For @flootzavut. Because she tagged it as a prompt. And my Muse sorta complied. Ish.
It was just a bit of silly, wasnât it? Just playinâ with her and messing around and, Christ, hadnât they been kind and gentle with each other lately? In comparison, anyhow? And hadnât they found a balance back toward being the best of pals, a sort of silent and tacit agreement to come back to what theyâd been first?
Sure, itâd slowly come after heâd had his arse tidily handed to him, no doubt mumbled a jarbled sort of love confession or something a month before while hospitalized. One heâd be fucked if he could actually remember. But he assumed there had been something along those lines, he assumed heâd probably made a right drug-mumbling ass of himself - because she had been softer, sweeter, less strident in the days after heâd been released from the hospital.
Her voice and touch had incrementally circled back âround to what theyâd known before, actually.
And her eyes were soft again, the way theyâd been before, when theyâd just had friendship and love and an unsinkable raft of loyalty beneath them.
Them against the world, itâd been.
Lightman and Foster, the lying masses be damned.
Hell, he missed that surety. Ached for it.
But itâd started innocently enough, when sheâd teased the very last of the cashew chicken away from him, laughingly and bright. And heâd followed up that giddiness by bombing onto his office couch cushions after her and reaching both arms around her for the coveted Chinese food anyhow, all idiotic and frenetic energy.
Couldnât help enjoying being happy with her again, could he? Even a temporary truce?
He couldnât be blamed for enjoying the pleasure of her laughter once again (or the fact he was cuddled up around her and floating in the scent of her).
Couldnât let that pleasure go, either. Not if just beinâ a silly git would get her to at least consider forgiving what an idiotic jackass heâd been for months beforehand.
âCal.â It was just a whisper, just a little swing and lilt of her voice.
It was nothinâ, really. Absolutely nothinâ (to anyone else).
Anyone else woulda just heard a syllable, a pant of breath on a name.
Well, anyone else didnât have arms full of Gillian Foster, laughing his name through her lips with a tone that dared him to kiss the breath out of her.
S'what he heard anyhow⌠could be mistaken.
âItâs late,â she murmured, head tipping to angle her jaw back nearer his mouth than heâd expected, her body slumping surprisingly back into his chest as one of his hands caught a slim wrist and curled around it.
âS'always late when we get silly about bad Chinese food, darling.â He managed to tip the other hand high, clipping the take-out box from her fingers while he answered. And he was surprised that she hummed a pleased agreement to the movement as he pressed his chest forward and his luck all at once.
âNot that hungry anymore anyhow.â Her answer seemed softly innocent, her head turning back just enough to damn him completely. Her hands both fell to his forearms and any process of thought he may have had screeched to a thunderous halt.
Because her nose rubbed encouragingly against his stubbled cheek in a way that was more than sweet or affectionate.
It was bloody fucking adorable.
And heâd seen plenty of Gillian being adorable. But this had a wicked sense of sensuality to it, too - as though sheâd somehow tricked him right into wrapping himself around her and angling his jaw down into the bend between her neck and shoulder.
Wasnât a question in her voice, wasnât a response.
If he knew females at all, with any sort of accuracy, that - he knew for an ever-lovinâ fact - was permission.
Was all the permission he needed to groan his mouth down the sleek line of her throat and suck against perfumed tanged skin, tasting on her while manicured nails dug into one forearm, the other hand stroking encouragement up and down ink. He felt the sound she made under his tongue, felt the valved way it hummed up her throat, all sexy and vibrating with promise as her head tipped him more space. Cal smiled into that vibration of sound, felt his mouth curve the smile up behind her ear as though it had a mind of its own, his teeth nipping along her earlobe without censure. A whimper came off her that made every second of his life, up to that moment, make a perfect sort of sense.
Had to get through all that to get to this, hadnât they?
âTook you years to do that,â she hummed the words quietly, hands vicing on his forearms and ensuring that he didnât move away, didnât question her agreement, didnât go anywhere else. âWorth it, though.â
He made damn sure that it didnât take more than a millisecond to repeat it.
annaxmalina
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
