Who: Erran and Gemma When: Early evening Where: Gemma's room Warnings: NSFW-ness happening.
Gemma had barely gotten out of her pajamas for the day, turning up in leggings and slippers and a heavy sweater, and when she’d come back to her room, she’d layered up with socks and snuggled deep in blankets. The fact that somebody had fucked with their rooms had made her angry, but it had made Erran practically incandescent with anger, which she thought she understood; invasion of privacy was probably a huge thing for him. Her own room had been a little easier to clean up, since there were just rugs scattered on the floor; they were spread out in the hallway now, drying. She and Erran had spent most of their time in her room, because she was still pretty low on energy and it was drier in there, and they’d wanted to curl up and be warm. After a hot shower, she’d gone back to bed, and she’d fallen into a deep, solid sleep. Erran was somewhere close by; she heard him come in and out, felt the bed settle as he curled up next to her with a book, felt it when he left again… but he was close. That was all that mattered to her.
When she woke again for more than a few moments, it was deep into evening, the light outside a delicate pinky-brown color; she could still see the snow coming down. She sat up, murmuring Erran’s name.
Erran usually tried hard not to nap during the day, even when he had the time for it—anything that threw off his usual sleeping patterns at night was asking for trouble. His last seizure had been twenty-five days ago, which meant he was about due to blow the streak, but there was no reason to push his luck more than necessary. Having his space messed with had pissed him off more than he liked to express—still, the damage hadn't been that bad, and Gemma's room was drying out too. A power outage was annoying but nothing they hadn't expected.
So he spent the rest of the afternoon lying down on the bed beside Gemma, reading a copy of Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall that he'd found in the library. Chilling as hard as possible, just not literally. When the daylight faded in the early evening, he took an extra shower just to warm up some more, and when he came back to bed Gemma's eyes were open.
"I'm right here," he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed, the towel still around his waist. He ran a hand back through his damp hair and reached out for her hand. "We're gonna need to light the candles in a minute here, so romantic. In a Morrissey sort of way. Flooded mansion of human misery, candlelight, girlfriend in a coma, guy with complicated hair. You okay, did you sleep good?"
"Mmhm." She circled his fingers with hers, and she smiled a syrupy, sleepy smile. "Y'know, I've had dreams that started out this way. Movie star in his towel in my bed. Yoga does good things for bodies." She drew his hand closer, kissing his palm and folding his fingers over it as if he could keep it safe.
"I'm glad you didn't go very far," she said more softly. "I know you wouldn't, I just… am glad. Hi."
"Well, I have a well-documented weakness for leggy blondes with classic bedhead who don't want me to go, so we're even," Erran said, smiling. He had enough of a type that the paparazzi had picked up on it, back in the day: Erran Wolfe spotted at Chateau Marmont with yet another golden-tressed model—does he get them by subscription or what?! Click through for our gallery of other stars who have that blonde ambition... "I'm glad my years of suffering through Crow Pose have paid off. Hi yourself." He leaned down on one elbow to kiss her.
She cupped his face between her hands, breathing in deeply. Fresh soap scent, sharper than it was when she usually smelled it with her face buried in his hair, and she swiped away a trace of water at his temple. There was a thrill in it, one that rooted itself at the base of her spine. Half-naked movie star in her bed. It made her smile against his mouth. If she'd been more awake, if she'd been in a less fragile humor, she would've made a joke: warn Cecilia, warn Kate, maybe even that Lila girl, Erran Wolfe's in the house…
But it wasn't half-naked movie star anymore. That had stopped making her nervous a while ago now. It was Erran himself that made her feel things, the peculiar quake of having him near, the relief mingled with happiness mingled with anticipation. Too much feeling. "You going to come to bed?" she murmured, her hand drifting down his arm. “You’re going to freeze…”
"Yeah, I'm coming to bed. Tomorrow we can spend the day in my room, I don't want Them to just decide I live here now." He'd told Gemma about how Kiley had moved in with Chase and then lost her old room, and how Juno's plans to move had been carried out by the mysterious architect-sorcerers of Mount Zenith. "Because I'm not losing that orange couch, I love that thing. Very important to my therapy practice. Especially now that it survived a deluge like a goddamn Mesopotamian hero, it's an inspiring symbol of resilience in adversity."
But he didn't get up to find a t-shirt or something to wear to bed, just stayed on the bed beside Gemma, lying on his side and smoothing the stray strands of hair back from her temple, his fingertips trailing down the length of her neck. "Speaking of inspiring symbols, whatever happened to that date-night underwear, anyway?"
