there she goes again!

The room goes silent.

You look very deliberately at the anatomical poster of lungs on the wall instead of at Spencer.

He clears his throat.

“Doctor, would there be,” he asks, in the tone of a man trying very hard to sound like a normal person, “any concern about strain depending on positioning?”

The doctor nods thoughtfully. “Not particularly, but use common sense. If anything causes sharp pain, stop. Otherwise, there’s no medical reason to avoid it.”

You make a soft sound of despair.

The doctor smiles like this is all adorable instead of excruciating, gives you a few more instructions about physical therapy and scar care, and sends you on your way.

By the time Spencer gets you back to the car, your pride is on life support.

He starts the engine. Adjusts the air. Keeps both hands on the wheel.

Does not look at you.

Interesting.

You buckle in slowly, then turn to study his profile. “Are you going to pretend that didn’t just happen all the way home?”

Spencer’s grip on the steering wheel tightens by a fraction. “I’m not pretending anything. I’m driving.”

You glare out the windshield. Traffic inches forward. Somewhere up ahead, somebody leans on their horn.

The silence stretches just long enough to get weird.

Then Spencer says, very carefully, “If I embarrassed you, it wasn’t intentional.”

“You absolutely did embarrass me,” you say. “Just so we’re clear.”

His mouth twitches. “I know. I’m sorry.”

The apology is sincere enough to take the heat out of your irritation.

You shift carefully in your seat, one hand resting near your scar out of habit. Weeks of almosts flicker through your mind before you can stop them: Spencer’s hand lingering at your waist while helping you out of bed. A kiss in the kitchen that got hotter than either of you meant it to and ended with both of you breathing like idiots. Falling asleep beside him and waking up painfully aware of how hard he was against you.

You glance at him again. He catches it this time.

His voice is quieter when he says, “Are you okay?”

You look at the road ahead and answer honestly enough. “Yeah. I’m just never going to recover from hearing you ask my doctor about sex positions.”

That gets a laugh out of him, startled and soft. “It was medically relevant!”

“You’re such a loser.”

The light ahead turns red. Spencer reaches across the console and takes your hand without looking at you. His thumb brushes once over your knuckles, grounding and absentminded and familiar.

Your pulse does something deeply unhelpful.

When he lifts your hand and presses one quick kiss to the back of it before the light changes, you stare at him for a second too long.

—

That night, sleep gets hold of you slowly.

You drift under with the doctor’s voice still somewhere in the back of your mind, absurd and clinical and impossible to scrub out. Resume sexual activity. Including intercourse. No medical reason to avoid it. You hate that those phrases followed you home. You hate even more that Spencer spent the rest of the day being so perfectly normal about them that it somehow made everything worse. He made dinner. He asked if you wanted tea. He kissed your forehead before bed like a gentleman in a nineteenth-century novel and then laid beside you with both hands respectfully to himself, which should have been considerate and instead felt vaguely like psychological warfare.

So when your subconscious finally gives up and takes over, it does so with very little patience.

Now, his mouth is already on yours.

Hot, deep, and unhurried in a way that feels almost cruel, because he knows exactly how long you’ve both been waiting and is taking his time anyway. One of his hands is braced beside your head; the other is sliding slowly up your thigh, deliberate enough to make your whole body tighten around the wanting of it.

You make a helpless sound into his mouth and he swallows it like he’s starving.

There’s nothing careful about him here. No polite restraint. No respectful distance. Just Spencer, warm and solid over you, kissing you like he finally got tired of being good. His mouth drags from yours to your throat, then lower, and the scrape of his breath across your skin sends a sharp pulse of heat through your stomach. His fingers slide higher. Your back arches before you can stop it. He makes that low sound he only ever makes when you catch him off guard, and finally—

You wake up.

Dark room. Racing heart. Sheets tangled around you. Spencer asleep beside you, one arm loose over the blanket, sleeping face looking almost innocent.

