It's two in the morning and she's standing on your doorstep. Her eyes are red and puffy but she won't look at you, so you wordlessly step aside to let her in.
You can't recall how you ended up in bed next to each other but, then again, when do you ever? It seems routine at this point. She's playing with the trim on your nightgown and you're too aware of your heartbeat pounding in your ears and your tiny shudder each time her finger brushes against your skin.
You want to pull her close and kiss her senselessly. Kiss her until the tears are gone and you make her break the silence around you with the echo of her whimpers. You settle for stilling her hand and bringing it to your lips, trying to convey everything you're too scared to voice. An image of her jerking away in repugnance at all the secrets you harbor is there in the back of your mind, so you drop her hand and resign to tuck your feelings away.
She lowers her head and a lone sniffle—the first sound she had made since she appeared outside your home—startles you. You wrap her up then, relieved to know the tears have finally stopped. The way her fists grasp your clothing like it's the only thing keeping her afloat makes you choke back a confession of love. You find that you can't pinpoint when exactly she became your entire world.
She shivers in your embrace so you begin rubbing her back to create heat from the friction but then you hear her moan in satisfaction and maybe it's the burning low in your stomach but something tells you that you're a goner. But you've always known you never had a chance; she disarmed you from the start.
Soon you feel the sheets are more constricting than comforting and so you kick them away, her feet aiding you in the effort but her arms still holding on to you. You feel like her lifeline, the way she doesn't dare let go, and though it makes you swell with pride, you wonder how long it will be before it starts causing you pain instead. It seems everything with her ends with her cupping your broken heart in her hands.
She shifts against you, one leg slipping between yours, and you gasp quietly, praying that she would think nothing of it. The content sigh she breathes across your collarbone tells you she doesn't mind, even going so far as to push her leg up a bit farther to draw the noise from you once more. You don't know what she's doing, but her hands are starting to wander and you're trembling with anticipation. Your breath hitches when she places her lips on your neck and you tilt your head back, succumbing fully to her will.
He flickers in your mind for a moment, and you know this isn't right, that you shouldn't be doing this—least of all with her. But she showed up on your doorstep, and her hands are splayed across your chest, not his.
A strangled moan escapes into the space between your lips and hers and it takes you a moment to realize it came from you. You feel your cheeks heat up, and you assume you're blushing furiously, but she giggles. She giggles and you feel as if your entire life has changed. Her happiness fuels your courage as you close the gap between your bodies and lips. You feel her reciprocate, just as hungry as you are, and you don't realize you're bucking your hips until she pins them to the bed with a grin that speaks volumes. Whether you had her wrong the whole time or she is just feeling particularly adventurous, you don't care. She is offering you a feast when you had been living off scraps.
And when you hear your name roll off of her tongue in her fit of pleasure, you know that there is no going back. Not for you. But then you're chanting her name as she brings you to release and there's a spark of recognition in her eyes and you think that maybe she just realized what you had known for ages.
It simply took her longer to stop fighting it.
