I hadn't slept that well in a long time. I woke to the sun shining on my pillow through the blinds. Soft sheets caressed my naked skin.
My mom hadn't been wrong about love, but it wasn't like being possessed. I was still me. I hadn't been taken over. She was right in the sense we were two beings possessing the same space. In the heat of the moment, Danny had been everywhere to me, but so was I. For a moment, we were indistinguishable from one another. I could feel him. I could feel everything he did. I could feel his love for me while being loved at the same time. I was possessed in a way that all of me belonged to him and all of him was mine.
I checked to see if he was awake. My hand was on his shoulder, so I had to be careful if I didn't want to wake up. I angled my head up to see his face. His eyes were open, and he was looking at me.
Without a word, he slipped out from under my touch. I could see the whole of his back when he sat up. His hair was in an uncontrolled disarray. I admired the gradient of freckles as they disappeared by the end of his shoulder blades. His muscles were long and well defined through his skin.
He opened up his bedside drawer and pulled out a square of cloth. As he stood up, he pulled on the pair of boxers. I watched him all the way as he left the bedroom.
He hadn't said a word to me. He hadn't been angry or irritated with me. His mind was quiet, but I could sense the inner turmoil. If I pulled on the connection, I would find what was really bothering him, but I didn't. It was nice for a change to lie in the bliss of ignorance after a perfect night. Perfect wasn't quite the right world. There were actually parts of it that were outright horrible. But Danny. What Danny did, what we had together made it all seem strangely inconsequential.
It was a few minutes before Danny came back, but he did. He was carrying two mugs of coffee.
I sat up and held his sheets close to my chest. I may have even smiled.
It was a cappuccino. With a double shot of espresso and vanilla. It was quite possibly the best coffee I ever had and that wasn't some afterglow.
"I've been getting the impression that you don't want to talk to anyone until you've had your coffee," Danny finally said.
"That's true on most occasions, but there are obviously some exceptions," I said. My voice sounded rough. I took another sip.
He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his face. "We need to talk," he said. He sat down at the edge of the bed.
He said that, but didn't say anything else. I was two thirds into my coffee before I said, "About last night?"
Danny shook his head. "It was a mistake. You were in shock... You had gone through a traumatic experience. I had no right to bring you here, to sleep with you..."
"You would have been in shock, too," I interjected. "At least I think it's pretty traumatic when someone tries to actively kill you."
"But Nora, I've trained for this sort of thing. I know better than this."
"So have I," I retorted.
"That's just makes it worse," he sighed. "Look, I'll understand if your feelings are different from last night."
"Have your feelings changed?" I asked.
"No," he answered.
"That's good then."
"But this isn't about me, this is about you," he argued.
"So what this boils down to is you don't believe me."
"How can I believe you?" He exasperated. "The last time I saw you, you wanted nothing to do with me. Then, last night you decide you want to go home with me? You suddenly wanted me to sleep with you? You said that you..."
"That I love you?" That was the heart of the issue. I knew it should have come up sooner. "I can hardly believe it myself."
"You know, that really doesn't make me feel any better."
"I just know that I do, Danny." I wrapped my arms around him, doing my best to keep the sheets covering my bust. "If it brings you any comfort, I don't think last night was a mistake."
He scoffed. "You don't think I'm annoying and butt-headed and cocky?"
"No, I do, but that doesn't mean I'm not in love with you."
That made him smile at least. I kissed him. He kissed very sweetly. It was different kissing him like this. There was no desperation. No tipsiness. No heat of passion. Without any of that, his lips were soft and accommodating.
I broke the kiss with a smile. I brought my mug to my lips and took another sip. I sat back and finished my coffee.
"So, you're sure you're okay?"
"Yep."
"No regrets?"
"No regrets."
"And you actually enjoyed it? You enjoyed having sex with me?"
I could feel my face flushing. I tried to hide the bottom half with my mug. "This coffee is really good."
"Nora..."
It was embarassing how much I enjoyed myself. I knew it was important to tell him how I felt, but I couldn't bring myself to do it in this case. "You took care of me."
