"For me too."
We kiss again, softer this time. Sweet instead of desperate.
"Stay tonight?" he asks.
"I have an early shift?—"
"I'll drive you. Stay. Please."
I should go home. Should create distance. Should do a hundred responsible things.
Instead, I get on top of him, leaning into kiss him, and whisper the word yes, and the moment I do he’s pulling me closer, deepening the kiss.
***
I wake up in Carter's bed, sunlight streaming through the windows. His alarm is going off somewhere, and he groans, reaching past me to silence it.
"Morning," I mumble.
"Morning." He kisses my shoulder. "You snore."
"I do not."
"Just a little. It's cute." I feel his lips curl into a smile, which makes me smile.
I turn to face him. He looks different in the morning light, softer, younger, more vulnerable than the captain persona he wears.
"What time is it?"
"Six. I have a team meeting at seven." He traces my face with his finger. "But I have a few minutes."
"Just a few minutes?"
"We could make them count." I laugh, because we spent most of the night making every minute count.
Morning sex is slower, quieter, but no less intense. He takes his time, mapping my body like he's memorizing it, and when we both finally come, it's with whispered names and tangled hands.
After, in his shower that's barely big enough for one person let alone two, he washes my hair with surprising gentleness.
"You're good at this," I observe.
"At what? Shower sex?"
"At being... soft. Caring. It's different from your captain persona."
"That's the performance. This is real." He rinses soap from my hair. "With you, I don't have to perform."
The words settle in my chest, warm and terrifying.
"Carter—"
"I know. Too much, too fast. But I'm done pretending I don't feel things." He turns off the water. "Now come on. I need to get you to your shift and still make my meeting."
He drives me to the café, and it's surprisingly domestic, him in his practice gear, me in yesterday's clothes, coffee in travel mugs, morning radio playing softly.
"This is weird," I say.
"Good weird or bad weird?"
