I brought her hand to my lips and placed a kiss on it. “I don’t want to leave you ever again.”
“I think I’d like that.” She looked down and then back up at me under her long, full lashes. “So…where are you staying tonight?”
“Well, I planned to stay with Court.”
“I’m thinking no,” she said, standing up and pulling me out of the booth. “I haven’t slept in, like, forty-eight hours. You can stay with me and make me sleep.”
“Is that what we’re calling it nowadays?”
She laughed and then threw her arms around me and kissed me. Relief flooded through my body as I held her in this ridiculous greasy burger joint and knew that she was mine. That we weren’t so jaded by our pasts to screw up something this incredible. That, despite all odds, we’d found each other again. And we were going to make it work.
We headed out together, taking a cab uptown. I thought she had been kidding when she said that she wanted to sleep, but as soon as we walked in the house, she stripped out of her clothes and nearly face-planted into the bed.
“Did you honestly not sleep at all?” I asked, pulling back the covers and tucking her legs in.
She shook her head. “I was a hot mess. I couldn’t seem to shut my brain off. I think I passed out right when English got back.”
I grimaced. “Oh yeah. I heard about English being back. She really laid into Court.”
Lark yawned dramatically and reached for me. “She’s going through something. It’ll blow over.”
“Sucks.”
“Yeah. That’s a word for it.”
I came around to her side of the bed and crouched down in front of her. “Can I give you something?”
Her green eyes were hooded as she nodded.
Then I retrieved a wrapped gift from my suit pocket. I’d gone back to my place in Brooklyn for it. I’d been planning to give it to her later. After the primary, when we won. A victory gift. But it felt right now.
“What is it?” she said, leaning up on one elbow.
I passed it to her. “A gift for you.”
She took it in her hands and slowly peeled back the wrapping paper. It fluttered to the floor, and in her hand was a small, hand-carved, wooden lark.
“Oh wow,” she breathed. “When did you have time for this?”
“You find time for things that are important.”
“You made me one of these on the presidential campaign.”
I nodded. “I did. I figured that one was probably gone. And you might need a replacement.”
“Actually,” she said softly, “I was waiting to show you…”
She opened up the second drawer of her nightstand and removed an object wrapped in tissue paper. She undid it and showed me the lark that I’d carved for her.
“You kept it all this time?” I asked in surprise.
“I couldn’t get rid of it. Even when I got rid of everything else. It felt too…personal.” She held the two larks together. “And now, they’re a matched set.”
“Like us.”
She hummed appreciatively and set the two larks down on her nightstand to watch over us. Then she patted the bed next to her. “Sleep.”
I laughed. “You really do just want to sleep.”
Her eyes were half-glazed over. “The stress is finally all gone. Well, except for your job. We’ll figure that out.”
I stripped out of my suit and crawled into bed, carefully tucking her back into my chest. “You sound so confident about that.”
“You’re good at what you do. We can find something.”
“You know, it took weeks for me to get the job on campaign after the other company closed.”
She turned in to face me and met my steady gaze. “I’m going to sound Upper East Side here, but you didn’t have me before. You didn’t have our group of friends. It’s different now. And I know that sounds snooty or whatever, but I’ve kind of come to terms with it. This is who I am. It has some benefits, and we’ll use them to get you a job that you enjoy.”
I brushed her wild red hair out of her face. “I feel lucky then that you would want to do that for me. I’d never ask.”
She pressed her lips to mine. “I know. That’s why I’m going to do it.”
Something shifted between us in that moment. It wasn’t just a soft kiss that bespoke of exhaustion. An exhaustion that we both felt. It was something else altogether. Like our worlds were back on axis, spinning with our own gravity.
Her hands explored my body, and then she was tugging at my boxers. I eased out of them as she tossed her panties to the ground. She reached for my cock, taking it in her hand and experimentally stroking it a few times. I groaned in the back of my throat. She smiled against my lips.
“I like that,” she said. “How you moan when I touch you.”
“Fuck, woman,” I groaned, grasping her jaw in my hands and crushing our lips together.
It was her turn to make sexy mewling noises against my lips. Then she hiked one leg up and over my body and settled herself on top of me. My hands slipped down to her hips as she aligned our bodies together. I had an unbelievable vision of her naked form on top of me. Her wide hips and the easy roll of her stomach. Her fucking perfect, small breasts. I dug my fingers into her skin as my cock lengthened at that glorious view.
“You’re beautiful.”
She flushed all over and then slid her pussy down onto my cock. I couldn’t contain my own moan as I watched her eyes close and her head tip back.
“Oh god,” she said.
Then she started moving. Lifting her hips ever so slowly and then dropping back down onto me. She braced one hand on my chest, working up a rhythm. Her tits bounced as she rocked back and forth.
And soon, I lost the ability to let her continue. It was a fucking sight to watch, but I needed more. She needed more.
I took control back, even as she was on top of me. I grasped her hips harder and began to work them in a rolling motion.
Her eyes widened. “Fuck. Right there.”
I thrust up into her as I slammed her back down onto me again and again. Faster and faster, fucking her until we were both gasping for breath, aching all over. My cock grew just a little bit more as I watched her give in and come all over my dick. And then I grunted inelegantly and came behind her.
She collapsed forward over me when she was finished and pressed a kiss to my chest. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Her breathing slowed until she was almost asleep before she went into the bathroom to clean up. I went in after she was done, and by the time I came back out, she was already passed out. I pulled my boxers back on, climbed into bed, and drew her tight against me.
Mine.
She was mine.
38
Lark
“It’s just temporary, right?” I asked English the next morning.
Her eyes rose when she saw Sam walk into the room and reach for the pot of coffee.
“Oh yeah. We made up.”
English snorted. “Go figure.”
“But really, you’re not moving back to LA, right?”
She sighed and then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. But I do have to go back. I have to finish some stuff off, talk to some people. Lots of decisions to make.”