Chapter Text
At night, it’s almost like she’d never left.
…almost.
The daytime, though…is still a very different story.
It’s been better, at least, since Umber Tor, Callum thinks, leaning back against the heavy stone door, willing it to close quietly behind him. It doesn’t—for the third night in a row—and he winces at the sound echoing down the corridor, then holds his breath and listens, waiting to be sure that Ez and Soren—and Bait and Stella and Zym too—are still asleep before he heads to Rayla’s room again.
At least they’re talking now.
…or something like that, anyway.
Him shouting all his big feelings at her until she was too fed up to let him keep yelling probably didn’t quite count as talking, actually…but it was more than he’d said under the mountain, more than he’d said in the forest, and definitely more than he’d said back in Katolis.
It was something, he thinks, exhaling, satisfied enough with the silence to cross the hall.
It’d be impossible to say for sure what exactly had finally unlocked all the hurt he’d been barely and badly holding in—if it’d been Viren in the flesh after the way Callum had doubted her so long ago back at the Moon Nexus, or Rayla’s lone blade in the dirt outside the Great Gates, or the pouch of gold coins she’d shown him that meant she’d been right about every single thing—but once they’d gotten back here to the Spire, there’d been simply no pushing it all aside anymore. He’d known that all their tense tiptoeing around the point had ended as soon as he’d pulled her out of the rubble back outside of Reg Igneous’s lair…and it’d been nothing but big feelings ever since.
That first day of big feelings had been nice, at least, Callum thinks, remembering how it’d been all tight hugs and tears their whole way back to the Spire. There’d been something so soothing about finally getting to gush about how he’d missed her, all while the relief of holding her tempered the rest of the hurt…and that was how the nights had started.
He just…hadn’t wanted to let go once he’d finally had her back, safe in his arms. He’d felt fourteen all over again: head over heels in love, completely enamored just by being near her, achy at the thought of even just a room’s worth of distance between them. The pain of being apart was so fresh still too, and—
He just…couldn’t take it.
He just…
Needed her.
Not like that, though, he scolds himself, recoiling at how instantly he flushes under his collar.
Completely unbidden—and not for the first time that week—all he can imagine is her eyes, half-lidded and lilac, slowly leaning closer, and her lips, so sure and so soft, sweetly pressing to his, and—
He can’t go there.
He can’t think about Rayla’s hands in his hair, or his breath mixed with hers, or their hips pressed together, or how much he adores her—
He can’t because it’s not like that, he repeats, flustered at the thought, breath short. They haven’t even kissed yet since she’s been back, let alone anything…more.
He just needs her near, and that’s all. That was all it’d been that first night back at the Storm Spire, that was all it’d been last night…and that’s all it’ll be tonight, too, he resolves.
Though maybe even that would be coming to end, Callum thinks, welcoming his doubts as a distraction. He braces himself outside her door, hoping that steadying his breath will stop his heart from thumping in his ears. It’d been all downhill, really, from I’m so glad you came back, and it’d be reasonable—more than reasonable—for Rayla to tell him to get lost after the shouting-sobbing-screaming matches that big feelings time kept devolving into.
She probably won’t, though, he tells himself, trying to muster the nerve to knock. It’d been similarly ugly between them yesterday, after all, and she hadn’t turned him away then either. Rayla had been glad to see him, in fact, when he’d shown up in her doorway last night. She’d just smiled—that soft, sweet, relieved smile he knows so well—and held up the edge of her blanket for him without even a word.
They’d spent the whole night huddled close together just the way they’d found any excuse for at fifteen, and it’d been so…comfortable in spite of the silence, and—somehow—not at all awkward. It’d all come back so easily: his arm still fit perfectly right there in the dip of her waist, and she still had no qualms about tangling her legs with his under the covers. His lips in her hair came easier, in fact, since he’d grown taller…even with her bun getting in the way more than her horns ever had. She’d held his hand too, her grip sweet and firm like it’d always been, and traced each knuckle with care until he’d fallen asleep…
…and it was almost like she’d never left.
Almost, he thinks, trying not to let any of the big feelings seep into the pleasure of getting to sleep by her side again.
He could pretend that she hadn’t left, at least, when he was curled up around her like that…so maybe she could pretend too, he thinks, hoping that—even if it’s just for the night—she can forget how he’d shouted the way he’s trying to forget how she’d left.