She'd been about to say that she wasn't letting him lose that orange couch either, but his fingers lulled her into contentment, a faint shiver visible under her skin whenever his fingers traced over a particular sensitive spot on her neck. Her hand drifted back up his arm, and then slow, slow, down his spine, feather-light.
"Mm," she said, reluctant to speak. She opened her eyes, dark and hazy, and then smiled. "Still in my drawer. The date-night underwear is extant. What are you up to? Is this going to wind up with me freezing my ass off?"
"Why would I be up to something, I resent the implication..." The conversation with Marco the other day had brought the subject of physical intimacy to mind, and even without that reminder, it would have been in his thoughts. He'd regretted it, while she was gone, that they hadn't even had a chance to sleep together—taking it slowish hadn't been a bad decision or anything, but they hadn't known what lay ahead. "I just missed you," he murmured. "It's good to have you back. Am I bugging you, should I let you go back to sleep?"
“I missed you too,” she said, no matter how stupid it sounded. It had still been two weeks without him, even if she had no conscious memory of it. It felt as if she'd missed having him touch her, missed the sound of his voice. Her fingers curled around his arm and she lifted up a little from the pillows, finding his mouth again, soft. "I've slept enough for a lifetime, I'm pretty sure," she whispered, nose brushing his. "And I'll happily model the date-night underwear, if that's the next question, I can handle the Arctic Sports Illustrated issue for a minute…"
"Oh my God, you're psychic," he murmured with a laugh. "You're a witch, there's definitely no alternative explanation for you being able to guess that..." He kissed her again, his hand resting over her hip, padded by the blanket. "Can I just clap my hands like a sultan and you rush to attire yourself to my liking? This is cool. I don't even have to make the conserving-body-heat joke, the material writes itself. And if I had sexy underwear I'd oblige you in return but my stuff isn't that great."
"Um, I'm going to point out that this is not exactly the worst thing I've ever seen," Gemma told him with a low laugh. She was trying to soothe the excited quiver under her skin--you guys are just messing around, this doesn't have to mean anything, he said go slow and he meant go slow. It was a pathetic attempt not to get turned on and she knew it. Her stomach had flipped even just feeling the pressure of his hand at her hip over all the blankets. "There's not a whole lot that's sexier than your boyfriend in a towel… here, let me up…"
She kissed him again as they sat up together, and her mouth drifted down his throat; there, she knew he liked that spot, her mouth just there beneath his jaw. "Give me a minute?" she murmured, and got up. Her legs already had the unreliable, shaky feeling that they got after making out with Erran for a good while. She stopped at her dresser and then disappeared into the bathroom. The air was still humid from Erran's shower, so it wasn’t forbiddingly cold. Still, she undressed quickly. "Nothing that you haven't seen before," she called back to him through the half-open door. "I should be a little more ashamed of how okay I've been about being naked in front of you when we're allegedly taking it slow."
"Yeah, you should be ashamed, I've just been suffering so much," he said dryly, getting up to look around for candles while she was in the bathroom. He found one in a red glass on a high shelf and brought it down to the end table by the bed to light it, the red reflections giving the room a vaguely churchy atmosphere. "You've at least seen the top half before, the trademarked magnificent Sephardic pelt won't take you by surprise."
"Maybe not, but I still like it. A lot." Having a few minutes to herself was, in fact, keeping her head on straight about how much she'd like to run her fingers through Erran’s hair. She'd never liked hairy guys, or thought about liking hairy guys, until she'd met him. There were very few things she could think of that would have turned her off by now when it came to Erran.
She folded her sweater and her leggings on the small stool beside her bathtub, and took a deep breath. God only knew what had possessed her down in that basement, but he'd seen her in the date-night lingerie before: ocean-colored lace, silky, the texture of her skin obvious beneath it; underwear--as she had said--that was meant to be seen. It felt good to be doing something flirty, something sexy. Something normal. He’d lit a candle, which threw a flickery, ruby glow over the room. She smiled at him again, a smile that was mischievous and apprehensive all at once, and she struck a dramatic swimsuit pose in the doorway, leaning back against the frame, one hand above her head. Her skin was all broken out in goosebumps, but she could handle it for a few minutes.
