“Holden.” He bit his lip, amusement and want warring on his face. “Take me upstairs.”
I kissed him once more, slow, tender, the kind of kiss that said everything words couldn't. His arms wrapped around my neck,and when I lifted him he went willingly, legs around my waist, ankles crossing at the small of my back. He weighed nothing. Or close enough that carrying him felt easy, natural, like something I could do every day for the rest of my life.
“Come on, girls,” Jamie called over my shoulder. “Hurry up.”
Marceline bolted for the stairs, Bubblegum close behind. They raced past us, already halfway up before I reached the first step. Jamie laughed against my throat, his breath warm on my skin.
“Show-off,” he murmured.
“You weigh nothing.”
“I weigh a normal amount. You're just freakishly strong.”
I carried him up the stairs, the dogs scrambling ahead, rose petals still caught in both our hair. Shouldered open the door to my apartment. The space was dark, familiar, but it didn't feel empty anymore. Hadn't felt empty for weeks, if I was honest. Not since Jamie started showing up with coffee and questions and that smile that made the quiet feel less like peace and more like waiting.
The waiting was over now.
Jamie's mouth found my jaw. My throat. The spot just below my ear that made me shiver every time he found it.
“Bedroom,” he said against my skin. “Now.”
I crossed the apartment in three strides, shut the bedroom door on Marceline's curious nose, and pressed Jamie against the wall.
His back hit the plaster with a soft thud. The room was dark except for the streetlight filtering through the thin curtains, and Jamie looked up at me, his head tipped back, throat exposed—flushed and breathing hard, petals still caught in his hair. I planted one hand on the wall beside his head, caging him in, and watched his pupils blow wide.
Jamie loved me.
The thought kept circling back, impossible and real. He'd said the words. I'd felt them in his kiss, his hands, the way he was looking at me now like I was something worth keeping.
“Holden.” His hands worked at my flannel, shoving it off my shoulders. “Stop thinking and fuck me.”
I huffed a laugh against his neck. “I'm not thinking.”
“You're always thinking.” He arched off the wall, grinding his hips against mine, and the friction made us both gasp. “Turn it off.”
I pulled back long enough to strip off my shirt, then reached for his. He lifted his arms and I tugged it over his head, tossed it somewhere behind me. His skin was warm beneath my hands, his body responding to every touch the way it had learned to over the past weeks. I knew him now. Knew where to press, where to linger, what made him gasp and what made him moan.
I bent to kiss my way down his throat, his collarbone, his chest. He stayed pressed against the wall, pinned there by my mouth and my hands, fingers threading through my hair as I worked lower. His jeans hit the floor. Then mine. I kicked them aside and kept going, kissing down the center of his stomach, the line of hair below his navel, until I was on my knees in front of him.
The angle put his cock right at eye level. Hard, flushed, already leaking at the tip.
“Holden.” His voice came out strangled. “What are you—”
I wrapped my hand around the base and took him into my mouth.
He made a sound like I'd punched the air out of him. His head fell back against the wall, his hands tightening in my hair, and I worked him slow, tongue tracing the underside, lips tight around the shaft, tasting salt and skin. His hips tried to buck forward and I pinned them to the plaster with one hand, keeping him still while I took him deeper.
“Fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck, that's… I'm gonna come if you keep—”
I pulled off. Looked up at him from my knees, his cock wet and straining, his chest heaving.
“Turn around.”
His eyes went dark. He turned.
I spread him open with both hands and licked a stripe up the center of him.
“Holy—” Jamie's whole body jerked, his palms slapping against the wall. “Holden, fuck—”