Which is offensive, frankly.

You lie there for a second, staring at the ceiling, willing your body to get a grip. You’re hot everywhere and exhausted and painfully aware of the man breathing softly inches away from you.

You shift carefully, trying to settle yourself without making the mattress move too much.

Spencer makes a sleepy sound and rolls slightly toward you.

His hand lands, warm and heavy, at your waist. Not low enough to be indecent, but not innocent enough to help. He blinks awake halfway, hair a mess, eyes barely open behind the smudge of sleep.

“Y’okay?” he murmurs.

You almost laugh. “Mm-hm.”

His thumb strokes once over your side. “But you’re awake.”

“Astute observation, doc.”

He gives a drowsy little hum that might be a laugh, then presses a soft kiss to your shoulder without opening his eyes all the way. “C’mon. Go back to sleep, angel.”

The tenderness of it nearly kills you.

You manage some kind of affirmative sound and lie there stiffly until his breathing evens out again. By the time you finally drift back under, you’re more irritated than sleepy.

Morning does nothing to improve your mood.

By lunch, you are deeply tired of yourself.

Spencer notices, of course. He notices when you answer too quickly, when you mutter at the coffee maker, when you snap at a cabinet door for existing too loudly. He lets the first few things go. Lets the next few go too. By the time the sun sets, you’re in the kitchen tidying absolutely nothing with far more aggression than the task requires when he leans in the doorway and says, very carefully, “Did I do something?”

You don’t look at him. “No.”

Spencer comes a little farther into the room. “You’ve been weird all day.”

You turn and look at him flatly. “That’s rich coming from you.”

His brows draw together. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” You gesture vaguely at his whole irritatingly beautiful existence. “You’ve been acting bizarre since the appointment yesterday.”

Something flickers across his face. 

“Okay,” he says slowly. “So this is about the appointment.”

“Partly.”

Spencer folds his arms. “What’s the other part?”

You glare at him.

He waits.

You hate when he does that. Calm, patient, terrifyingly sure that if he stands there long enough, you’ll crack on your own.

“Nothing,” you mutter.

“That’s definitely not true.”

You exhale sharply through your nose and look away. “You’re just… being annoying.”

“Annoying how?”

You stare at him a moment and suck in a tight breath. “You’re being so polite and respectful that it’s looping back around into driving me insane.” The words come out too fast, almost tripping over one another.

Spencer blinks.

You push on before your pride can stop you. “Ever since the doctor said—” You cut yourself off, grimacing. “You know. Ever since then, you’ve been acting like if you touch me, a panel of experts is going to kick in my front door and revoke your boyfriend privileges. Which makes absolutely no sense, since the doctor essentially gave you permission to act exactly opposite of that.”

To your annoyance, the corner of his mouth twitches.

“This isn’t funny,” you say.

“I know.” He pauses. “It’s a little funny.”

You glare at him until the twitch fades.

Then Spencer sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m…” He trails off, visibly searching for the least embarrassing version of his own thoughts. “I’m trying not to make it feel like some sort of… medically approved finish line. Or a milestone we have to hit right away because somebody in a white coat told us we could.” He pauses, gaze softening into something even more earnest. “Sex with you is always a big deal to me, and I— I didn’t want it to feel forced.”

The room goes quieter around the truth of that.

You look at him for a long second, your irritation shifting shape. “That’s… annoyingly sweet. And very thoughtful,” you huff.

Spencer looks wary. “You say that like being sweet and thoughtful is a bad thing.”

“Sometimes it is a bad thing!” you tell him. “Because now you’re acting like a monk.”

His eyebrows go up. “A monk.”

“Yes. A weirdly hot, deeply annoying monk.”

That gets a laugh out of him. He ducks his head once, and the sound of it loosens something in your chest.

Then he looks back up, eyes softer now. “You know I want you. I just…”

“Just what?” you ask.