"See, now I'm allowed to look without being a creep, this is great. The righteous are rewarded," he said, smiling. Gemma really did have amazing legs, long-muscled and elegant, a dancer's body, and the pale translucent blue of the flirty date-night underwear set off the creamy colour of her bare skin. Erran had been expecting that they'd both just laugh, the clothes she'd picked out for a not-impossible night with an ex, but somehow it did still move him to see her standing in the doorway, alive and here with him in spite of everything. "Yeah, it wasn't a waste to buy those," he said after a moment. "Don't just stand there, c'mere..."
"Is this what I get for coming back? You bossing me around now, Serfaty?" But it was exactly what she wanted to do, and so she crossed the room, resting at the edge of the bed, knees pressing the mattress. It made her shiver again to know that he was watching her with those dark, dark eyes, and his murmur--c'mere--made the blood in her veins feel like velvet. She didn't try to cover up even though she was closer now and even though she would cold, her nipples obvious under the thin lace. She wanted him to look, but whispered, "We don't have to… to do things like this now, just because I went missing and we were scared. --I heard myself say that and I'm taking it back, if that's okay. That was the stupidest fucking thing that's ever come out of my mouth."
"Does this feel too much like rushing or something?" he asked, sitting up when she came to the edge of the bed. "Because we totally don't have to—all right, okay, you're taking it back, I won't get neurotic on you. It's just been an intense few days, and I missed you, that's all that's going on in my head. I thought about you a lot while you were gone," he added, his gaze travelling down the length of her body, the curve of her breasts. Thought about you a lot was definitely a euphemism, but he didn’t think he had to explain it to her. He reached up to touch her chin, bringing her down the few inches to kiss her.
She slid her hands down the outside of his arms, her palms chafing his skin as if he were cold. He probably would be in the next few minutes; the long showers helped, but the minimal clothing and the big windows in Gemma's room wouldn't guard against the chill for long. "This is not going too fast," she whispered. "Tell me what you thought about. You're good at stories, tell me what you thought about." After a moment, she slid into his lap, straddling him. Body heat. It was practical. Of course. Her hands were light on his chest, thumbs stroking the hair there--a bigger turn-on than she would have admitted to anyone but him, something that seemed intensely private, intensely theirs--and she pressed her lips to his forehead. His cheeks. His mouth.
"Mm." He slid his hands down to her waist as she straddled his hips, one thumb just under the elastic of her underwear, tracing small circles. "I was wishing we'd done this earlier, when we had the chance—we couldn't have known. So I was remembering other times with other people but I imagined you there instead..."
He hesitated a little before elaborating: the reality was as simple as that, he'd jacked off while thinking of Gemma in various based-on-a-true-story situations, but he picked one that would make a good story to tell. "One night, it was New Year's Eve, I was in New York but not in Times Square," he began. "We were in this old hotel, the Pierre, some private party in a big suite that we ditched after a couple of hours. We went up to the ballroom in the penthouse, which was supposed to be closed for reservations—I just talked my way in, it was back in that era when I could talk my way in anywhere. You were wearing red," he said, tracing the plunging V of the imaginary neckline of the gown as he remembered it across her skin. It was Gemma in the memory now, not whoever he'd been with at the time. "Dark red, drapey, you took your shoes off and the hem dragged on the floor behind you. Inside the furniture was all gone and someone had taken the chandeliers down to be refurbished or cleaned or something, drapes gone, and the walls were only half-painted, but the space is amazing. You can see views of the city from every window, three hundred sixty degrees. The hotel guy said the views were so perfect that the NYPD used to use them as police lookouts. It was snowing so even in the dark it wasn't dark, the city lights reflecting off the clouds. We had a couple of bottles of wine with us, kind of drunk already, and we could just barely hear the thump of the bass from the party a floor below us, hip-hop party—we tried to ballroom dance to it and it totally didn't work, we just fell over laughing. And you hitched up your dress for me while we were on the floor, so I reached down between your legs..." He copied the movement, his palm brushing over the gusset of her underwear, the heel of his hand pressed lightly against her. "Like that. Nobody bothered us, nobody interrupted..."
