Page 90 of Here for a Good Time
That gets a tired chuckle out of him. “My mom is the happiest woman on the planet.”
“No, she’s not.” I look up and strain my neck to kiss his jaw. “I am.”
He rolls his eyes. “You are so corny.”
“But you love me, corn and all.”
He gives my thigh a squeeze. “And all.”
The four flights of stairs up to ours have never felt more laborious. When we arrive on our floor and are standing in front of our door, butterflies appear in my stomach. I know this has always been our home, but now it’sreallyour home.Ourhome.
Zwe goes in first, finagling both suitcases down the hallway. “I’ll put yours in your room?” he calls out.
“Mm-hmm,” I answer as I turn on the lights. I look around, feeling my heart glow brighter as I take in everything, from our fridge covered with an assortment of magnets, to the whiteboard by the front door, one half dedicated to groceries, the other to games of Hangman, to the framed snapshots of us at fifteen and eighteen and twenty-five and twenty-nine that are peppered on top of various cabinets and shelves. And then there are the little things that I can’t see right now but whose mere existence adds to the warmth of this place—kitchen cupboards stocked with our favorite snacks, mismatched plates and glasses that we’ve accumulated over the years at assorted secondhand markets, the mixed scent of my shampoo and his cologne that’s infused itself into our bathroom walls. All the things that, together, form the foundation of a home. Of our home.
I take a seat on our couch, my grin spreading now that I’m looking at this piece of furniture with new eyes as well.
“What?” Zwe asks when he emerges from putting his suitcase in his room. “Why do you have that goofy smile?”
“We’re gonna have to fix that, you know.”
“What? Did something break?” His head starts swiveling around, trying to locate the fault. “Is something wrong with the fridge? Is there a leak?”
“No, you doofus,” I laugh. I pat the seat beside me for him to come join. As he warily sits down, I lift my chin down the hallwhere our rooms are. “I mean the two bedrooms situation. One of them is going to beourbedroom now.”
A shy but irrepressible joy unravels across Zwe’s features. “I like the sound of that,” he says. He takes my hand and kisses the back of it, and already a warmth is spreading through my body. I’m going in to kiss him on the lips when he starts looking around the apartment again, as though taking a mental inventory stock. “Mm-hmm,” he murmurs occasionally, his head bobbing in a slight nod.
“What?” I ask.
“Oh, just—” He flashes me a wicked grin. “—making note of every spot in our home where I’m going to fuck you until we forget our names.”
A laugh whisks out of me at that. “Are you just going to have dirty thoughts all the time now?”
“Hey, when you have a girlfriend this hot—” Without warning, he fully leans over, and I let out a small yelp as I’m forced onto my back.
“Yes?” I prompt.
But he doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes dip down my figure, down to the sliver of stomach where my shirt has rolled up. When they come back up and latch onto mine, he licks his lips like he’s going to devour me, and I respond with a small whimper of need.
“I want to taste you,” he says, one hand reaching down for the waistband of my sweatpants but not actually doing anything.
“Yes,” I say. “Please,” I add, to clarify the urgency of this moment, and he laughs as he removes my trousers.
I vaguely recall telling him on the flight that I feel disgusting and announcing dibs on the shower, but Zwe keeps touching, licking, kissing, stroking me, repeating “God, you are so sexy” again and again until I think it myself.
When we’re done, we cuddle facing each other, him wrapping his arms around me, one of my legs thrown over his.
“We’ve never done this,” I say. “Cuddled on this couch, I mean.”
“No,” he says. “I… wanted to, though.”
“I did, too,” I admit through a smile.
He alternates between playing lazily with my hair and my nipples, with the occasional ass squeeze thrown in. “So this is it, huh?” he asks. “You and me?” There seems to be a silentFinally?tucked on at the end.
“Yes.” I kiss the tip of his nose. “This is it.”
“Speaking of love, when do I get to read this romance novel of yours?” he asks.
