When she is done, she pulls me up.
I take her face in my hands.
"Nadia."
"Yes."
"I love you."
"I know."
"Say it again."
"I love you, Sean."
"Again."
"I love you."
I push inside her.
I am as slow as I have been all night.
She arches up against me. Her hands are on my back. Her legs come around my hips. The wound in my side is healed enough that it no longer protests. Everything else is paying attention.
I move.
She moves with me.
This is the thing I have been wanting from the moment the warehouse door came off its hinges. Her body and mine, in a room where neither of us has to perform. Her face under mine. Her eyes open.
She comes again with my forehead against hers and my eyes on hers.
"Resta, Stay,” she says. Against my mouth. The word she has not used in any room we have been in together.
"Yes."
I follow her.
I stay inside her.
I do not move for a long second.
She does not move either.
When I finally roll us, she comes with me. She fits against my side the way she fit on the couch. Her head on my shoulder. Her hand on my chest. Her leg over mine.
She says, against my chest, "Stay."
"Yes."
"Always."
"Yes."
I close my eyes.
She is asleep before I am.