His jaw flexes. “I don’t trust myself to get this exactly right. I… I want it to be perfect.”

You let that sit for a second.

Of course that’s what this is. He’s been silently tying himself in knots because the first time after all this matters to him enough that he’s terrified of getting it wrong.

As if anything about Spencer touching you has ever felt careless. As if every time he’s ever had you hasn’t felt exactly, devastatingly right.

“Spence,” you say, quieter now. “You have literally never gotten this wrong.”

His eyes flick back to yours.

“You should give yourself a little more credit,” you add.

Something softer moves through his expression at that, but the tension in the room doesn’t entirely loosen. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been on edge all day,” you mumble. “I just… uh, didn’t sleep well. And things were already weird after the appointment, and then you spent all day acting all monastic, and it was annoying.”

Spencer’s mouth twitches. “Monastic.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.” He tilts his head slightly. “But I can see that there’s something else you’re not telling me.”

You narrow your eyes. “Don’t profile me, Reid.”

He gives you a look that says really?

You fold your arms tighter. “Drop it.”

Spencer steps a little closer. “Please, just tell me. Did I do something specific to upset you this morning?”

“No,” you say. “My annoyance started when you were still asleep.”

He blinks. “What does that mean?”

You drag your hand down your face and refuse to look at him. “It means I was already in a bad mood by the time you woke up.”

“Why?”

“Spencer.”

His voice drops. Gentle. Curious. Much too perceptive. “Why?”

You stare at the cabinet over his shoulder like it might save you. It doesn’t.

When you finally speak, it comes out flat with embarrassment. “Because I had a dream about you.”

He goes perfectly still.

You can feel the heat climbing your neck now, which is deeply humiliating and somehow still not enough to stop you from making it worse.

“A very explicit dream,” you add. “And then I woke up next to you, and you were being all sweet and sleepy and impossible, and I’ve spent the entire day trying not to lose my mind while you’ve been walking around like you’ve taken a vow of chastity.”

For one long second, Spencer just stares at you.

“Oh,” he says faintly.

You glare at him. “Yeah. Oh.”

His hand comes up to run through his hair, which should not be as attractive as it is, before taking one slow step closer. “You had a sex dream about me.”

“Please don’t say it like that.”

“How should I say it?”

“Preferably not at all.”

That almost gets a laugh out of him, but his eyes stay fixed on your face. On your mouth.

“And you’ve been angry at me ever since,” he says softly.

“Not angry.” You fold your arms tighter, then immediately regret the defensive posture. “Just… severely inconvenienced by your entire vibe today.”

Spencer huffs a quiet breath. “My vibe.”

“Yes. All of your weird, noble self-restraint bullshit.”

His gaze drops for half a second. When it lifts again, it’s darker. Less careful. “You want me to stop being noble?”

The question lands low in your stomach.

You look at him for one long second, then say, “I want you to stop acting like you have to be afraid of this.”

“That,” he says, voice rougher now, “I can do.”

You tilt your chin up. “Good.”

That does it.

He crosses the space between you and kisses you before either of you says another word, fast and warm and far less careful than he’s been in weeks. You make a startled sound into his mouth and then he’s got one hand cupping the back of your neck, the other sliding around your waist, pulling you into him with a kind of urgency that feels so familiar it almost hurts.

You kiss him back just as hard, because whatever awkward, polite, maddening restraint has been sitting between you since the doctor’s appointment goes up in smoke the second his tongue slides against yours and his grip tightens on your body like he’s finally allowing himself to remember what it feels like to want you out loud.

He backs you into the counter.

Your hips hit the edge, and Spencer catches himself immediately, pulling back just enough to search your face.

“You okay?”

You could laugh at the reflexive question if you weren’t so busy trying to catch your breath.

“Yes,” you say, and then, because his eyes still look full of concern and guilt and about ten other things, you hook a hand into the front of his shirt and drag him back in. “Spence, please.”

