Her body is a problem I hadn't accounted for. I’ve spent months catching details here and there. The strip of skin between her shirt and jeans when she reached for something high. That sweater slipping off one shoulder, exposing a collarbone I'd had entire conversations with the ceiling to avoid staring at.
I'd done a lot of imagining at two in the morning, in bed, in the shower, in the car after dropping her off. I'd built a version in my head, filling in the unseen parts, and my brain had been generous. Reality is better.
She has a body that makes sense to me in a way I can't explain. Not short, not built the way magazines say, just soft where soft should be and firm where firm should be and warm everywhere.
I can't stop thinking about the specific way she fit against me when I lifted her, her legs around my hips, the whole weight of her like she'd been designed to be carried that way.
She watches my hand the whole time, eyes tracking my fingers like she's curious what I'll do next.
Her back arches slightly when I reach her breast, and I stay there. I cup her, let my thumb find her nipple and circle it lazy and slow. I'm not trying to start anything. I'm just touching her because I want to and she's letting me.
She lets me have all of it. Every part, no flinching, no adjusting, no pulling the sheet up when my eyes travel somewhere new. That kind of trust from a naked woman at four in the morning could ruin a man if he thought about it too hard. I'm thinking about it too hard.
My thumb keeps circling. Her nipple pebbles under my touch.
"They're too small."
I glance up. She's not meeting my eyes. She's studying my hand on her breast with an expression I haven't seen before, something almost shy, and that's a word I would never use for her until this exact moment.
I keep my thumb moving in slow circles and evenpressure, watching her nipple peak under my touch. She watches, too.
"See?" I murmur. "Perfect."
She lets out a giggle, light and surprised, and I lean down and kiss her, catching the end of that sound against my mouth.
"Are you okay?" she says a while later.
I scoff. "I should be asking you that."
"I asked first."
"I'm fine, Lily."
"You don't look fine." She tilts her head, studying me. "You look like a man who's thinking."
She's not wrong. I'm in the bed of a woman I promised her brother I wouldn't touch, instead regretting every second I didn't for almost a year. The math is not great.
"I'm good. Are you?"
She rolls her eyes so hard I feel it.
"Callahan. I have been ready for this since the staircase. You understand that, right? Since the literal first second I saw you. I have been standing right here, the entire time, while you fought with yourself and Rome and the concept of age gaps."
She ticks off on her fingers. "The firehouse. You kissed me and left. The porch. You kissed me and told me to go inside. The car. You kissed me and drove me home and sat outside like a security detail."
Her gaze is steady and unflinching.
"I have never once been the one with the problem."
"I know."
"So when you ask if I'm okay, just so we're clear, I havebeen okay this whole time. I have been very, very okay. I've been so okay it's been boring."
Of course. "Boring, huh?”
"Incredibly boring. Do you know how boring it is being ready for someone who won't stop being noble about it?"
"I wasn't noble. I was trying not to get buried in concrete by your brother."