The space below her ribs caved, showing her ribcage in sharp relief as her breath left her, and she sucked it back in hard. Her head was swimming. Being transplanted into his memories might have bothered other girls, but it didn’t bother her. It was as if she were--as if she always would be--more important… it was a drunken feeling. She always loved to listen to him talk, the way his low, drowsy voice wound a cocoon around them both, but he'd never talked to her like this. He'd never touched her like this. We couldn't have known. Her color was high and obvious, splotchy pink across her breasts and up her throat, cheeks flushed. A shift of her hips, and she was pressing more tightly against the heel of his hand. It was a bad idea to show Them that They were right in any way, that separating Gemma and Erran would cause them immeasurable pain, but she was breathing hard. "Keep going," she whispered, with another tiny, oceanic movement of her hips. She bit down hard on her bottom lip.
He pressed his hand harder against her when she pressed her hips against him, and his fingers ran down the length of the gusset and back again. "We tried—we kept cracking up because a lot of the positions were kind of uncomfortable, in this big empty space with no chairs or tables, we'd start and stop and apologise, but we couldn't keep our hands off each other. On top, on bottom, bent over this railing around the bandshell that wasn't quite the right height. Finally it was up against the wall, against those big windows. Way too high up for anyone to see, we were on the forty-first floor. Part of the skyline. The glass was too cold to press your back against, you said. Backless dress. So you faced the windows and I was behind you." He could feel where she was wet through the delicate fabric of her underwear, so he slid his hand in to touch her skin to skin. "And that's the Pierre story, we went back to your room at the Plaza...we made out in the cab and were gonna do it again in your bed but we just fell asleep, I didn't fuck you again until the next morning."
“Jesus, Erran," she breathed, her hand gripped tight in his wet hair. He was telling her what she'd asked to hear, but it was sensory overload. Trying to place herself in this scenario, trying to understand that Erran was talking to her like this, low, intimate, I didn't fuck you again until the next morning… she rested her forehead against his, trying to get her breath back even though her hips had begun to move slowly in rhythm with his fingers, almost without thought. "I did want you to look at me," she whispered. "That day in the swimming pool. I did want you to. I wanted you to want me and I liked you even more for being decent. There--" She grasped his wrist gently. "That’s it, there… I… should… do you want me to take them off?"
"Take them off, yeah," he whispered. "This one, let me—" When she let go of his wrist, he reached up instead to unhook her bra from behind, the familiar little tightening and release that he always liked to feel when undressing a woman, the cups falling loose. They were definitely succeeding at keeping the cold away. "I wanted to look that first day, yeah, I’m human here. But I wanted you to like me, I wanted to have a friend in this place. Someone to trust."
"Me too. And I wanted it to be you. Not because of the bullshit, not because of all that… I just… I liked you. You felt like someone I could trust." She slid her bra away and stood up again, sliding her hands into her knickers until they fell to her feet, kicking them away with the absent ease that women had, not thinking twice about it. She slid her hands through his hair, standing in front of him, and her joints were shaking. "God, I'm scared," she whispered on an outbreath. They could take him from her. He could pull back of his own accord. She would be alone again, then, with nothing. The same way she had been before this place. "God, I'm so scared of this and I want it so fucking much. I want you. Erran, I want you, I want you…" She was kissing his face again, his mouth, soft at first and then as if she could bruise them both, cradling his face between her hands.
"I know, I know, I'm scared too," he murmured when they paused for a second to breathe. They could take her away again any time, and what was worse was that They had always had that power and he'd just pretended it didn't exist. And now he knew that gone was not necessarily gone, that if she went missing again that she might still be out there somewhere, asleep or locked up alone somewhere. But they couldn't think about that possibility all the time and stay sane, and more, it felt stupid and ungrateful not to really live the time they had together. An illusion of control was better than nothing. "But I want you too, I want you..."
He moved back on the bed to give them more room, drawing her with him, her kneeling while he sat so that he could put his mouth on her breast, his hands roaming down over her ass.
She couldn't touch enough of him, her long dry hands spanning his back, mapping the muscles there, the deep valley of his spine until it flattened into his hips just above his towel. Forget the towel. Gemma hated that towel right now, but she'd take care of it when his mouth wasn't distracting her like that, sweet sharp point of sensation behind his lips, and she murmured something wordless, meaningless, burying her mouth against his hair. She'd never been much for casual sex and she hadn't gotten laid since parting ways with Daniel. Actual calendar years, kid. The fact that it was Erran now, here, was only making her shake all the more.
"I'm not usually like this," she whispered into his hair. "Trembling. All damsel-like. It's… just been a minute since I was with anybody, and this is just important, and I'm scared, and I'm… I mean, I think…" Words that they definitely weren't ready for yet. Words she would whisper in the scroll of his ear, if ever, far from any microphone. "And you just feel so good," she whispered instead, shifting between them to loosen the knot of his towel, to find him with her hand, and she groaned softly against his throat.