Finally, he knocks on her door, and her voice is muffled…but he’d know the pretty lilt of Rayla asking after him anywhere.
“Callum?” she calls, and he’s instantly reassured at how happy—how hopeful—she sounds.
He nudges the door open to find her still sitting up on her bed, unlike when he’d come to her the past couple of nights. Her smiling at him is just the same, though, he thinks, heart immediately pounding again at how lovely she looks, all lit up in the dark like that…except that her smile isn’t just the same, actually, he quickly realizes.
It’s not relief that he’s here, or even reassurance that he can be here on her lips, but…satisfaction—maybe?—smirking at him from her bed.
Like she’d known he would come.
Like she’s pleased that he had.
Distraction dissolving, Callum feels his chest tighten at her eyes sparkling moonlight back at him…and tries not to think too hard about pleasing Rayla as he eases the door shut behind him.
He knows that sparkle, though—loves that sparkle—and everything that comes with it: the witty jokes and playful teasing, the casual confidence, the daring, flirty little things she’d say to him and only him…
There’d been heat behind that sparkle, too, sometimes…like—
Like maybe she needed him too.
He’s helpless to how he swells remembering Rayla in his lap their last night in the castle years ago, rosy between kisses and grinning at every noise she’d gotten out of him—
His knees between hers a week later at the Nexus, and the satisfaction of seeing her squirm when he’d breathed against her collar—
How she’d looked up at him from his pillow a night from the full moon, breathlessly wondering if they should slow down, making him shiver with how tenderly her fingertips traced his spine—
It’s not like that, he repeats again, putting aside where that heat hadn’t quite led, pushing down the thought of crossing those barely-spoken limits.
He swallows around the lump in his throat, convincing himself that Rayla’s just happy to see him, that’s all.
She doesn’t…
Need him.
“Is it okay if I come in?” Callum finally sputters from the doorway, the question equal parts needing to be near and desperation to sit to somehow hide how he very much does need her.
Last night, her invitation had been instant—just a wordless lift of a blanket—but she scowls at him instead—crossed-legged atop that same blanket—still with that sassy sparkle in her eyes…and it’s all he can do not to let his aroused imagination run wild while she considers him.
He can’t gape at how long and gorgeous her undone hair is, no matter how soft he’s sure it’d be if he could just push it behind her horns for her, sweep it over her shoulders, braid it down her back…
He can’t look at her ankles folded in her lap…no matter how lovely and perfect he’s sure the rest of her bare skin might be if she’d just let him unbutton her collar, or push her hem up around her waist, or even unknot the drawstring around her hips…
He can’t stare at her chest, fuller now and clearly unbound beneath her loose, makeshift nightclothes, no matter how much he’d like to—
He can’t.
No matter how badly he needs her, no matter how much he loves her…
He can’t, he repeats, silently begging his body to stop needing her so obviously.
“Depends,” Rayla sighs, crossing her arms, apparently not forgetting the way he’d screamed at her just a couple of hours ago. “Are we still fighting?”
“I don’t want to be,” he says, forcing himself not to fidget with his newly too-tight pajamas. If she hadn’t already noticed, maybe she wouldn’t, he hopes. Unthinkingly, though, he gives in to nervous habit to rub the back of his neck, and—
Her eyes flicker across his middle, watching his hand lift from his hip before locking on the pronounced protrusion there at his groin, and she doesn’t say anything…but her cheeks burn pinker beneath her markings, her ears perk up, her lips press tight together…
…and Callum panics, face aflame.
It’d been one thing to get worked up like this in the middle of making out when they were kids, and it’d been another to wake up uncomfortably stiff like this next to her these past mornings…but he’d hardly even been speaking to her until three days ago, and now she probably thinks a boner is why he’s come here to her room, and he can’t let her think that—
Before he can speak, though, her eyes lift to his and her lips slip into a smirk again.
She doesn’t think that, he’s reassured
He scolds himself again: Of course she doesn’t…because it’s obviously not like that.
“We’ll start up again in the morning, then?” she says, dropping the subject instead of giving him a hard—harder—time. “Arguing, I mean,” she adds with a scoff, amused, it seems, at how cuddling—which was all they would be doing, obviously—could apparently completely override two years' worth of big feelings.
He just needs her near, and that’s all, he repeats to himself with a deep breath as she tilts her head, waiting for his answer. He loves her, but anything more is definitely too much to ask, he thinks, when he could hardly get five minutes into big feelings time without shouting at her.