That does something to him.

You feel it in the low sound he makes into your mouth, in the way his hands slide over your waist and hips and ass with a greedier kind of certainty now, in the way his body presses against yours until there’s nothing left between you except clothes and frustration.

You’ve missed this. Not just his mouth, not just his hands, but the particular electricity of being wanted by him. The way he’s never casual about it. The way wanting seems to move through his whole body like a current, making him shake just a little when he’s trying too hard to hold still.

You drag your fingers through his hair and he exhales against your lips, rough and wrecked enough to make heat slide lower in your body.

Then his hands are suddenly everywhere — one at your waist, one under your thigh — and before you can fully process it, he’s lifting you.

A startled laugh breaks against his mouth. “Spencer!”

“I know,” he murmurs, sounding like he absolutely does not know anything except that he needs you closer.

You hook your arms around his neck automatically, and he kisses you all the way down the hall, slow one second and hungry the next, like he keeps getting distracted by the fact that this is really happening. By the time he reaches the bed, both of you are breathing harder, the room suddenly too warm, the air charged with all the weeks of not doing this.

He sits on the edge of the mattress with you still in his arms, settling you into his lap like muscle memory.

You straddle him carefully, and for one suspended second, neither of you moves at all.

You can feel how hard he already is beneath you. He can definitely feel how wet you are. The realization lands between you like a match struck in the dark, and both of you go a little quieter with it.

Then Spencer lifts his hands to your face and kisses you again, slower now.

His fingers eventually slip under the hem of your shirt, and your breath catches. He peels the fabric up slowly, reverently, exposing skin inch by inch until he tosses it aside and just… looks at you.

Not at your breasts at first, though he notices those (obviously). Not at the waistband of your pants, though his hands twitch toward it. Instead, his gaze drifts to the scar on your side.

You suck in a sharp breath.

It isn’t that he hasn’t seen it before. He has, in bathroom fluorescents and early-morning light and the thin gray blur before dawn. He’s seen it while helping you change bandages, while handing you clean shirts, while pretending very valiantly not to stare as you step out of the shower.

But this is different.

This is the first time he’s looking at it with his hands already warm on your skin and his mouth pink from kissing you and want written so plainly across his face that you can’t hide from it. This is the first time the scar is here, in this moment, as part of something hungry instead of something clinical.

Some small, stupid muscle deep in your body braces before you can stop it.

Spencer notices, because of course he does.

His expression softens. He lifts one hand and traces the skin near the scar with the backs of his fingers, light enough to make you shiver. Then he bends his head and presses a kiss just above it.

Nothing dramatic or mournful. Just warm mouth, careful breath, and the kind of tenderness that makes your eyes sting before you can stop them.

He feels you react and looks up instantly. “Sorry, should I— Would you rather I didn’t?”

You shake your head too fast. “No, no. It’s not that.”

Spencer waits.

You swallow. “It just feels… different.”

Understanding moves through his face so gently it almost hurts. 

His thumb strokes once over your waist. He nods softly, then he bends again.

This time, he lets his mouth linger. One slow kiss over the scar itself, then another just below it, then one at the curve of your ribs beside it, unhurried and unafraid and so heartbreakingly natural that whatever you’d been bracing for just… dissolves.

Not because he makes it disappear, but because he doesn’t.

Because he folds it into the wanting of you without making it something tragic or fragile or strange. Because he touches it like it belongs exactly where it is: on your body, in his hands, in this moment, as much a part of being wanted as any other inch of your skin.

Your fingers thread into his hair.

“Spencer,” you whisper.

He looks up, and there’s so much raw emotion on his face that your chest goes tight all over again.

“I need you to stop being perfect for, like, one second, or else I’m gonna explode.”

A startled, breathless laugh slips out of him. He ducks his head once, almost shy, then looks back at you with his mouth still curved.

“I’m just being myself,” he says.

