Page 60 of Brother in Law with Benefits

"That one deserved the gravity."

"It really didn't, and that's exactly why I remember it."

I brush a strand of hair back from her face, the way I've done a hundred times without ever quite deciding to start doing it, and she leans into the touch instead of away from it, eyes closing for half a second like she's letting herself have something she's been rationing.

"I don't want to talk anymore," she says. "I've done a lot of talking today. I told Marissa I was doing inventory four separate times. I have used up my entire monthly allotment of feelings-adjacent conversation."

"Okay."

"I just want to not think about tomorrow for a while. Is that — is that allowed? Is that a thing we're doing tonight?"

"It's allowed." I run my thumb along her jaw, slow, no urgency in it at all. "Whatever you need. I'm not going anywhere."

She doesn't answer with words. She answers by tipping her face up and kissing me, soft at first, nothing like the hunger of the first night in her apartment or the fury of the night Chris came, and I understand immediately that tonight isn't asking to be either of those things. Tonight is just two people standing in a kitchen that smells like six alphabetized spices, kissing like there's nowhere else either of them needs to be.

"Bedroom," I say, and it comes out different than every other time I've said it to her — lower, unhurried, an offer instead of a command.

"Yeah," she says. "Bedroom."

I undress her slow in the dark, no words for most of it. My hands find the hem of her shirt first, and she lifts her armswithout being asked, and I pull it over her head and drop it somewhere I don't track. Her bra next — I get the clasp on the first try, which still, after five months, earns me a small huff of something between annoyance and admiration. Her jeans last, and she braces a hand on my shoulder to step out of them, and I keep one arm around her waist the whole time so she doesn't have to balance alone.

She's quiet through most of it. No commentary about sequences of events, no dry line about warning labels. Just her breath catching, once, when my mouth finds the curve of her shoulder, and again when I trace the old ache out of the muscle along her spine with my thumb, slow circles, the kind of touch that isn't headed anywhere yet.

"You're being very patient," she murmurs, when I've got her bare and I'm just looking at her for a second, the way I always do.

"I have all night."

"That's not what I meant." A tired smile. "You usually have a plan."

"Not tonight." I press my mouth to her collarbone. "Tonight I just want my hands on you. That's the whole plan."

She pulls me down onto the bed instead of answering, and I go easy, letting her set the pace for once — her hands mapping down my chest, my ribs, slower than usual, like she's re-memorizing the shape of me instead of chasing anything.

I flip us after a minute, careful about it, and settle my mouth low on her stomach, working down. She's already wet when I get there, and I take my time with her — no teasing tonight, no backing off when she gets close, just steady pressure with my tongue and two fingers curling deep and slow, giving her exactly what she asks for the second she asks for it.

"Grant—"

"I've got you."

Her hand finds my hair and holds on, not pulling, just holding, and when she comes it's quiet — a long exhale instead of a cry, her hips lifting once and then going still, her whole body loosening instead of arching. I stay with her through it, watching her face instead of the clock, instead of anything else.

I move up her body after, settle between her thighs, and she looks up at me steady now, some of the fear from the kitchen gone out of her eyes.

"Stay close," she says, as I push into her, slow, giving her time.

"Not going anywhere."

I move in her unhurried, long deliberate strokes, my forehead dropped to hers, and she wraps her legs around me and holds on. There's none of the usual rhythm-building, no headboard hitting the wall — just slow, steady pressure, her breath catching every time I bottom out, my hand sliding between us to find her clit and stay there, patient, matching the pace of everything else.

"I love you," she says, against my mouth, mid-thrust, not building to anything, just saying it because there's room for it.

"I love you too." I say it the same way, low, no big line behind it. "Whatever tomorrow is. I love you tonight."

She comes again on that, quiet, her whole body drawing tight around me and then letting go in a long shudder, and I follow her a few strokes later, burying myself deep and going still, her name rough in my throat instead of a shout, both of us breathing hard into the dark.

Afterward we lie tangled together, her head on my chest, my hand tracing slow shapes on her back, neither of us in any hurry to move.

"Better?" I ask, eventually.