Page 34 of Honeyfires

Then I lifted my hand from her throat and brought it to her face instead, and her eyes finally closed, and she turned her cheek into my palm like something seeking warmth.

We stayed like that for a long moment.

"Vera," I said, very quietly. "Talk to me."

"I'm here." A long exhale. "I'm very, very here."

"Good."

She turned her face toward me, eyes still closed, mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile yet. "I've been thinking about that for six years," she said. "Since I figured out what I wanted."

I stayed quiet.

"It was better," she said, "than I imagined."

I pressed a kiss to her forehead. She made a small sound, content and drowsy and thoroughly undone, and curled against me with the settled certainty of someone who had exactly nowhere else they intended to be.

The moon had come up while we weren't paying attention, cool and silver through the curtains. The room had gone quiet.

"Stay," she murmured. "The whole night."

I had reasons not to. A full list of them, sensible and self-protective, well-organized in the part of my brain that was still functioning.

I listened to her breathe. Felt her go warm and heavy against my side.

"Okay," I said.

Her smile pressed into my collarbone.

I woke to sunlight and the smell of coffee and the acute awareness of being watched.

Vera was sitting cross-legged on her side of the bed, already in her robe, cat-eye glasses on, mug held in both hands, studying me.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked.

"Long enough." She took a sip. "You make a very interesting face when you sleep."

"I make a—" I pressed a hand over my eyes. "What kind of face?"

"Like you're solving a problem, but it's going well." She tilted her head. "It's extremely cute."

"I don't do cute."

"You absolutely do cute. You do it without knowing, which makes it significantly worse. Cuter." She handed me her mug. It looked how I took my coffee. Black. Some possible sugars.

I accepted it and took a sip. It tasted exactly right.

"Are you taking your coffee the way I take mine?"

She nodded. "I wanted to be able to share, in case you woke up. I noticed that's how you took your coffee and… well. You know." She settled back against the headboard, shoulder to shoulder with me. "I also noted that you hold doors for people even when they're far away, you check exits when you enter a room, and you were counting fire suppression heads in the diner ceiling on our first date."

I stared at her.

"Library science," she said. "We observe."

"You're terrifying."

"Thank you." She leaned her head against my shoulder. "How did you sleep?"