But the feelings were still there. I could still feel the way he touched me, the way his fingers seemed to burn against my skin. I remembered how it felt to be completely filled with him. I remembered running my hands acrossed his sweat-slicked skin, trying to memorize every curve and angle of his body.
"Fuck, what is that?"
I looked at Danny quizically. He was swatting at his chest and then reaching for something on his back. He had put his coffee down on the floor.
Oh no. I focussed on our connection. It was as prevelant and lively as ever. "Can you understand this?" I sent the message to his mind.
I got no response mentally or verbally. I took a breath and closed my eyes. I pictured unbuttoning his clothes, using them to pull him closer to me. I brought back the time we were in his car when I stradled him, pressing myself as close to him as I possibly could.
Danny was flushing to his ears. "Something weird's going on. I keep...feeling things that aren't actually happeneing. It happened last night, too, and..."
I blanched. "You're not psychic. How can you feel what I'm thinking if you're not psychic?"
"Wait, what are you talking about? Are you saying that just now you were thinking about..." Danny raised his eyebrows.
"Please no. I'm sorry." I wanted to hide under the sheets.
I felt warmth on my inner thigh. Little circles of pressure and reminant echoes of pleasure traversed quickly up my leg. Like kisses. Very much like Danny's kisses. I couldn't hold back the squeal in my throat.
"You felt that?" Danny asked incredulously.
I didn't have to nod. We were much more connected than I initially thought.
"How long is this going to last?"
"I don't know."
"Is it permanent?"
"Danny, I said I don't know."
"Are we going to know every time we have a dirty thought about each other?"
"God, I hope not."
He kissed me quickly and deeply, taking full advantage of our connection. Lucky for me, his thoughts about me weren't fully formed enough to make up anything more than an encompassing heat.
"Because that would be incredibly sexy." His voice was low and husky.
"As much as I enjoy your enthusiasm, I'll work on a way to fix it. It won't be so bad," I said. My voice was still a little raspy from the morning. I placed my empty mug on the nightstand.
"Exactly how much do you enjoy my enthusiasm?"
He pulled at the sheets covering me. His hand cupped my breast quicker than a heartbeat. I kept his hand there and closed my eyes. I thought about every intimate detail from last night. I showed him the inner denial I experienced from the moment I met him. I let him experience how I slowly learned about what he really meant to me.
"Do you believe me?" I asked.
He seemed incapable of speaking, but he managed to nod.
Finally, I let him feel how I felt in that moment, my need for him. I let him pull back the covers so that once again, we could become one in mind and body.
In two years, I'd grown accustomed to Danny's cappuccino machine. After years of mostly mediocre hotel coffee, I thanked my lucky stars that Danny's old precinct thought it would be a funny going away present for their old coffee gopher. It was his experience with coffee that made him perfect for going undercover at coffee shops.
The chief called me in to help with an undercover case this morning. It wasn't like I could refuse. I did sleep with him every night.
Susannah retired to be able to spend more time with her family, which opened up the permanent position for Danny. Since he was sworn and bound here, I had to stick around as well. My days of traveling the world were over, which I was ok with. The psychic scene wasn't big here, seeing how the old haunted asylum was torn down to become a research hospital, but little jobs popped up now and again. Tarot readings, fortune telling, seances, police consult, the usual psychic gigs.
Emily and Leo married a year ago and seemed to be on perpetual honeymoon. From what I could tell from the pictures she sent, she and her husband were in the Himalayas, not knowing they were hanging out with long dead monks until after the film developed.
The Chu family had once again turned from their lives of crime, as far as I could tell at least. The research hospital brought more people and revenue to the city, so most people liked to forget some of their more sinister past dealings.
The door jingled as I walked into Starbucks. Danny stood behind the counter in his barista smock and his cocky smirk on his face.
"Looks like it's my lucky day. It's not very often someone walks in who's hotter than the coffee."
I was unamused. Danny wouldn't stop trying to flirt with me even when he was undercover. Actually, he might have been worse. "I'll have a cappuccino with double espresso and vanilla."