He can—probably—sit with her, though, at least.
“Is it okay if I—?” he asks, wondering if the hard-on she knows he has will make the answer any different. He points to her bed, sure by the way Rayla nods, glancing away and blushing brighter, that she understands: it’s not just being near that needs permission, but…needing her like this while she’s so near, too.
He resolves to sit at the farthest edge of her mattress, and crosses the room, rambling already.
“I know that maybe it’s a lot to ask when I’m still so mad at you,” he explains—it’s necessary, he thinks, to acknowledge it, even if she already has—as he sinks awkwardly to the corner of her bed, hands fisted, looking everywhere else before his eyes lock with hers and his voice cracks. “But I just…need to be near you, Rayla.”
Her amused sparkle softens for just a second, her eyes going wide and soft and sincere…but then she blinks, and there’s light glinting in them again.
“Near me?” she teases, the corners of her mouth twitching into a superficially suppressed smile. “You call that near?”
Faster than he can think, she unfolds her legs and slides her way across the bed, and then she’s beside him, all beautiful and bold and—
“Oh,” he squeaks as she settles close enough that her thigh presses flush to his. “Well—“
“It’s okay, Callum,” she says, her voice sweet and close to his cheek, like she might kiss him there. Maybe she does, for all he knows with the way her touch at his knee draws his attention and tears his composure to shreds. Barely, he contains the tension that jolts directly to his groin, and he just…stares at her fingers on his leg dumbly, wondering what they might do next. Rayla squeezes him then, her little hand wrapping tight around his thigh, and…he forces his mouth closed as she leans in. “You were saying?”
Nudged out of his stupor, he drags his eyes away from her hand to look at her again, and—
The slight flush across her cheeks…
That serene smile on her lips…
The subtle slant to the tips of her ears…
That half-lidded haze over sparkly lilac…
That’s…heat.
Then—
Maybe it’s not too much to ask.
If she can touch him, maybe—maybe—he can touch her too, Callum thinks.
“I think I’ve been…pretending these past couple of nights,” he says, adding his hand to the pile on his own knee to start, his fingers slotting down into the empty spaces around hers. “If I pretend like you didn’t leave, then—I don’t know—it feels like everything with us is okay, just for a little while, at least, and I just—” His hand lands on her leg for emphasis, and she startles just a bit…less than he had, for sure. “I’ve missed you so much, Rayla,”
“Callum, I—” Her eyes barely flit away down to his hand, eyelids fluttering just a little, and he almost stops there, not sure of the way her voice shakes. She angles closer, though, so it’s safe, he thinks, to keep going, his touch echoing her hand, still clasped gently around his thigh. “I’m right here,” she assures him as his thumb traces the outer seam of her nightclothes. “You don’t—you don’t have to miss me anymore.”
Her grip tightens again, and, determinedly, he keeps his eyes on hers…even as her gaze flickers away to his mouth, even as her caresses inch up his thigh. He falters, though, when her tongue pokes out to wet her lips…and his arousal aches.
Maybe—maybe—he can kiss her, too.
“Can we…keep pretending, then?” he asks, whispering and lightheaded as Rayla drifts closer and closer, near enough that he can feel her breathe, magic aside. “Just…for a little while?”
Her sharp breath in is his only warning before her lips seal suddenly to his, sure and soft as ever, and oh, he wants this—needs her—so badly, but…
He only yields to her, still too uncertain of what she needs to trust himself to do anything more. He moves with her, though, welcoming her harsh, urgent arms around him, and molding to her kiss. He lets her pull his lip between hers, lets her tip his chin to the side, lets her tongue slip into his mouth…until she breaks away, breathing heavy.
“Like I didn’t leave?” she questions, repeating him, the smirk on her lips barely masking her wide-eyed wondering about why he’s not kissing her back…and completely dissolving any doubt that he should.
Just slightly, she lets her lips pout and part, her eyes bright and hopeful, presenting herself to be kissed, and…
If she can kiss him, he can kiss her, he thinks.
So, with his hand at her cheek, he closes the space between them again and—sweetly, softly—brushes his lips against hers.
It’s slow-going at first, kissing her again, but it all comes back—the press of his lips against hers, the nip of her teeth refusing to let him pull away, the flushed warmth radiating between them, the taste of her tongue flicking along his—until it really is like she’d never left.