"It's been a minute for me too," he said. "Last time was...shit, it was early in 2013, I was still in grad school. Life got busy." He'd dated since then, casual evenings out when he had the energy, obediently attending his shul's singles dinners when asked to go. But nothing intense, and maybe he would have avoided intensity on purpose for a long time if Zenith hadn't forced the issue. "I won't lie, the shaking-damsel thing is very flattering," he teased her, but was distracted by her bare body. "Why do you smell so good, since when is that fair? —Please tell me neither of us has to get dressed again and go hunt for the Soviet People's Communal Condom Stash, that might kill me."
"Fuuuuuuuuck responsibility," she said with a laugh, but she slowly got up from his lap and went to her bedside table. Everything had been put back exactly as she'd left it, and she'd investigated every inch of the room while Erran was dozing or while the two of them were talking. Everything was in its place. Including the handful of condoms she'd taken from the public bathroom as a just in case measure.
She turned back to Erran, limned in the lamplight, and held the foil packet between two fingers, an eyebrow arched. "Impressed?"
"I am, you really are psychic," Erran said, laughing as he flopped back on the bed in exaggerated relief. "Burn the witch, burn the witch—get back here with the goods, c'mon," he said, sitting up again and moving the discarded towel and a stray decorative pillow out of the way. The covers were half rucked up from her nap that afternoon, smooth on the other side where he'd been reading. "God, you look so good..."
Gemma tumbled back onto the bed with him, hair tousled, bending down to kiss him again. The condom, however, she held well out of reach. “You’re not really going to just wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am me here, you know,” she told him, solemn-eyed, but there was mischief playing at the corners of her mouth. Her always smiling mouth. “You smell amazing, you look... like my adolescent brain could not have come up with this. This is so good.” Lithe and strong and hirsute, things that Gemma didn’t even know were her type until they were Erran. She bent down, pressing a kiss just above his right knee. “I’m… going to need a few more minutes with all of… this. I kind of want the first time to be good.” She tucked her hair behind her ear to look up at him. “Just… because I want to be doing this for a while. With you.”
"What, did I not tell you about the six months I spent in India learning the secrets of tantric sex? Me and Sting? This is gonna go on for weeks," Erran said, but he was smiling, reaching down to cup her cheek as she bent over his thigh. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I mentioned Sting, that was inconsiderate. We've got lots of time, we'll do anything you want."
“That’s not what I meant, and you had to go and bring Sting into it, look what you did. My libido’s dead.” She kissed the inside of his wrist before she flopped on her side, exasperated, lolling onto her back for just a moment. It felt good to be silly. It felt good to be naked. The cold was all but forgot for now. Erran was here and nothing could hurt beyond bearing if he was with her. “I meant that I want to be fucking you for a good long time, both in current duration and in future encounters, thank you…” She’d bent her head to kiss his side, the tender dip where most people were ticklish, but traced her mouth lower to the faint, defined cut of muscle that she always liked in men. Pretty. Not macho, not in Erran, but pleasing. She rested her head there, fingertip drifting up to brush the base of his cock.
She did get a twitch out of him when her mouth brushed over that ticklish spot, but relaxed again when she went lower to the iliac crest. He couldn't keep his hands off her, her tumble of blonde hair and the sharp lines of her shoulder-blades, the half-hidden line of her long neck, the twin divots at the small of her back, just above her ass. "You can have your wish, then, we'll take our time," he murmured. "Your mouth feels so good..."
They were nearly end-to-end by now, like children at a sleepover, head to foot and packed in on beds, and his hand running down her back made her shiver, her eyes drifting closed. She loved all of it, all the things that were cuddling-turned-sexy, his hands in her hair and his fingers stroking down her back… she made a low sound, turning her head, and she ran her tongue over the head of his cock, lingering. She glanced up at him, swift--is this okay?--but she must have seen something in his face, because she rose up on her elbows and took him into her mouth.
He'd halfway started to say something, probably something positive but completely inarticulate, although he immediately forgot whatever it was. When he felt the heat of her mouth close around his cock he caught his breath, his lower lip between his teeth, and his hand tightened slightly in her hair at the nape of her neck. "Ohh fuck, Gemma..."
