Chapter 4: Morning
811 Words
I wake up before the sun and the decision is already made.
I know this because of the way my body reacts when I realize he's still holding me. Not panic and not the urgent scramble of a woman who needs to flee. Just warmth. Just the quiet settling of something that feels right in a way I don't want to examine too closely because examining it means admitting it and admitting it means this is real.
This is real.
Grey light is leaking around the curtains and the city is waking up below and he's asleep behind me, his chest against my back, his arm draped heavy across my waist, and I lie there and let myself have one more minute of this before the day starts and logistics become real.
His alarm goes off at six thirty.
He reaches over me to silence it and his body presses against mine in the movement and I feel him, all of him, warm and solid and morning-hard against my lower back, and something low in my stomach pulls tight.
"Morning," he says against my hair. His voice is deep and rough and unhurried and I could wake up to that voice for a very long time without getting tired of it and that thought is the most dangerous thing I've had in my head since I walked through his door.
"Morning."
"Did you sleep?"
"Better than I have in months."
He's quiet for a moment. His thumb traces a slow line across my stomach.
"I meant what I said," he says. "At three in the morning, I mean all of it."
"I know."
"Train's at nine?"
"Nine."
"It's six thirty."
"I can tell time, Garry."
He laughs against my neck and it vibrates through me and my hips push back against him involuntarily and his breath catches.
"If you do that," he says carefully, "we are not going to have the responsible adult conversation I was planning."
"What if I don't want the responsible adult conversation?"
His hand flattens on my stomach. Pulls me back against him firmly. His mouth finds the spot below my ear and his teeth graze it lightly and I feel it straight between my legs.
"Dara." My name in his morning voice, rough and low and wanting. "Tell me what you want."
"You," I say. Simple. True. "One more time before I go."
He turns me over and the kiss is different from last night. Slower. Deeper. Morning-warm and unhurried, tasting of sleep and intimacy and the specific tenderness that exists between two people who woke up together and chose to stay.
His hand slides down my body and finds me already wet and he makes that low sound in his throat that I am rapidly becoming addicted to.
"Already?" he murmurs against my mouth.
"I woke up pressed against you. What did you expect?"
He smiles into the kiss and pushes two fingers inside me and my back arches off the mattress and the morning goes soft and golden and slow.
He takes his time.
Even more than last night. Like he knows this is the last time and he wants to learn everything he didn't get to learn in the dark. He watches my face in the early light with an attention that makes me feel simultaneously exposed and treasured. He finds new places that make me gasp. He says my name when I come apart like it's the only word he needs.
When he pushes inside me I hold his face in both hands and look into his eyes and something passes between us that neither of us is ready to name but both of us feel.
We move together slowly. No urgency. No performance. Just two bodies that learned each other in the dark now confirming everything in the light.
When I c*m it builds so gradually that it catches me by surprise, not a crash but a wave, deep and rolling and complete, and I hold onto him through it and say his name and he follows me seconds later with his face buried in my neck and his arms shaking.
Afterward he stays inside me and we breathe together and the sun comes all the way up and the room fills with light and I can see his face clearly now, every detail, and he's looking at me with something in his eyes that makes my throat tight.
"Garry," I say.
"I know." He presses his forehead against mine. "You have a train."
"I have a train."
"Okay."
Neither of us moves.
"I need to shower," I say. "And go to my room. And pack. And check out."
"I know."
"Stop holding me so I can do those things."
His arms don't move.
"Garry."
"One more minute."
I give him five.
Maybe more...
End of Arc 1: The Wrong Room
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