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“I need you to kiss me again.”

I laugh softly, brushing my nose against hers. “Pea, I wasn’t planning on stopping.”

Her smile brushes mine before I kiss her again, and this time, Calliope meets me with enough urgency to steal what little breath I managed to find. Her arms wind around my neck as she pushes into me, and I give ground because the alternative is letting go of her long enough to figure out where the hell we’re going. My shoulder bumps the wall beside the door, but Calliope follows, her body staying with mine while I reach blindly behind her until my hand finds the edge of the door.

I shove it closed without taking my mouth from hers. Her keys hit the floor somewhere near our feet, followed by the dull thump of whatever she brought with her, and neither of us bothers looking down. Calliope’s hands are in my hair now, and when her nails scrape lightly over my scalp, the kiss I meant to keep slow goes to hell.

I catch her around the waist and turn us, pressing her back against the door hard enough to pull a gasp from her. Her fingers tighten in my hair, dragging me back to her mouth before I can get more than an inch away. Calliope arches into me, closing what little space is left between us, and the soft sound she makes when my hips settle against hers goes straight through me.

“Yeah,” I murmur against the corner of her mouth. “That’s my girl.”

Calliope answers by grabbing the hem of my shirt and yanking it up between us, forcing me away from her mouth long enough to get the damn thing over my head. I barely get one arm free before she’s kissing me again, the shirt still tangled around the other arm. Her laugh disappears into my mouth when I give up fighting with it and reach for her instead. I’ve missed that laugh, warm against my lips while her hands are all over me and neither one of us can decide whether getting naked or kissing matters more.

“Jubal.” She tries to pull back, but I follow her lips until she’s laughing again. “Your shirt.”

I finally wrench my arm free and send the shirt somewhere behind me, but Calliope barely gives me time to get rid of it before her palms are on my bare chest and she’s kissing me again. Fuck, I want all of her at once. The smile I keep catching against my mouth, the fingers dragging over my skin, the soft press of her body against mine. My hands find the bottom of her shirt because there’s still too much between us, and she lifts her arms the second I start pulling.

The fabric catches in her braids when she reaches for me before I’ve managed to get it over her head, and her muffled laugh nearly ruins whatever coordination I have left. I’m trying to free her while she’s trying to get closer, my hands sliding over warm skin every time the shirt rides higher, until I finally manage to drag it free and drop it beside mine.

Her braids fall around her face in a mess, and I don’t get more than a glimpse of the smile waiting for me before she grabs me again. Her bare stomach pressing against mine knocks the air from my lungs. I pull her tighter, needing more contact, even when there’s barely any room left between us.

“You’re in my way,” she mumbles against my lips while ‌reaching for the button of my jeans, and I can’t keep my hands off her long enough to make anything easier.

I catch her waist and turn us until my shoulders hit the door, and whatever coordination either of us had is gone. My head tips back as her lips find their way to my neck, teeth scraping over the spot beneath my jaw. Fuck. She knows exactly what that does to me, and the pleased little sound she makes when my fingers dig into her waist tells me she knows she’s got me.

“Pea.” I turn my head enough to catch her mouth before she can do it again. “You keep that up, and we’re not making it very far.”

Calliope’s smile brushes my lips. “Who said we were going anywhere?”

I kiss her again, and this time I stop pretending either of us gives a damn how far we make it. Calliope finally gets the button of my jeans open as my hand slips into her pajama pants before the one practical thought left in my head catches up with me. I groan into her mouth, already pissed at the few feet I’m going to have to put between us.

“What?” Her fingers curl into my waistband like she can keep me there by force.

“I need a condom.”

Calliope groans and drops her forehead against my chest, but her hands stay hooked in my jeans like she has no intention of letting me get very far. I wrap my arms around her instead of moving, burying my face against her braids while I fight the completely unreasonable urge to say fuck it and stay exactly where I am. Thirty seconds. I can survive thirty seconds without touching her.

I tip her face up and kiss her again. “Stay here, Pea. I’ll be right back.”

“You better be.”

I make myself leave her long enough to grab a condom from the nightstand, already reaching for the waistband of my jeans as I hurry back toward the living room. I’m expecting Calliope to be waiting by the door where I left her, probably ready to give me shit for taking longer than thirty seconds.

Her pajama pants are abandoned a few feet from the door, with one sock somehow making it almost all the way to the couch. Calliope is standing beside it when I come back, tugging the other sock off as if I didn’t specifically tell her not to move.

“I told you to stay right there.”

She tosses the sock toward the rest of her clothes and looks at me, completely unrepentant. “I stayed. Just not there.”

“You’re such a brat, Pea.” I start toward her, and the grin spreading across her face only gets bigger with every step.

“You love me.”

I do, so fucking much that hearing her say it like this hits somewhere completely different than hearing her say the words at my door.

“Yeah.” I catch her around the waist when her hands find me, hauling her against me as that smug little smile breaks across her face. “I really fucking do.”

I kiss that smug little smile off her mouth, but Calliope is already reaching for my jeans again, her fingers slipping beneath the open waistband while I pull her tighter against me. The condom gets crushed between my palm and her back as I grab her to keep from falling when my jeans catch around my ankle. Her laugh bursts against my mouth, and I kick blindly until I’m free, taking her with me when I stumble forward into the back of the couch. Calliope catches herself against it, but before I can pull her upright, she looks back at me and stays exactly where she is.