Author's Note: This delay is what happens when you try to be productive by writing the chapter longhand when you can't be at your computer, and end up losing the notebook you have everything written in for almost two months. I sincerely apologize, but I come bearing smut, so hopefully that makes the wait worth it! The rating on this fic has been changed to a M accordingly.


She had thought about it a lot. Sex with Brandon had been something constantly at the forefront of her mind, after their little conversation.

She knew he would be nothing like Liam. She didn't even logically consider them to be remotely the same, by any stretch of the word. He would be gentle, take his time, make it good for both of them. Not just satisfying his own urges at the sacrifice of her own. That's not who he was.

She wanted him. Badly. And she knew.

"I'm ready," she whispered to him in passing one day, about a week after their conversation.

He choked on his orange juice. "You - you can't just say things like that," he said, in a hushed whisper between gritted teeth.

Mariana looked over at them from the other side of the room. "You two okay?" she asked, her tone light and teasing.

"Yeah," Brandon said, catching his breath, setting the glass down on the counter and placing the palm of his hand against his throat. "Just...went down the wrong pipe."

"Sure, whatever you say," she said, turning back to her snack, with a loud crunch.

Brandon and Callie walked out of the kitchen, and he turned to her as soon as they were out of Mariana's earshot. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't want to -"

"I'm sure," she said, leaning up on her tiptoes to brush a quick kiss against his lips. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

"Meet me in my room later, then," he said. His eyes were wide, and there was no mistaking it for anything else this time. He wanted her. Maybe even needed her. Which was an exhilarating proposition.

She dropped back down to her regular height and smiled up at him. "Okay." She felt the corners of her lips tug into a slight smirk. "Okay," she repeated.

She walked away from him somewhat reluctantly. Everyone else was still awake, and he'd still want her just the same even when everyone else was in bed, fast asleep and unsuspecting. But she felt her hips sway a little bit, almost as if her body was trying to show him what was soon to come.

And she felt his eyes transfixed on her as she walked away.

Good. That was a positive sign for things to come.


"I'm ready," she repeated to herself as she sat on the side of her bed. She swung her legs off the side and bounced her ankles against the boxspring. She had put far too much thought into what was still a fairly limited wardrobe on her part to decide what he would be taking off her. Which of her clothes she wanted to see strewn across his bedroom floor.

She'd decided on simplicity: a teal tank top (probably Mariana's, come to think of it) and striped pajama bottoms. It had to look, to everyone else, like she was just going to be going to bed.

Her chosen outfit wasn't overtly sexy. She wasn't going to pass as a Victoria's Secret model tonight, or any night.

Then again, nothing about her tended to be that way, so at least she was consistent in the matter.

Not that Brandon seemed to care...


"I'm ready," she repeated to him, in a hushed whisper after he opened the door to her knock. He was just wearing a plain white t-shirt and pajama pants, but somehow, it looked to her as if he was wearing the finest tuxedo to be found in all of San Diego.

His lips were on hers before she could say another word. The door closed, and he pinned her up against it. "You don't know how long I've wanted to hear you say that to me," he said, kissing her over and over again. She hummed into the kisses, meshing her lips frantically against his, trying to soak in the feeling of kissing him. She tangled her fingers in his hair, feeling the silky softness under her fingertips. "Callie -"

"Yeah?"

He spun her around in his arms and laid her down on the bed. His eyes roamed up and down her body, and she had to bite her lip at his intense scrutiny. "Wearing Mariana's shirt?"

"I guess so."

He grasped the shirt between two fingers and toyed with the hem as he leaned over her and whispered into her ear, "you look so much better in it than she does."

"Brandon Foster, do you check out all of your foster sisters?" she asked, lightly mocking. She pulled him closer to her and smiled. It wasn't accusatory, and she hoped that he took it in the way she intended, or they would be having a much different discussion than planned tonight.

"Only the ones named Callie," he said, kissing her again and gazing into her eyes, as she moved herself up onto his pillow. "No others need apply."

She shuddered a little at the intensity of his gaze and allowed her smile to become even wider. "Good answer." They would be the ones to be perilously close to having sex, and yet teasing each other with smiles on their faces as they did so. She kissed him again, and lost herself in the slow, languid, passionate kisses that they shared.

"Are you ready?" he finally asked, and she could tell that there was a bit of a tonal shift - once they went down this road, everything would change between them. They wouldn't be able to go back from this, once it started - but maybe, in a way, it had started a long time before. Back in that kitchen, that night when they shared their first, tentative kiss. "If you aren't, I -"

"I'm ready," she repeated, interrupting him and inhaling tiny little anxious breaths as she took the hem of her shirt from his grasp and pulled it up over her head, revealing herself to him. She wiggled her arms out of the sleeve holes and cast it to the side, and then looked up at him. "You like?" she asked.

"I - Callie," he said, taking his hand to cup the side of her breast, massaging it gently with the tip of his thumb. She had to bite back a moan and fight the temptation to blush. His hand felt so good there, and he was so reverent. So completely unlike anything she had ever felt before. He removed his hand and she felt her mouth contort into a pout. She didn't want the feeling to stop. And then he echoed the movement she had just made, pulling his shirt above his head, and throwing it off to wild abandon. She didn't dare look to see where it had fallen, not when he was shirtless and hovering above her. She couldn't avert her eyes for even a moment.