It made her toes curl, and she drew her mouth away to let out a soft sound when she felt his hand tighten… God, she loved being talked to, hearing somebody else's voice in bed. Erran's voice, that drowsiness it had, only made it sexier, like she'd just roused him from sleep. She took him in again, deep, once, twice, and then her hand joined her mouth, stroking him as she suckled at his head. There were some girls that didn't mind going down on guys, and some girls that actively disliked it, and Gemma fell into neither category. She got hungry for it, and she was hungry for Erran's sounds now.
He made a soft, unintelligible noise low in his throat. Erran had always had a neurotic sort of fear that women would accuse him of being selfish in bed—in his youth it had been a truth hurts sort of thing, because he'd been a selfish partner in most other respects, but even now that he’d changed his ways, the worry had settled into a habit. He usually went out of his way to be the giver, and was tense when receiving (okay, okay, let her stop, you've had lots). And old habits didn't die that quickly, but it felt easier with Gemma, since he had no doubt that she'd tell him if she wanted something different. So he only squeezed her shoulder when they were getting genuinely close to the danger zone, and whispered, "Okay, okay—Christ, your mouth—I want you so much, I want to fuck you..."
It made her shiver again as if the window had cracked open, a shiver clear down to the marrow of her bones, and she reluctantly sat back but only so far, her mouth on his stomach now, his breastbone, the hollow of his throat. "Do something for me?" she asked, her voice soft and damp against his ear. "I want you on top of me. Like nothing could get to me, like… like I'm safe…" There was a dangerous fissure in her voice, one that she struggled vainly against. "I want you to cover me, I want you inside me…"
"Of course I will, of course, yeah, just lie down," he whispered, shifting position with her until she was on her back. It was what he wanted too, something close and intimate, pretending just for now that it would make them safe: they can't separate us if we stay this close. He found the condom in the folds of the blanket, unwrapped it, and rolled it on before moving on top of her, his weight on his elbows.
He pulled the blanket up over them both, for the warmth and also for privacy from the cameras; a fig leaf was better than nothing. Her hair was spread out over the pillow, golden in the light from the bedside lamp, and he bent to kiss her—her shoulder, her throat, her mouth—before he entered her.
Her breath caught, and she was afraid that she might start to cry--who did that, during their first time with someone, what kind of person started crying?--and yet she could feel the tears slip back into her hair at her temples. He was good, so good and kind and warm that he couldn't be real; there was no way she'd be allowed to keep him. As they moved together, her mouth met his, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his shoulders, restless and full of need, whispering things she knew she wouldn't want to be held accountable for later: it's good it's perfect i want you i love you stay with me stay with me don't ever go i'll be yours always if you'll just stay, just stay, you feel so good, just stay, i love you, stay you're so perfect stay with me stay…
It made his chest ache to see those traces of tears run down her temples, gleaming in the warm light from the lamp, and he bent closer over her, forehead to forehead, in a vain hope that the cameras wouldn't see it. Cameras always saw what you were afraid they'd see, something he'd learned the hard way over and over. His thrusts were slow, measured, trying to pace it out as long as he could: they wanted the first time to be good, because whether or not they were saying it out loud, they knew now that it could also be the last time. He was murmuring her name aimlessly with his mouth close by her ear, his face buried in her hair, but inside he was praying: I know this already, I know how fast you can lose something beautiful, don't make me learn that lesson again, I swear I know it by now...
He was so careful with her that she felt precious, as if she might break if he moved faster, and she slid her hands up over his arms, his shoulders, cupping his face and stroking his cheeks with her thumbs as if he were the one that had started crying. She was stupid for getting wrapped up in this and she couldn't start to care, because she wanted something, one thing, that would remember her, one thing that would keep her anchored in whatever life she had now. "Like that," she whispered, a rasp in her throat, arching her back and bracing his hips against her just so… "Stay close like that, the pressure--"
"God, yes, that's it—" Her legs wrapped tight around him happened to be one of those foolproof things that Erran always found hopelessly hot, the acute angles of her thighs and the feeling of being held in tight. He thought he'd heard an I love you go by from Gemma a few seconds ago, or maybe it had been him, and he didn't give a fuck because so what, it was true. Whoever had said it. He shifted his weight to press his hips harder against hers, into the bed. "That's it, just like that, you're so beautiful...oh fuck, I'm so close—"
That nearly broke her, and it was only a heartbeat or two later before her body turned taut beneath his, pleasure caught for a second in a drop of amber, her mouth open against his neck with a strangled, guttural sound. Her fist clenched in his hair as it broke over her, an involuntary movement that she gentled the split-second after, cradling his head in the curve of her palm. She was whispering his name as she writhed, her breath hot on his throat, I want to feel you come... Erran...