"Get up on the wrong side of the bed, princess?" He asked while he started to prepare my beverage.
"No. I have a boyfriend, and you're annoying me."
I may not have been amused, but he sure was. "Boyfriend, huh? He must be a pretty incredible guy."
"He's alright. He can be pretty annoying, too. Especially when he's trying to be funny."
Danny winced. "Ouch." He handed me my drink.
"Thanks," I said. My lips started to tingle with warmth. Danny was imagining kissing me. Even when we weren't undercover, I wasn't a big fan of public displays of affection. Him thinking about me wasn't usually a problem. Usually, unless he started thinking something stupid, which happened more often that I would have liked. But he knew better than to pull that here.
I sat there drinking my coffee while I waited for this guy to show up. Danny was on the lookout for a drug dealer. We didn't know what he looked like, but he was saturating the local high schools with a new synthetic drug. Blah, blah, blah, we set him up to meet here to work out the contract for a new drug mule, who we already caught. Given enough time, the cops really could figure it out on their own. Danny recruited me because he knew it would be faster. Plus, he liked working together. We made a good team.
I was bored, so I watched Danny at his fake job. He looked cute. Especially his hair. I saw him flash a smile. I wondered if he could tell I was thinking about him. I don't remember thinking anything specific, but odds were he could feel me playing with his hair as I did so often when we were at home.
When I tilted my cup back to take another drink of coffee, I noticed a thump from within the cup. For goodness sakes, Danny had put something in my coffee, and I'd been dinking it the whole time. I glared at the cardboard cover. There was something different. Rather than his usual "Princess" or "Nora" were the words, "Marry me?"
It took me a moment to register that Danny had thought it was a good idea to put an engagement ring in my coffee.
Just then, the guy walked in. The drug dealer, I mean. He ws a very good actor. He seemed very familiar with the coffee shop. He looked around the coffeeshop, not finding who he was looking for. He kept his cool and went to the counter anyway to order a coffee from Danny. While Danny was distracted, I grabbed a stirrer and fished the ring from out of my coffee. It was still hot to the touch, but I shoved it in my pocket without so much as looking at it. I refastened the lid and approached the door.
That was Danny's cue. He grinned wickedly and took out his badge. "I'm afraid your coffee's going to have to wait. You're under arrest for selling illicit drugs to minors."
The guy tried to make a break for the door, but I was there to stop him. I punched him in the nose, and he went straight to the floor.
The people in the coffee shop cheered as Danny leaped the counter and handcuffed him to a bolted down table. My job here was done, so I threw away my cup and left once Danny started reciting the Miranda rights.
"Ah!" I heard Danny yell. "Nora, wait!"
I continued to walk. I assumed Danny called for back up because it was a few moments before he caught up to me and gripped my wrist. "Baby, sweetie, hold on."
"Don't you 'baby, sweetie' me. I can't believe you would do that. Do you expect me to accept the stunt you just pulled? Not only did you ask me in public, you didn't even do it properly. I mean, how exactly am I supposed to say yes to a note on a coffee cup?"
Danny smiled. "Nora..."
"And another thing! We were undercover, Danny, and that's so unprofessional..."
"Elenora Callaway, will you please marry me?"
He was so sure I was going to say yes. He was right, but he was so frustrating. I kept silent out of stubborness.
He dropped to one knee, still gripping my hand. "Please? You make me exceedingly happy, and you know I'll keep asking you until you say yes."
He flooded my mind with love reminding me of how great we were together and really how much of a match we were.
"Fine," I said. "I'll marry you."
"Thank you. And you sort of threw away the ring, so..."
My face must have been beet red, but I took the ring out of my pocket and gave it to him. He slipped it onto my left hand.
"See? Was that so bad? You think after two years you wouldn't be so afraid of commitment," Danny teased and stood back up.
"I'm not afraid." I kissed him hard, not caring who saw, alive or otherwise. I tasted his surprised and very pleased reaction. "You are mine and no one else's. I'll bind us together time and time again in whatever way I can."
Danny smirked. "Same."
AN: Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!