"I want to hear about all of it. The program. Your plans for it." I point the bottle at her before setting it down. "Two years of quiet planning, one impatient promised backer. Where's my number, Darcy?"
"You're really not going to let that go."
"I told you I'd be irritating about it. I'm a man of my word almost exclusively when it's convenient, and this is convenient."
She shakes her head, laughing, but then she actually answers, and the answer has scaffolding in it, not just a shapeless dream. She's got ideas for a classroom she could rent at the community center, Tuesdays and Thursdays. A dozen or so kids to start. Comics and graphic novels chosen so the pictures carry the students over the hard words. She quotes it back to me without knowing she's doing it, my own barn logic wearing her lesson plans, and something in my chest goes quiet and sure, like a knot finally seating.
"The crate," I say.
She stops. "What?"
"My old comics. They're still in the barn, in the milk crate. I must have more than a hundred of them, not counting the ones I ruined." I watch her understand it before I finish, watch her eyes fill up for the second time tonight. "Founding library. If your program will take a donation from a struggling reader."
Darcy sets down her glass. She looks at me for a long moment across the candles, both of us very still, and the air in the room changes pressure. She gets up, comes around the small table, takes my face in both hands, and kisses me.
I find her waist and pull her down into my lap and she comes willingly, knees bracketing mine, the kiss going from thank you to something with a much longer syllabus. Her fingers slide into my hair, and when we finally break for air she stays close, forehead against mine, breathing my breath.
"Finn."
"Yeah."
"Take me to bed."
I stand up with her in my arms because carrying her is faster than convincing my legs to do anything else. She laughs against my neck as I navigate the short hallway. Then we're in the bedroom and I set her down slowly, letting her body drag the length of mine on the way to the floor, and the laughing stops.
"Yesterday," I say, finding the zipper hidden at her side, "you kissed me in front of your whole town in broad daylight. I wanted you so much I was hard the rest of the day." The zipper is a long, slow line and I let her feel every inch of it, watching her eyes. "Tonight I'm going to take my time savoring this gorgeous body, all of these beautiful curves. The pussy that's been driving me crazy with need ever since I first tasted it. We're going to go slow, Darcy. All night, if I want."
"Okay." Barely a word.
"Anything that isn't a yes tonight, you tell me."
Her arms come up around my neck. "It's all yes. It's been yes since the sidewalk. Longer than that."
The dress goes, poured off her shoulders into a dark pool on the floor. She's bare underneath except for a scrap of lace at her hips, and I stop and look at her because she's the loveliest thing I've ever seen. Dark hair falling past her shoulders in glossy waves, candlelight from the hall warm on her skin, full breasts, nipples already tight, her chin tilted up like she's decided to let me see all of it. Every inch of her is an argument for staying, and I let myself lose it.
Then I put my mouth on her, because looking was never going to be enough. Her jaw, her throat, the line of her collarbone, down. I take one nipple into my mouth, slow, working it with my tongue until her head drops back and her fingers dig into my shoulders. Then the other, unhurried, learning what tonight's version of her wants and giving it to her the second I learn it. She tastes like warm skin and faintly of the wine on my tongue, and her hips have started a slow roll against me that I'm certain both of us feel everywhere.
She pulls my shirt off over my head. Flattens her palms on my chest, slides them down, and when she reaches my belt she looks up at me from under her lashes.
"My turn," she says.
She puts me on the edge of the bed and takes her time about my belt, my zipper, all of it, and then she kneels between my knees, wraps her hand around my cock, and takes me into her mouth like we have all night, because we do.
There's no rushing in it. That's the part that ruins me. She's slow and thorough, wet heat and tongue moving under the head, her hand following her mouth. When I look down she's already looking up, her eyes steady on mine, and I have to grip the mattress with both hands to stay civilized. My thighs are shaking. I have hung off a rock face by the tips of my fingers with less effort than it's taking to hold still right now.
"Darcy." My voice comes out wrecked and I let it. "Fuck... that feels so good."
She hums around me, pleased. The sound travels all the way up my spine, and that's the edge of the map. I get my hands under her arms and draw her up my body, catch her mouth, taste myself on her, and roll her under me onto the bed.
The lace panties go, drawn down her legs slowly enough to be its own event. I settle between her thighs and slide two fingers into her and find her pussy soaked, so ready that we both breathe out at the same time. I stroke her slow and deep, my thumb circling her clit. I watch her spine bow and her hands fist in the sheets, learning the exact rhythm that makes her breath go ragged, and holding it there until her hips chase my hand and she demands more of me.
The nightstand. I fumble one-handed for the drawer. She turns her head, watches me pull out the condom box, and her eyebrow goes up. The box is brand-new. Sealed. Half a year's supply under normal circumstances.
"Well," she says. "Somebody stocked up."
I grin. "I'm an overachiever when it counts."
"That's a very ambitious box, Finn."
