1. Clary does not realize she has closed her eyes until the heat of his mouth on her neck jolts her back to the moment at hand. His incalescent kisses to her lips are straying to her jaw, her collarbone, the ticklish spot below her ear. She runs her hands over his shoulders, following the jagged map of scars, recognizing them even through the distraction of his soft skin and smooth muscle.

"Jace-" she manages, but a wandering hand on her knee, climbing higher and higher, banishes whatever she had been thinking.

"Mm?" he mumbles the noise against her shoulder.

His fingers are the light touch of rain as he fingers the hem of her shirt.

Clary closes her eyes again against the euphoric crackle of electricity in her veins. Her hands are travelling over his chest, his back, tangling in his hair. She hitches a leg around his and savours the helpless sound she knows is just for her.

Jace's voice is hypnotic as she slides into the empty spot on the bed. He may have en endless supply of energy that does not diminish no matter how many hours he spends sparring, but Clary is soar and fatigued. She sighs deeply as he draws her against the hard plane of his chest.

"Sleepy?" he murmurs in her ear.

"Mmm hm," is her reply. Her eyes are already fluttering closed.

"That's too bad." His thumb kneads her hip just above the elastic of her sleep shorts. His nose nudges the nape of her neck.

"It is," she mumbles. The thrill that surges down her spine when he breathes against her ear is only dimmed slightly by the darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision.

"Do you want to know why?" he asks, with a purposeful lilt to his voice. Something that suggests he is far from sleep.

Clary does not hear why. The rest of Jace's words are drowned out by his warm and her weight and the softness around them.

2. Clary watches Simon watching Isabelle, in the way one does when they are fascinated by everything they do. Jace knows because it's the way he often looks at Clary. In the lulls in conversation, which their group, now comfortable with each other (there are no awkward exchanges between Clary and Simon about mundane comics, or Alec and Jace and Isabelle about the Clave), moves through like a boat through water, Jace glances at Clary and watches her eyes sharpen when she is aware of the details in an object.

Jace wonders how Clary sees the world. In brighter colours, is his best guess. Sometimes she watches him like he is one of her drawings: frustrating and precious and a part of her.

He knows at certain times she can feel the weight of his gaze on her back; when she sits straighter or her eyes brighten. It makes his heart pound against his ribs that he is part of that.

"Jace?"

He returns to the conversation, mentally berating himself for being so lost in thought while looking, very obviously, he is sure, at Clary.

"Can you convince your girlfriend to go to this party?" Isabelle asks, tapping the toe of a blazing red boot on the corner of the coffee table.

"I don't know. She's pretty stubborn," he says, looking, this time purposefully, at said girlfriend.

She rolls her eyes but grins as she addresses Isabelle. "On the condition you don't dress me, I guess I'll go."

Isabelle's reply is lost on Jace, because he has caught himself counting the shades of red in Clary's hair.

Between them on the couch her hand finds its way to his and she moves imperceptibly closer as he strokes the inside of her wrist. Those centimeters of space between them are what he will remember one day, and the ease with which he could close them.