She doesn’t push, just listens. “That intense kind of love doesn’t always know what to do with itself,” she says, so softly I almost miss it.
“Yeah,” I murmur, throat tight. “Guess it doesn’t.”
We sit there a while, silence turning warm again. Then she leans back, eyes soft. “Your spaghetti was decent. I’ll give you that, even if you have the emotional perception ofthat stick.”
I bark a laugh. “Yeah, we have plenty in common.” I pick it up, turn it over in my hands. “Someone please turnmeinto kindling before I have to face Rithy again.”
I let my head fall back against the couch, then hand her the stick. She takes it, curious. I lean close, my voice low against her ear. “Just like me, it’ll catch fire in your handsany second now.”
When she looks up, we don’t have a choice. The kiss finds us. It isn’t gentle or planned, it just happens, like our bodies remembering themselves. We move together, suddenly, unthinking, like two branches caught in a flood, one we made ourselves, built from longing and the cruelty of distance that we can’t stand for another second.
It deepens before we can think to stop it. Her mouth opens to mine, tongues teasing, finding a rhythm that needs no teaching.There’s no holding back, only the two of us holding on, caught in the same current. Washed away, helpless inside the waves of it. Her hands move up my chest, careful, yet certain. When she slips beneath the fabric it feels like she’s breaking me and waking me up in the same touch. My body rises under her like a command, unbuttoning my shirt and shedding it myself, angry at the way it keeps me from her. The air dances: cool where her touch leaves me, warm where she returns.
Her breath, the taste of wine, the trace of rain tangled in her hair, every sense locks on her until the rest of the world disappears. The sound of fabric giving way as I pull her shirt over her head, her hair spilling through my fingers. When she unclasps her bra, something in me stutters, equal parts awe and surrender.
I try to tame myself, hold the ocean back but it crashes over my weak barricade. My hand slips beneath the fabric below her waist, traveling between her thighs until it finds her center. It’s like touching fire and memory at once. The kind of heat every myth was built on beneath my palm. I glide along lightly, watching her arch and cling, until she grabs at my hand, a wordless plea. When I enter her, enveloping my fingers in the same flood that begs me to stay, she pulls me in with every tug of her hips. Her moans into my mouth only quicken my motions, our bodies finding that wordless tempo older than language.
This doesn’t feel new, it feels remembered, like I’ve been here before, reaching for her in every life and finally getting it right. My mouth trails from hers, to her throat, my other hand gripping the back of her neck, holding her as near as I can, frustrated by the simple physics that force even the slightest bit of distance between us. I ease her back onto the couch, and my kisses linger lower, tongue circling her nipple. When she gasps, my hand finds the center of her back; I hold her steady, let her roll through the contact, but don’t let her slip away from it.
I find her mouth again as her fingers trace the line of my collarbone. I free both palms and rest them at her waist, fingers tugging gently on the last barrier. A silent asking, patient, but the intent clear. Apparent in the way I bite her jaw, in the way she claws at my back, we keep answering, then waiting. For a moment, everything moves perfectly, a silent syncopation ofskin and breath.
Then she reaches for my belt, a question she asks herself, then stops. Her forehead rests against my shoulder, both of us breathing hard, balanced on the edge of yes. The body wants to lead, but I don’t. Every torturous possibility lives in the space between us, and none of them are worth losing her for.
“Kasia,” I whisper, dragging her hand to my chest, holding it there like it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart. “Christ.You make it impossible to think.” The words come out raw, torn. “Everything in me reacts to you. I want—I wantallof you.Every fucking piece.You’re in my bloody bloodstream now.”
I exhale, forcing my voice down to something almost calm. “We can stop, yeah? Just...stay. Please.”
I lean down and kiss her, willing her not to run now that she's finally here in my arms. She smiles against my lips, just enough to make me weak. I breathe her in, trying to steady the way it feels painful to stop, then pull away again just enough to look her in the eyes. “Is it about Rithy?”
Her breath catches. She sits back, covering herself, trying to hide beauty my mind has no intention ofeverforgetting, her motions suddenly shy. I grab a blanket draped over the couch and wrap it around my shoulders, then pull her into me until we’re back in the same warmth.
“I didn’t think it was,” she says. “Maybe I’m afraid that once we...” I hold her tighter, trying to deny the doubt rising up. “I’ll be what he said I am. Just anothergroupie. I can still hear his laugh, Rafe. Thereliefin it, like I wasnothing, just something you guys can get from a vending machine. What if he’s right? That what you two share is all that really matters?”
I hold her until her heartbeat steadies against mine. “Then we wait,” I tell her. “Until you trust what this is for me, that I mean it when I say I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods, eyes closing. The city breathes beyond the glass, the air still tasting of rain and wine. The urgency fades, leaving something tender between us behind, captured inside this blanket. The quiet after is its own kind of music, not the storm, but the shelter after it.
We linger beneath the blanket far longer than reason allows, half dreaming in a hush that feels close to bliss. Every small turn she makes sends a spark through me, the brush of her skin against mine, the whisper of warmth when she drifts away, the slow return when she finds me again. Everything has gone still except for our breathing; even the city seems to wait.
Somewhere between waking and sleep, I feel her watching. She’s twirling a strand of my hair between her fingers, eyes hazy with that soft morning glaze. I reach up, catch her wrist, then her hand, kiss the back of it, press her palm to my face before finding her mouth again.
“I have no idea what time it is,” I murmur, “but I’m sure you’re about to tell me you need to go.”
She nods, and I sigh. The moment breaks like light spilling through a curtain. The chill that slips beneath the blanket is sudden, almost cruel. She lifts it, gathers her things, bra, shirt, keys, calm, and when the light breaks over her face, she glows. For a heartbeat I think thatif she was the last thing I ever saw, blindness would be a mercy.
I stay as I am, shirtless, belt loose, feet bare. None of it matters. What matters is her, outlined in gold dust and leaving. Hands in mypockets, more to keep myself contained than out of courtesy, I follow her to the door. Just before she steps into the corridor, I pull her back for one more kiss, a keepsake, a breath I want her to carry. She gasps when I press her lightly against the door, my hand finding her throat in a touch that begs her mercy,don't go.
“Saturday then?” I ask.
“Only if no sticks are involved this time,” she teases.
I feign a scandalized sigh. “Thankfully he has no ears, or he’d never forgive that insult.”
Her laugh breaks the morning open.
“No sticks,” I tell her, my voice low. “Just his human counterpart, if you’ll have me. Before love makes a ghost ofmetoo, drowning in the underworld.”
The confession slips free before I can stop it. It isn’tI love you, but it’s the shape of it, the truth in disguise. Reckless, maybe, but I don’t take it back. I hold her gaze, letting her see the whole unguarded thing I’ve been trying not to name. She nods slowly, as if caught in the same thought. Maybe she is. I hope will alone is enough to keep her heart near mine, at least until Saturday.
