Page 95 of You've Got The Love
“You’re fine,” I answer, but neither of us moves.
It would be so easy to step back, to defuse the spark and keep this soft bubble from bursting. Instead, my hands rest lightly against his chest, on the damp grey of his T-shirt where the outline of his body is heat and promise. He looks down at me like I’m new every time. I feel that look in the tips of my fingers, the hollow of my throat, low in my belly where hope has taken root.
“Amber,” he says, and it’s a prayer more than a name.
I don’t know who leans in first. Maybe it’s both of us. The first brush of his mouth is careful, like he’s asking a question. I answer with the way I tilt up, with the small sound I can’t swallow, with the way my fingers gather fabric. He kisses me deeper—slow, intent, no hurry in it, justyes—and something inside me unclenches I didn’t know I’d been clenching.
When we part, we don’t go far. Our foreheads rest together, breaths mingling. The shop is quiet enough to hear the cooler cycle, the street beyond a hush of tyres over wet.
“Come upstairs,” I whisper.
His exhale is somewhere between relief and hunger. He nods.
We lock up—lights low, alarm set, shutter pulled, the last bucket tucked under the sink. My flat is warm when I push the door open, fairy lights low across the bookshelves, the kettle’s blue glow winking that it could be of service. My chest does that strange, tender ache it does sometimes when the life I dreamed touches the life I’m in.
I set my keys in the dish. Bas closes the door behind us, then pauses like he’s orienting to this room where he’s been and not been—my couch with its throw blanket, the vase of last week’s ranunculus drooping gracefully, the slip of a world we’re building.
“Do you want tea?” I ask because my mouth hasn’t quite caught up with my heart.
He shakes his head, eyes never leaving mine. “I want you.”
It should sound like a line. It doesn’t. It lands like truth.
I step into him. He meets me halfway. The first kiss in the shop was careful; this one is not. It’s hungry, aching with the months we lost. He cups my face in his big hands and tips it just so, like he’s memorised the angle of me; I rise on my toes and lose my fingers in his hair and pull it loose of its tie.
We navigate the short distance to the couch by instinct and touch, laughing once when my knee hits the coffee table, both of us too unwilling to break apart to mind. He sits; I climb into his lap like I’ve always known where I fit. The kiss deepens—the kind that isn’t content to sit at the edges of your mouth, the kind that wants to know you. His hands map me with a certainty that feels like reverence: the line of my back, the curve of my waist, the place at my hip where his palm spans me as if claiming and asking are the same gesture.
“Tell me if you want me to slow down,” he murmurs against my lip.
“Don’t you dare,” I breathe, and feel his answering groan under my hands.
We take our time even as we hurry. He shrugs out of his hoodie; I loop it off his arms and tug my jumper over my head. We laugh again, breathless, when static makes my hair stand in a ridiculous halo, and he smooths it with palms that linger, gentling the strands, his face so open with fondness it steals the air from my lungs.
“So fucking beautiful,” he says, like a fact, not a compliment.
He kisses down my cheek to the edge of my jaw, then my throat. The heat of his mouth is slow and careful, but the intent thrums like a struck wire. Every place he touches blooms awake. I tip my head back, eyes closed, trusting, the hand at the nape of his neck pulling him closer.
“I want you in your bed.”
We stand only long enough to stumble the rest of the way to my bedroom, kissing like we’ll never learn the lesson of patience. The fairy lights spill a soft gold across rumpled sheets. Rain ticks lazily against the glass. He pauses at the threshold, one hand on the doorframe, his chest moving hard, eyes asking me one more time.
“Yes,” I say, louder than I intended. Then, softer:“Yes.”
What happens next is not rushed, but it’s unstoppable. He undresses me like a man unwrapping something he’s thought about for too long, fingers working slowly, deliberately, as if each layer is a secret he’s earned the right to uncover. The clasp of my bra comes free with the smallest click, the sound loud in the quiet. His fingertips skim my bare skin as he slides the straps down, slow enough to make my breath hitch.
Every touch feels both reverent and claiming—palms tracing the curve of my shoulders, the swell of my breasts, the dip of my waist—each pass sending a flush of heat through me. His thumbs brush over my nipples, teasing until they harden, his gaze darkening as if he’s cataloguing every reaction.
I take my turn with him, dragging my hands over the breadth of his chest, down the hard planes of muscle to the V at his hips. The fabric of his T-shirt clings before I tug it over his head, baring warm skin I can’t stop touching. My nails trail lightly along his spine, feeling the way his breath catches. We move like we’re relearning each otherand memorising all over again, because now we have time—time we didn’t have before.
We fall to the bed in a tangle, my back against the sheets, his body over mine, solid and warm, his weight pressing me into the mattress in the best way. The heat of him seeps into my skin, steady and anchoring, like standing in front of a hearth after a long walk through the snow. His mouth claims mine, deep and unhurried, before moving lower—down my throat, lingering at the hollow beneath my ear, over the racing pulse there.
I arch into him without thinking, my body greedy for his.“Bas…”His name leaves me half plea, half surrender.
He groans low, the sound rumbling through my chest where it presses to his. “Amber,” he breathes back, my name thick on his tongue.
His mouth claims mine again, deeper this time, the kiss all heat and possession. He angles my head with his hand at the base of my skull, taking exactly what he wants, tasting me like he’s been starving for it. When he finally drags his lips from mine, it’s only to trail them down the line of my jaw, over the curve of my throat, lingering there as his tongue flicks against the frantic pulse under my skin.
I shiver when his mouth moves lower, mapping a path over my collarbone before dipping to take my nipple between his lips. The sharp pull of suction has my breath catching; the slow roll of his tongue makes my hips twitch against his.
