His hand comes up to my jaw, tilting my face toward his, the familiar press of his mouth that I have known for two years. I kiss him back. I do. I put my hand against his chest, and I kiss him back like I’ve missed him because I have.
He pulls back a fraction and looks at my face. This time there’s heat. I know exactly what he’s thinking.
He kisses me again, harder this time.
It’s a bit aggressive, the way his mouth devours mine like he’s starving. I hesitate, and I hate myself for it because he feels it. My half-second delay makes his hand still in my hair.
He pulls back, and when his eyes meet mine, they’re not angry –– thankfully. But his eyes move across my face the way they moved across it at the hospital — cataloguing, reading, looking for the thing underneath the surface.
"Hey," I say softly, trying to bring him back to me.
"Hey." His voice is even. "Where'd you go?"
"I'm right here."
"Adela."
I put my hand against his face. "I'm right here. I'm just—" I search for the word that is true and safe simultaneously. "Overwhelmed. In a good way. This is a lot after everything."
He looks at me.
I look back.
His hand, which had stilled, moves again — back into my hair, slower this time. He turns my face back toward his and kisses me again, and this time, there is something different in it. Something that isn't asking.
I feel the shift.
The way he holds me after changes by degrees — the same arms, the same position, but something in the pressure of it. Something that is reminding me of a fact rather than expressing a feeling.
You are mine.
You are here.
You are mine.
I pull back gently. "Cody."
His arms don't loosen. I feel his body against mine, and my pulse picks up.
“Cody,” I say again, trying to get him to stop whatever he’s doing.
He holds onto me, and I start to panic, but he finally releases me, and I inhale as I sit up.
“I should go,” I say quickly.
"Don’t," he whispers.
"I have a shift tomorrow morning." I move to stand, and his hands find my waist.
"Adela."
"Cody, I really—"
"I have one more surprise." He says it quietly. The warmth back in his voice, the edge underneath it gone or buried, and he's looking at me with the expression that has always been the hardest one to say no to — not demanding, just wanting. Just Cody wanting something and making sure I know it.
"What surprise," I say softly.
He stands and takes my hand.
