“I was saying good-bye to the girl I’d once fancied, and I think, to the man I’d been who’d fancied her. Only that. Don’t cry. Here now.” He brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “Don’t cry.”
“I feel stupid.”
“Good. So do I.”
“I love you. Scary.” She pushed up again, and this time into his arms. “So fucking scary.”
“I know.” She felt him tremble when he pressed his face to her neck. “Don’t leave me again. God. God. Don’t leave me again.”
“I didn’t.”
“Part of you did.” He moved her back, and his eyes swarmed with emotion. “Part of you left me, and I couldn’t stand it.”
“I’m not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere.” Needing to soothe, she worked up a smile. “Besides, you’d just drag me back again.”
“Damn right.”
“Or try.” She closed her hands over his, and felt the abraded skin on his knuckles. Lowering them, she studied. “Wow. Beat the hell out of someone?”
“Just a droid. It seems to work so well for you when you’re pissed at me.”
“You should get your R-and-D department to come up with one that regenerates or something.” She touched her lips to them. “You should put something on them.”
“You just did. Look how tired you are,” he said, stroking her cheek. “My Eve. Worn to the bone. And I wager you didn’t eat at all today.”
“I couldn’t. Morris even had homemade brownies. Fudge brownies.”
“We’ll have some soup.”
“I’m too tired to eat.”
“All right, then. No soup, no work. Just sleep.” He slid his arm around her waist, and she slid hers around his as they started out of the room. “Will you let me back in there? Into the work?”
She’d shut him out there, she realized. They’d shut each other out here and there. Little doors closing. “Yeah. I could use some help. Questions about a security system to start.”
“I’m your man.”
She looked over at him, smiled. “Yeah, you are.”
She slid into sleep, then before dawn lightened the sky, slid into love. His mouth woke her, warm on hers. Sweet and warm and welcoming. And steeped in his taste, hers answered. His hands stirred her, so that her heart seemed to sigh. Feeling the beat of his against her, she opened.
In the utter quiet, in the soft, soothing dark, they moved together.
Comfort was sought, and found. Pledges were remade without words. And everything needed was given.
She lay, tucked in the curve of his arm. Drifting.
“I should’ve let you sleep.”
“The way I feel right now, you did just fine. Pretty damn perfect.” So perfect, she thought, she could curl there for the next millennium. “What time is it anyway?”
“Nearly six.”
“You probably have to get up.”
“I’m liking where I am at the moment.”
She smiled in the dark. “I’m starving.”