You narrow your eyes. “Exactly.”

He laughs, then mouths at your breast over the thin lace of your bra, and all coherent thoughts leave your body.

A broken moan escapes before you can stop it. Spencer groans softly at the sound and does it again, more deliberate this time, his tongue teasing through the fabric until your hips roll against him and he slides one hand around to your ass to help you move.

Your head falls back. The room spins pleasantly.

It’s not enough. Nothing about this feels like enough after waiting this long.

Your hands fumble with the buttons of his shirt, and he helps with shaking fingers, both of you half-laughing at how badly your coordination has abandoned you. By the time the shirt is open and pushed off his shoulders, you’re almost dizzy with relief.

His chest. His skin. His stupidly beautiful body, warm and solid under your hands.

You drag your palms over him, down his chest and stomach, and Spencer sucks in a breath that makes you feel downright vindicated.

“Missed this?” you tease.

He looks at you with pupils blown wide. “You have no idea.”

You hum. “Try me.”

Spencer takes his glasses off and drops them onto the nightstand with a clatter that would’ve made him twitch on any normal day. Then he cups your breasts through your bra with both hands, thumbs brushing over your nipples until they harden further under the lace.

“I’ve been trying,” he says quietly, and his voice has gone rough enough to make your thighs clench. “Every single day.”

Heat flashes through you.

You kiss him before he can see too much of that on your face, grinding down against him with a little more pressure this time. Spencer swears into your mouth and his hands tighten on you immediately.

“That,” he says, breathless, “is not fair.”

You do it again.

“Who said anything about fair?”

His laugh catches halfway to becoming a groan. Then he drags your bra straps down your shoulders before undoing the clasp and easing it off you with a slowness that makes your skin feel tight. The second he sees you bare, his whole face changes to that particular Spencer look, the one that says he’s overwhelmed by wanting and trying very hard to stay in his own body.

He kisses you like that too. Mouth at your throat, your collarbone, your breasts, one hand spanning your back while the other squeezes your ass almost helplessly whenever you make a sound he likes.

You’ve almost forgotten how noisy the two of you are together. How impossible it is not to be when everything feels this good.

“Take these off,” you whisper against his hair, tugging at his belt.

Spencer obeys immediately, getting you both undressed in a rush of hands and fabric and impatient mouths. Shirts first. Then his slacks and boxer briefs, your leggings and panties, one by one, until you’re both bare except for the mismatched socks he forgot to take off and you laugh so hard you nearly ruin the mood.

He looks down, mortified. “Oh no.”

“Keep them on,” you say. “It’s weirdly working for me.”

Then he’s laughing too, and the absurdity of it makes the whole thing sweeter somehow. Less like a medical milestone, and more like what it actually is: the two of you, still completely yourselves, finally getting each other back.

Spencer pushes you back onto the bed and kisses down your stomach and inner thighs with such obvious devotion that by the time his tongue finally drags through your slick cunt, you’re already shaking.

There’s nothing tentative about his mouth once he starts. Careful, yes. Attentive, obviously. But not tentative. He moves like he’s making up for lost time, like he’s learned your body by heart and spent the last two months being denied the chance to prove it.

Your thighs tighten around his head. Your fingers twist in the sheets.

“Spencer,” you gasp.

He groans into you at the sound of his name, the vibration going straight through your body. Then two fingers slide inside you and you practically sob with relief.

The stretch. The fullness. The filthy, perfect drag of his fingers while his mouth works your clit in the same steady rhythm that’s always destroyed you.

You come faster than you want to, sharp and bright and helpless, with both hands in his hair and his name falling out of your mouth like a prayer and a curse and a sob all at once. He works you through it with maddening patience until you’re twitching and trying to squirm away. He catches your hips, holding you open while he gentles, savoring you, listening to every little sound that spills out.

You drag him back up your body the second you can breathe.