She'd barely whispered it when he came, and by now there was no sign that the room had ever been too cold; under the blanket, the heat between their bodies almost unbearable, like the humid heat of a summer night before a thunderstorm. He came hard and deep, shuddering, one fist wound in the sheet and the other hand curled on the pillow just above her head, as if to protect her from something about to fall from above.
"Holy fuck," he murmured when he got his breath back, still resting on top of her. He was damp with sweat, nerves still buzzing. "Worth the wait?"
She was still breathing hard; her usual stamina wasn't even recovered, let alone trying to do this, and she turned her damp forehead into his neck. "Yes," she whispered, nuzzling him as if they could get any closer than they already were. Her skin was rosy, radiating heat. Salt taste on her tongue when she kissed his throat, slack-mouthed, still luxuriating in him. "Christ, yes, and that's a hell of a cheeky question to ask right now, you wrung me out…"
"Look, I'm not a bodhisattva here, I still have a few shreds of earthly ego," he murmured, smiling. He was swamped with endorphins and didn't care about a goddamn thing right now except her—let the bastards running this place watch on their cameras, so what. This moment was something no one could take away from them. Gemma had been as good as dead and now she was here, and he wasn't going to waste his time on pre-mourning for something that might not even happen. He pressed a kiss to her temple. "I missed you."
“I love you.” She'd meant to say I missed you, that had been every single intention in her head. She couldn't discredit this as mindless murmuring during sex--it would insult them both if she even tried it. Her eyes were enormous in her face, and she didn't say anything else, not entirely trusting her own stupid mouth not to get her in trouble again. Welp. Fuck.
"You—hey, c'mon, don't look like that," Erran said, trying not to laugh at her expression even though it was kind of funny, the two of them trying to pretend like they had any kind of chill whatsoever. "I love you too, you know that, right? We're not fooling anyone here, it's dumb to pretend." Because if she disappeared again he'd be kicking himself for not saying it when he had the chance, when he miraculously had a second chance, that he'd been given the perfect opportunity and had chosen instead to try to act above it all. "I love you too, Gemma."
She had been about to roll away, which was slightly impossible at this juncture, or to at least pull a pillow over her face and order him not to look at her while she got it together… but instead she was staring at him, a tiny frown between her dark brows. She reached up to trace his cheekbone, and then she was smiling, the birthday-cake smile, the overbite smile, the one that made her look as if nothing had ever hurt her in the world. “Okay,” she whispered, and she couldn’t help kissing him, and then kissing him again. Cameras all forgot. If They used this to hurt them… it was unthinkable, bringing the thought of that pain into a moment like this. No. She wasn’t doing it. “Okay.” She drew him down so that she could whisper it, just the way they had whispered under the sheets on the island, her mouth close by his ear: “Then I love you. And that’s… that’s just it. That’s it for me.”
"I love you," he whispered again. "That's it, yup, that's it for me too." His face was sore from smiling, and it felt good to have the words out in the open where they belonged. He wasn't a person who was slow to love people, even when everybody else would have said that maybe he should have been, and his ability to pretend had limits. He wasn't that good an actor.
"You'll stay?" She was tracing her fingers over his face as if she could memorize it, that exact smile, the parameters of his happiness. She didn't want to stop looking at him. Waking up beside him shouldn't have felt like a new thing--they fell asleep together often--but she wanted the newly-minted privilege of his bare skin beside her, open for touch, for mornings laying in all lazy. "We'll stay at yours tomorrow, I promise…"
"Why wouldn't I stay, we're not getting dressed again just to make the shortest walk of shame ever all the way to next door," Erran said with a yawn. "Because I'm not leaving you alone here, forget about it. I am gonna go to the bathroom before I pass out on top of you, but that's as far as I'm going," he said, levering himself up on his elbow to sit up.
“Do I throw in the ‘I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go’ thing here? Is this my moment?” Gemma propped her head up on her hand, grinning as he got up, and tilting her head a little. “Mm. Yep. That’s my line. God, that’s a cute ass.” She rolled onto her back, spreading out like a starfish in her bed. He loves me. It sent a sweet chill down her spine. Erran loved her. They could do that here, keep it close, keep it safe and sweet and small, burning between them. They could love each other.