"I like your fingers,"
He stopped writing and turned around, confused but smiling. "What?"
"Your fingers. They're really fingery, just like you would imagine fingers would be. It's nice," I smiled a little so he would know it was a compliment in my head at least. I lay there looking at him, tracing the ridges of his back with my eyes while he sat at my desk, half-turned, pen still in hand. He held the pen loosely in his fingers and his whole pose looked so delicate and natural, as if he was doing exactly what he had been born to be doing for that moment in time. I loved watching him study, especially when I was done for the day. He made me feel safe, without being bored. He laughed and glanced at his watch, returning to his notes. I closed my eyes and listened to his pen scratching across the paper, the occasional rustle of a page turning, his weight shifting in the seat, his feet tapping a languorous rhythm against my laundry box. I pulled the blanket up to my cheek and drifted towards sleep, opening my eyes every so often to watch his hair illuminated in the soft glow of my desk lamp. Warm time trickled past me comfortably and I relaxed the muscles that had been hiding my face from the world all day. The movement of his pen became my soothing sound and I surrendered to its irregularity, rocked by the stopping and starting of each sentence. My breathing slowed past his and I forgot how to open my eyes, how to move my mouth, and I slept.
Long, soft fingers brushed past my temple and I blinked blearily, trying to bat them away from my eyes. I heard him laugh beneath his breath and I smiled into his hand, not minding his closeness to me. He bent his head towards me and skimmed his lips across my ear as I brought my hand up to his jaw and mapped out every smidgen of stubble that had grown since this morning. His fingers kept travelling, running gently down my face and neck, cresting my shoulder and diving down to my waist, resting flat against my hip where he toyed with my pocket. I lifted my own hand to his lips and smiled when I felt him smile beneath my fingers, his lips smooth and kind to me. His eyes gazed towards me and I sat up to see him better, resting my hand on his collarbone, the hollow cleft I loved to find. He still looked unsure to see me so close and I leant towards him to remind him I was real. His breath caught and we smiled into each other's lips, his smell enveloping me in an adventure all my own. His fingers stroked my waist lightly and I trusted him not to hurt me, trusted his eyes that held so much kindness. His other hand tumbled through my hair and drew me closer to him and I let myself fall into his presence, be surrounded by who he was and become part of how he defined himself. I kissed the corner of his mouth without hesitating and he murmured something to himself I couldn't decipher, before kissing me in the way that made me feel new every time he was near me and I forgot what my hands and his hands were doing, when all that surrounded me was his smell and his skin and his surety, his certainty of delighting in me like I did in him.