," he says happily. "We do."
He kisses me then, slow and deep, and it's different. Everything about it is different. There's no desperation clawing underneath, no ticking clock driving us forward, no fear that this might be the last time. He kisses me like we have forever, like he can take his time learning every corner of my mouth, like there's nowhere else he needs to be.
I melt into him, my hands sliding up under his shirt to find warm skin and hard muscle, and he makes a sound against my mouth that goes straight through me.
"Bedroom," I moan.
"We have time," he reminds me, a hint of teasing in his voice, and I pull back to glare at him.
"Callahan Holt, if you don't get me horizontal in the next thirty seconds, I will…"
He picks me up. Just scoops me right off the floor, hishands under my thighs, and I wrap around him with a laugh that turns into a gasp when his mouth finds my neck.
"You were saying?" he murmurs against my pulse point.
"I was saying you're very good at following instructions."
"I'm good at a lot of things."
"Prove it."
He carries me down the hall to my bedroom, and I'm kissing his face, his neck, the spot behind his ear that I love. The door is already open, and he walks us through and kicks it shut behind him, and then I'm falling backward onto my bed with him coming down over me, his weight pressing me into the mattress.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi," I say.
