She hands me the pint, and I take it, setting it on the end table. When she sinks back against the cushion, I notice the way her hair tumbles over her shoulder and catches the soft, warm light from the stairway and the kitchen. She looks exhausted, in the most comfortable way.
“I didn’t tell her,” she says.
“Why?” I ask, even though the answer seems obvious. There’s a lightness in her tone I haven’t seen since that night in September.
She slides her hand up my ribs and dials in on my eyes, green to brown. “Because that’s not my place.” Her thumb rests over my sternum, as if she’s grounding me like a circuit. “And I thought you should decide what to do with the information.”
There is a long moment where the room contracts around us. The heater clicks on, the fridge hums, but all the ambient noise gets filtered out by the attention in her gaze. I exhale, slow and unblocked for the first time today. Her palm flattens against my chest, right over the spot where my heart beats beneath my shirt.
I glance down at her hand, then back up. “What… would you like me to do with it?”
She shakes her head, a little amused, a little sad. “I don’t care if your family was Jewish, Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or something no one has even named yet. None of that changes who you are here.” Her nails trace a faint pattern over my shirt, a gentle, absentminded graze that somehow makes the words land harder.
I slide my arm around her, pulling her close enough that her head settles into the hollow of my shoulder, and for a minute neither of us moves.
“I love you, Schatz,” I tell her, because it’s the only thing that feels urgent enough to say aloud.
She sighs gently. “I know.”
I want to keep her here, held in the suspended warmth of our home, away from custody battles or family secrets and inheritance I do not have the energy to untangle right now, I wish I didn’t have to, ever. She tips her head back and studies me, and then her eyes darken.
She wriggles, and with one nimble hand snags the honey jar off the sofa table, twists the honey dipper, and twirls it once. I watch as she licks her thumb and forefinger and then dabs a trace of honey onto my lower lip.
I don’t move, not even to breathe.
She leans in, kisses it off, and then says, “That’s for being amazing.” Her eyes are as bright as the honey. “And I wanted to answer your question about my first craving.”
She straddles me and wiggles her sweet little ass, “You.”
I bite back a laugh, and I can see in her face that she’s pleased with the effect.
“I swear these babies,” she shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“Tell me.”
She shakes her head slowly as her head dips, covering her face, like she’s embarrassed. I thrust my hips a bit, dick now fully hard.
She smears another tiny bit of honey on my cheekbone, just below the line of my eye, and then chases it with her tongue.
“You’re making a mess,” I say.
“That’s the point,” she whispers.
I consider, for a moment, all the ways I could answer, but I decide to let her win this round. I reach behind her and slide her backwards onto the couch, so she’s sprawled across the cushions with her head resting on my thigh. She squeals, but not in protest.
I take the honey dipper and roll it in my palm. There’s enough honey for a hundred small rebellions. I trail the tipalong the inside of her wrist, where the skin is softer and almost translucent, and watch the shiver climb her arm.
She eyes me, daring me to keep going.
I swirl the dipper around the rim, run my hand up her stomach and push the sweatshirt up a bit, collect more, and hover it over her belly, quirking an eyebrow, “I’d like some more honey.”
She hikes up her shirt, just enough to offer a strip of bare stomach. “Only if you promise to clean up after yourself.”
I plant a kiss just above her navel, gentle and deliberate, and taste the salt of her skin before licking the sweet honey, “Delicious.”
She quivers—literally quivers—eyes going wide, mouth soft with surprise. “That…” her words turn into a soft moan.
I lower my head and lick a single slow stripe, pushing her panties and sweats lower, exposing the soft curl to the very edge of my forever happy endings. With my tongue flat to collect every drop. She shivers and inhales, but doesn’t say anything—not aloud, anyway. Her hands go to my hair, fingers combing through in a way that’s half possessive, half prayer.