Spencer kisses you then, deep and lingering, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. He’s already so wound up that your first touch around his cock makes his whole body tense.

“Jesus,” he breathes.

“Hi,” you murmur, smug and breathless.

He gives you a desperate sort of half-laugh and lets his forehead fall to yours while your hand works him slowly. He’s always been beautiful when he’s close, but this is different. Softer, somehow. More open. He’s not trying to be polished or sexy or anything but exactly what he is: a man very much in love and losing his mind about it.

Your thumb brushes the tip of his cock and his hips jerk.

“Okay,” he says, a little wrecked. “Okay, if you, uh, keep doing that, I’m going to…”

“You’re going to what?”

Spencer looks at you, offended and helpless all at once. “You know what.”

You kiss him to stop being mean, and that’s what undoes him in the end. Your mouth on his, your hand around him, his own body too gone to hold back any longer. He comes with a broken sound against your lips, his forehead pressed hard to yours, one hand gripping your thigh tight enough to leave marks.

Afterward, neither of you goes very far.

He folds down beside you, still breathing hard, and you end up half tangled together in the sheets, your fingers drifting through his hair while his mouth moves lazily over yours, your jaw, your throat. 

The heat doesn’t disappear. It just softens around the edges, turning tender without losing any of its bite. His hand keeps returning to your side in those absent little strokes that aren’t really absent at all, thumb sweeping the skin near your scar like some part of him still needs the reminder that you’re here, warm and real and under his hands. You kiss and kiss and kiss until he’s hardening again between you.

“You okay?” he asks after a few minutes, low and serious again.

You kiss the corner of his mouth. “Very.”

“Any pain?”

“Just from how annoyingly good you are at all of this.”

Spencer closes his eyes and laughs against your shoulder. “That’s not really what I meant.”

“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”

He hums, unconvinced, and shifts up on one elbow to look at you properly. His gaze moves over your face like he’s checking for something only he can see.

“I know you want this,” he says quietly. “I also know abdominal surgery recovery, especially from something like a major gunshot wound, can be deceptive once the surface pain starts easing off. So I need you to be honest with me for a second.” His hand slides slowly over your waist, then lower, skimming your thigh. “Are you actually comfortable enough to keep going, or are you trying to tough your way through it because you’re impatient?”

You reach up and touch his face, letting your fingers trail over his jaw. “I’m not toughing my way through anything.”

Spencer’s eyes stay on yours.

“I’m comfortable,” you say, more clearly this time. “I want this. And if something hurts, I’ll tell you.”

He searches your face for another beat, then nods once, like he’s accepting terms more than asking permission.

“Okay,” he murmurs.

He kisses you once, deep and unsteady, then reaches into the nightstand drawer without taking his eyes off you. You watch him roll a condom on with careful fingers, his focus so intense it nearly makes you laugh.

Spencer settles between your thighs slowly, bracing most of his weight on his forearms, as if the idea of pressing too hard against you is enough to make his whole body tense. One of his hands slides down to your hip, thumb rubbing once, soothing and nervous all at once.

“Still okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Promise.”

He nods, but you can feel the restraint in him. He kisses you once more, like he needs it, then reaches between you to guide himself into place.

The first nudge against your entrance is so careful it aches in an unexpected way — not physically, but just in how much emotion is packed into his restraint. Spencer’s breath catches. His forehead drops briefly to yours.

“You can stop me,” he says quietly. “At any point. Even if it’s halfway through. I mean it.”

Your fingers tighten on his shoulders. “Spencer.”

“Sorry.” He swallows. “I just need you to know.”

You soften, even through the heat thrumming low in your body. “I know,” you whisper. “Now come here.” 

You take his face in your hands and kiss him softer than any of the other times tonight.

He pushes in slowly, inch by inch, with enough care that you can feel every part of the stretch as it happens. Heat, fullness, pressure — all of it building so gradually your body has time to register each sensation before the next one arrives. You inhale sharply, and Spencer goes still immediately.