"C'm'ere," she said, embracing him, feeling his warm skin pressed against hers as she pulled him in for a searing kiss. "I could get used to seeing you like this," she said.

"And I you," he said, brushing his fingers along the side of her torso, tracing loops and swirls into her skin as he danced perilously closer to the waistband of her pants. She couldn't fight back the blush any longer, and she could feel her cheeks redden. "You're so beautiful," he whispered.

She bit her lip and felt the blush deepen. "Brandon -"

"I'm serious. And seriously in love with you."

"Brandon -" She knew that she had never said it back to him. She knew that he had said that having her trust was enough for him, that it was almost like she loved him. But she wanted to clear up that little misconception, so she inhaled deeply and said, "I love you too, okay? I - I've never said to anyone. Except my parents and Jude and I don't love them the way I love you. Not at all."

It was almost like watching some unseen weight being lifted from his shoulders. "You love me," he said, echoing the words back to her. "You love me."

She nodded. "I think some part of me always has and was afraid to admit it."

He cascaded a shower of kisses upon her lips, her jaw, her neck, and she craned her neck upward to allow him further expanses of skin to further worship with his lips. "You don't know how good it feels to hear you say that to me," he said between kisses.

"I imagine it's pretty much how you made me feel."

"Fair point," he said, caressing her shoulder with one hand as he reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the tiny foil packet sitting on top of it. Her eyes grew wide as she saw it in his hands. "You mean too much to me not to use this," he said. "I don't - a baby would be -"

"I understand," she said. "I don't have a burning desire to be on the next season of Teen Mom." She wasn't even sure if she wanted to have kids, and even if she did, she was only sixteen, and she didn't want to have a pregnancy scare because then Stef and Lena were sure to find out, and then she would end up in a situation similar to Lexi's... And that was a whole mess she wanted nothing to do with. Maybe, if they were older, and living out on their own - maybe then. But until then...

She took a deep breath and pushed her pants down her legs, feeling her underwear catch a little and go partway down with them. Maybe it wasn't a sexy striptease (as if), and maybe Brandon wasn't stripping the clothes off her, but at least she was maintaining some control of the situation. She nudged the underwear off and kicked it off the foot of the bed, and looked up at him again.

He gasped, and took off his pants as well, and they were both laying there with each other, stark naked and exposed in every way to each other. "Brandon, let me," she said, and with a nod, she took the condom packet from him and ripped it open. The condom fell out into her hand, and she cautiously took it and slid it over his tip. She let the condom slide down, and when she was satisfied with her work, she laid back and smiled up at him. "I'm ready." Her voice was confident and sure, and she knew what she wanted and when she wanted it. She wanted him, and she wanted him now.

"Callie, Callie," he said, repeating her name as she spread her legs apart and he slid inside her. "Look at me, oh, Callie." Her eyes locked focus on him, never breaking her gaze. His eyes were full of warmth and love and comfort, and oh, it hurt a little, but he was so gentle. She rocked her hips against him, and he rocked back and forth against her.

"B-Brandon," she said, her words catching a little, as the tempo increased between them. She'd never felt like this before. So wanted, so loved, so desired, so everything that was right and positive in this crazy world. He made her feel all that, and so much more. "I - oh -" she leaned up and pulled him in for a warm, inviting kiss, her hand securely grasped around the back of his neck. She knew they had to be quiet. They couldn't rock the house tonight. So she allowed him to swallow her moans, as she swallowed his. It was hard to force herself to be quiet when she wanted to scream how good she felt from every rooftop in the city.

With a frantic moan, once again muffled by the course of her lips against him, he spiraled toward a release. And she felt her spirit soar as he locked his index finger with her as he did so, squeezing once as the release came. He still stayed above her as he slid out, gently sliding off the condom and tying it off before discarding it off to the side. "I'll deal with it in the morning," he said, kissing her as he lay down next to her, still holding onto her embrace.

"You were - that was -"

"You blew my mind," he said, kissing the side of her jaw and rubbing the tip of his nose against hers. "I - thank you, Callie."

"I should be the one thanking you. I've never felt like that before." She curled into him and looked up at him with all the emotions she felt in her soul expressed in her eyes. "Do I have to go?"

"If I had my way, you could stay all night. Forever."

"But Stef and Lena have their way." Her afterglow smile turned into a twisted frown, before she allowed his words to sink in. Forever. Is that how he saw them turning out? Brandon and Callie forever? Forever was a long time. And a concept she had never allowed herself to dare to dream about before, but a lot of things had changed for her. For the better.

"Right, yeah," he said, almost as if the prospect of his mothers was the last thing he wanted to be thinking about at that moment, "you still don't have to leave right away. You can stay as long as you want."

Forever, if she wanted. She curled into him with a sleepy smile. "I'll stay for a little bit longer," she said, nuzzling against him as she felt her eyes bat closed.

-to be continued-