I want to say something clever back, but my brain has officially gone offline. All I can do is feel—the stretch of him inside me, the heat of his skin, the way his breathing goes ragged when I change the angle.
We speed up, chasing something inevitable. The coil in my belly tightens. My thighs tremble.
“Travis—” His name comes out of my mouth broken.
“I know,” he rasps. “I’ve got you.”
He speeds up his stroking and tightens his grip slightly, and that’s all it takes. I shatter, pleasure ripping through me so intensely I forget how to breathe. I hear him groan my name as he follows, feel him pulse inside me, and the intimacy of it is almost too much.
I slump against his chest, completely boneless.
We lie there, breathing hard, sweat cooling on our skin, his heartbeat gradually slowing under my cheek.
He tips my face up to kiss me. It’s gentle. Almost reverent.
And then we just keep kissing. Slow, soft kisses that feel like they’re saying things we don’t have words for yet. Like we’re both marveling at the fact that this exists. That we exist.
I never want to stop.
Eventually, we do the cleaning up thing, and Travis pulls me to him.
His thumb traces my cheekbone as he studies my face. “I’ve never felt like this before,” he says, and my heart catches in my throat.
“Like what?” I ask.
His jaw tightens, then releases, and he lets out a long breath before he answers. “Like I want to skip to the part where I already know everything about you, but also slow down so this moment doesn’t end.”
Oh my god. He’s just put into words exactly how I’m feeling.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I’ve been moderating love stories for years, wanting to believe one could happen to me. That I’d started to wonder if maybe TruthGuardian was right, that the connections in the stories are exaggerated, embellished, impossible. But here’s Travis, saying exactly what I’ve always hoped someone would feel about me.
But I’m so choked up that “Ditto” is all I manage to get out before I have to kiss him again.
And for a long while, that’s enough. Just kissing lazily, breathing together, existing in this small, perfect bubble we’ve somehow created.
Our stomachs eventually remind us that they need to be fed, so we untangle ourselves and stumble out to his kitchen for breakfast.
“You take your coffee black, don’t you?” I guess as Travis pulls mugs from the cupboard.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Black coffee fits the profile.”
He throws me a grin. “And you take lots of milk and sugar in yours, am I right?”
“Two sugars, actually.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Two sugars is basically coffee-flavored candy.”
“And black coffee is basically liquid disappointment pretending to be sophisticated. We all have our crosses to bear,” I reply.
And we’re grinning at each other, and I have that thrill of recognition again. The same one I felt when I saw him in the restaurant. Only now it feels like I’ve somehow stumbled into a domestic dynamic I’ve been waiting my whole life to experience. Morning banter and easy teasing with someone who gives as good as he gets.
The kind of connection where even mundane moments like standing in a kitchen, debating coffee, feel like the best parts of a love story.
But when Travis hands me my coffee, I almost drop the mug.
Because I know this mug. I have the exact same one in my kitchen.
