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I lie down.

She comes over me slowly. The mattress dips, her hair falls around us like a tent, and for a long moment she just looks at me, her hands on either side of my head, her whole body warm and soft and a hair's breadth above mine. I've never been looked at like this. It's not appetite. It's attention.

"Ninety-five," I whisper, and kiss the freckle at the base of her throat.

She laughs, a startled, breathless thing. "I said don't talk."

"That was counting."

"That was talking." But she's smiling, she lets me, and when she settles over me my whole body arches off the bed. She takes me in by degrees, with her eyes locked on mine. There's nothing between us, no distance and no performance and no plan. I feel every inch of it. I feel the shaking in her thighs and the catch in her breath, and she makes a small sound, wondering, that I'd cross a continent to hear again.

She moves. Slow, and then slower. Her hands are braced on my chest and mine are on her hips, holding her, not guiding. The lamplight is on her skin, on the heavy sway of her breasts and the curve of her belly and the soft strong lines of her thighs, and she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I can't stop saying so. She puts two fingers over my mouth.

"Look at me."

I look at her.

"Stay here." Her voice shakes. "Stay with me."

"I'm here."

"Say it."

"Mine." It's torn out of me, I can't hold it back, I don't want to. "You're— God, Rosey, mine."

Her eyes go bright. For a moment she doesn't move at all, a tear spills down her cheek, and she says quietly, fiercely, her voice steady for the first time all night:

"And you're mine."

Something in me breaks open.

I pull her down and kiss her, she wraps herself around me, and we find the rhythm together without a word.

It's nothing like the first time. It's slower and rawer and every nerve in my body is turned toward her.

I feel her tighten around me, feel her shudder, and she says my name into my mouth and the sound goes through me like a struck bell.

I come with my face in her throat and my hands in her hair and her name in my mouth, again and again, as though it's the only word I've ever known.

For a long time we don't move. She's draped over me, damp and heavy and perfect, her heart pounding against my ribs, her cheek on my shoulder.

Her fingers draw slow, absent circles on my chest. The lamp has burned down to a low amber and somewhere in the house the old clock ticks.

"Now you can talk," she says into my skin.

"I love you."

"That's all?"

"It's all I've got."

"It's enough." She kisses my collarbone. "For tonight."

The phone buzzes on the nightstand. She reaches for it without lifting her head, squints at the screen, and starts to shake with silent laughter so that I feel it through every inch of me.

"What?"

She turns the phone around.