“Talk to me,” he says, voice rougher now.

You take a breath. “I’m okay. Just— just give me a second.”

Spencer nods, motionless except for the trembling effort it takes to stay that way. He kisses the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, then the line of your jaw while he waits, his hand stroking slowly up and down your thigh like he’s trying to soothe both of you at once.

When the initial intensity eases and your body finally starts to open around him, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding and shift your hips the smallest bit closer.

“More,” you whisper.

Spencer’s eyes search yours. “Yeah?”

You nod. “Yeah.”

Spencer’s eyes close briefly at that, and then he slides in deeper.

It feels like being split open and soothed at the same time. Stretch and heat and relief so intense it’s as if your body is melting around him. 

He still moves carefully, still watches your face for microexpressions. But the restraint loosens enough that each thrust gets a little deeper, a little less tentative, until the two of you find that familiar rhythm that belongs to you and no one else.

Spencer’s mouth stays everywhere. Your throat, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. Every time you make a sound he likes, he kisses you harder. Every time your nails drag down his back, his hips stutter and he loses another inch of control.

You wrap a leg around his waist as best you can and pull him deeper.

Your orgasm builds slowly. It comes from the steady drag of his cock, the angle of it, the way one of his hands slips between your bodies to circle your clit without breaking rhythm. He’s so focused, so wrecked and earnest and needy, that you can feel yourself coming long before it actually hits.

“Spence,” you whine, and it comes out strangled.

His eyes lock on yours. “I know. I know, sweetheart. Come for me, please.”

You break around him with a cry, body clenching hard enough that Spencer shudders and nearly loses it with you. He keeps moving through it, slower now, like he can’t bear to stop just because either of you can barely think.

You drag him down into a kiss, and somewhere in the middle of it, the words come out:

“I love you.”

Before this very moment, you’d always assumed saying those words during sex would feel forced somehow. Cheesy. A little ridiculous.

But… it doesn’t. Right now, nothing else would be honest enough. There’s no other phrase in the English language that encompasses what you’re feeling quite like that one does.

Spencer goes still for half a heartbeat, then his whole face changes.

“I love you too,” he says tenderly. He kisses you once, hard and full and almost aching with how much he means it. “I love you so much.”

His movements start to falter then, because there’s only so much a man can do after weeks of restraint, one hand between your thighs, your cunt squeezing him on the heels of two orgasms, and an I love you still ringing through his bloodstream.

He comes with his face buried in your neck and your name on his lips, hips rocking once, twice, before he stills and just breathes, shaking a little.

For a long moment, neither of you moves.

Then Spencer lifts his head just enough to look at you.

You look wrecked. He looks worse.

“Hi,” you whisper.

He huffs a disbelieving laugh. “Hi.”

You brush his hair back from his forehead. “You okay?”

Spencer kisses you once more, softer this time. “No,” he says. “I think I might actually be dead.”

“That’d be awfully inconvenient.”

“Very.”

You laugh, and this time it doesn’t hurt.

Later, after the condom is gone and the sheets have been straightened and Spencer has made you get up and pee and drink an entire glass of water, he slides back into bed in just his boxers, warm and familiar and yours.

His fingers drift to your scar again.

Your hand finds his hair. “Spencer.”

There’s so much in his face that for one impossible second, you almost can’t breathe. Love, obviously. Relief. Want that still hasn’t gone anywhere. Something close to awe.

“Yeah?” he asks quietly.

You shake your head. “Nothing.”

His expression says liar with devastating affection.

You lean in and kiss him before he can call you on it.

When you settle back against the pillows, Spencer draws you into him with one arm and tucks the blankets up over you. His hand stays splayed over your waist, warm and grounding.

For a minute, the room goes quiet except for the sound of both of you breathing and the faint hum of the city outside the windows.

Then Spencer laughs under his breath.

