I stop looking at them and kiss him.
29
LISSY
Itake Torgan's hand and lead him up the pink staircase. He has to duck at the landing.
He's never been up here. My rooms above the shop are small, with a sloped ceiling and the bed under the window where I've slept by myself since the shop became mine.
He fills the space immediately. Then he hunches his shoulders, trying not to.
I put my palm flat on his chest.
"Don't."
He freezes.
"Don't make yourself smaller in here."
His chest drops under my hand as he lets out a breath he may have been holding since the first day he sat in my corner chair with his knees around his ears.
Then his mouth is on mine.
We undress each other badly. His fingers are too large for my buttons and my hands shake on his belt, and we laugh into each other's mouths, and nothing about it resembles the slow ceremony of the pavilion.
This is better. We've lost a month. Neither of us has any patience left.
When the last of our clothes hits the floor, he lifts me with one arm and puts me on my own bed.
"In my defense," he says, looking down at it, "this bed was built for a very small human."
"It was built for me," I object.
"Exactly."
"Are you insulting me while naked in my room?"
"No."
"Terrible liar."
"I've been told."
I pull him down by the shoulders. "I missed you," I say. "I missed you while I was pinning hems. How pathetic is that? My own hands missed you."
"Mine too."
He touches me slowly, and there's nothing hesitant in it. He knows me now. I know him. When his mouth moves lower, my back lifts off the mattress and I stop trying to say anything clever at all.
Eventually I drag him back up. He settles between my thighs and pauses, because he always asks, and he asks especially now.
"Yes," I whisper. "Come home."
He pushes into me carefully. My body remembers him. The stretch still takes my breath, because some things don't turn ordinary just because they've turned familiar.
When his hips meet mine, we both stop. His forehead presses against mine.
"Lissy." My name comes out rough. "Whatever you want. However long. I'll?—"
