Silence. Then: "What's it doing?"
"Making a sound."
Another pause. Longer.
"Twenty minutes," he says. And hangs up.
I have two mugs on the counter and the kettle just off the boil when the knock comes.
I open the door.
He's in his coveralls and cap, toolbag in hand, and when he sees me — the silk, the nightgown at the hem, my hair loose at three in the morning — he goes very still in the doorway.
He looks at me for a long moment. Then: "How's the boiler?"
"Perfect," I say. "Absolutely fine."
He sets the toolbag down.
"Maple."
"Nash."
The corner of his mouth moves. That restrained, private almost-smile that I have been thinking about for four days. "You want to tell me why you actually called?"
I close the distance and kiss him, and that's the end of the conversation.
He pulls me in by the front of his coveralls and walks me backward until the counter hits my hips and then he turns me around, his mouth at the back of my neck, his hands sliding the silk up over my thighs. I brace against the counter and let the last four days of waiting become entirely irrelevant.
His hand slides between my thighs and I'm already wet and he makes a low sound against my neck when he finds out.
"Christ, Maple."
"I told you," I say. "I plan ahead."
He laughs, dark and low, and strokes into me with two fingers and I grip the counter edge and stop being clever about anything. He's not tentative — direct and certain, curling his fingers in a way that makes my knees buckle, watching ourreflection in the dark kitchen window and using what he sees. My head drops back against his chest. His thumb finds my clit and works it in slow deliberate circles and I push back against his hand and make a sound that would carry through every room in this house and find I don't care even slightly.
"That's it," he says, low against my ear. "Let me hear you."
I do. His arm locks around my waist when my legs start to go and he works me through it without slowing — two fingers deep and his thumb relentless and his mouth at my throat — and I come hard and loud with his name wrecked in my throat, shaking against him.
He holds me through it. Then his hand is gone and I hear his belt, his zip, and I reach back and get my hand around him and feel him thick and hard in my palm and his breath goes sharp against my neck.
"Maple." Strained. Like he's been holding that back too.
"Now," I say. "Nash. Right now."
He pushes inside me in one slow deliberate stroke and we both go still. Full. The particular stillness of something that has been building for weeks finally arriving. His hands grip my hips and I'm braced on the counter and the dark kitchen window shows us both exactly what this looks like: his size against me, his hands on my hips, my silk nightgown rucked up around my waist, and I watch it and I don't look away.
He fucks me. Deep and unhurried at first, each stroke full and certain, and I push back to meet him and he makes a rough sound and grips me harder.
"Harder," I say. "Nash. Fuck me harder."
He growls against the back of my neck and gives me exactly what I asked for.
"Like that," I say. "Right there, don't stop—"
"I'm not stopping." His mouth is at my ear. "You feel so fucking good."