You tilt your head enough to look up at him. “What?”

His mouth twitches. “I still can’t believe you had a sex dream about me.”

Heat creeps up your neck all over again, and you bury your face back against his shoulder. “Can we not debrief the most humiliating parts of today now that you’ve benefited from them?”

Spencer’s laugh is warmer this time, low in his chest. “I’m not making fun of you.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I’m really not.” He tips his head down, trying to catch your eye. “I’m just… kind of flattered.”

You groan into his skin. “Please stop saying words.”

His hand slides slowly up and down your back. “You’re the one who told me.”

You lift your head again and narrow your eyes at him. “You pried.”

Spencer looks delighted by that accusation. “I asked one follow-up question.”

You should let it go. You really should. But instead, still dazed and loose-limbed and apparently incapable of self-preservation, you mutter, “It wasn’t even the first time.”

Spencer goes very still.

Slowly, very slowly, he shifts onto one elbow, looking at you now with open fascination. “What do you mean it wasn’t the first time?”

“I mean nothing. Go to sleep.”

His hand tightens at your waist, not enough to trap you, just enough to let you know escape is not on the table. “No, absolutely not. We are not moving on from that.”

You make a muffled sound of regret into his shoulder.

“When was it?”

You wave a hand vaguely. “A… while ago.”

“That’s not quantifiable. How long is ‘a while’?”

“A while, Spencer.”

He waits.

Of course he waits.

You should know by now that Spencer Reid can outlast almost anyone in a standoff, especially when curiosity is involved.

You stare at him, mortified, still a little dazed from the sex, too happy to put up a fight, and sigh.

“Do you remember when I had the flu, and you bribed Garcia with cake pops to get my address so you could check on me?”

His eyebrows lift. “Of course I remember. That was the first time I ever saw your apartment.”

“Right. And do you remember what I said when I first let you inside?”

You watch his face shift into that classically Spencer expression of deep focus as he searches back through his memories.

“Yes,” he confirms after a few moments. “I believe you said, ‘You woke me up from a dream,’ and then I—” He stops. “Oh.”

His expression softens so completely it almost hurts to look at.

“It was that kind of dream?” he asks, sounding genuinely stunned.

You shove your face back into his shoulder. “Yes,” you groan. “I was just getting to the good part when you knocked on the door, actually, so thanks for that.”

His shoulders shake with another laugh. “Wow.”

You glare up at him. “You are enjoying this far too much.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, which would be more convincing if he weren’t smiling like this is the best news he’s heard all week. “It’s just…” He shakes his head a little. “That’s a lot for me to process.”

“You’ll survive.”

He shifts, gentler now, and presses a kiss to your forehead.

“That really was a while ago,” he muses.

You close your eyes and groan again, too tired to fake outrage properly. “Please drop it.”

He smiles against your skin. “In a minute.”

His hand finds yours under the blanket and laces through your fingers.

“If it’s any consolation, I had a crush on you back then too,” he whispers. “I’m sure you already knew that, but just so we’re clear, I did. I nearly passed out when you asked me to brush your hair and sent me into your bedroom to look for your hairbrush.”

You crack one eye open. “You hid it well.”

Spencer huffs a quiet laugh. “I absolutely did not.”

“No,” you admit, sleepier now, letting your fingers curl more tightly around his. “You really, really didn’t.”

That earns a softer smile from him. He brushes his thumb over your knuckles once, the gesture so familiar now it makes your chest ache in the best way.

“I’m glad you let me in,” he says quietly.

The words settle warm and heavy between you. You know he’s referring to you letting him into your apartment that day, but it could mean so much more than that.

You tip your face up just enough to kiss the underside of his jaw. “Yeah,” you murmur. “Me too.”

Spencer answers by drawing you a little closer.

You let him.

And sometime after that, with his hand still wrapped around yours, a dreamless sleep finally finds you.

ᝰ.ᐟ

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️