…almost.
The ragged gasps and the breathy sighs and the needy whimpers aren’t new, exactly, but…it’s all bolder than it’d ever been before, when there’d been some semblance of inhibition still two summers ago. She’d gasped, but it’d come with a pause to breathe, and he’d sighed, but Rayla had always stopped to laugh afterward.
The way the tension throbs at his groin with every whimper she makes is…not the same.
But he can’t get carried away, Callum reminds himself, no matter how badly he needs her, no matter how much he loves her, no matter how much he wants this. His hands glued to her waist despite how hers travel his chest, he waits instead for Rayla to be the one to push them further. Thankfully, she does…but just because she’s kissing him—just because she’s pulling him down, into bed—doesn’t mean she needs him like that, he repeats.
“Come here,” she whispers, her lips light against the shell of his ear, her fingers knotted in his hair, her locked elbows pulling at his shoulders…and he follows her down to the mattress without a word, tumbling overtop of her, caught mid-fall with a kiss that her giggling cuts short.
Laughing all the while, Rayla adjusts beneath him, flushed and smiling. She beams up at him reassuringly, every tight muscle slack and relaxed against the mattress, her smoothly curved horns poking into the bed, her brilliant white hair splayed out against the blanket…
Her eyes follow his as he takes the rest in too: his hands on either side of her head, her knees on either side of his hips, how very near her body is to his…
Gently, she brings his eyes back to hers, caressing his cheek. Happy enough to be kissing her anywhere—even just the calloused base of each finger—after so long without being able to kiss her at all, he turns into her hand, breathing warm puckers against her palm.
“If I hadn’t left, then—“ she starts, and…he really ought to let her talk, he recognizes, never mind how desperately he wants to forget all that, just for a little while.
So, he leaves her lips free—he was the one that kept turning talking into shouting, anyway—and busies his own. Ducking to her forehead first, then to her markings, to her jaw, and finally to her collar, he feathers a kiss exactly where she used to like, telling himself that hickeys and being horizontal like this had always gone hand-in-hand for them. Keeping within their old limits is—probably—fine, he reasons, letting his resolve crumble.
“We’d—we’d probably—oh,” she continues, sighing and squirming under his breath, just the way he remembers, almost—almost—like she’d never left at all. “We’d probably be even better at this by now.”
“Better at…making out?” he wonders against the soft, warm bend of her neck, earning an approving hum. “I think I’m doing alright,” he chuckles, and she does too, arching against him and turning to give him more access.
He shifts his weight, then, down to an elbow, vaguely aware of Rayla’s hand seeking his own, but otherwise entirely occupied with how nibbling at her pulse quickens her breath, until—
She leads his hand to her breast, cupping it beneath her own like she’d done just once in a quiet stairwell back in Katolis, pushing his palm against the heavy fabric that’d guarded her chest then—
“This is…more than making out, I think,” she breathes.
“Oh,” he says, abandoning the pink spot he’d left on her throat to look at her, letting all the ways he’d stopped himself from even thinking about touching her flood back along with the heat in his cheeks. She leaves his hand all on its own on her chest, but his touch stalls at just gentle pressure as he dares to wonder: “It can be more…if you want.”
“Like I’d never left, right?” Rayla asks, smiling and shuddering when his barely emboldened fingertips graze across the thin cloth over her warm breasts, pushing that old limit from when they were younger. Her bottom lip between her teeth, her hands slip from his shoulder blades to his waist, to his hips…
Clearly, she wants this, Callum tells himself, finding it difficult to ignore how the softness of her body makes his hardness ache. She wants to pick up where they left off, at least, he assures himself—watching her eyes flutter vulnerably shut, feeling the peak of each breast stiffen under his touch—but she definitely doesn’t want him—need him—the way he needs her, he’s sure…
“Please, Callum. I—”
Perfectly certain and decidedly desperate, though, she whispers, mid-caress—
“I need you.”
—and the words alone are enough for Callum to finally—finally—let go of all the can’ts.
Trusting her hands on his rear, her knees open beneath him, her breathless near-begging, he races all the way past the edge of the boundaries they’d flirted with two years ago, sure she also wants to—needs to—at last.
He can touch her…and she hums happily when he does, clearly pleased at his palm cupping the curve of her hip, the bend of her waist, the swell of her breast.
He can kiss her…and she lifts her chin for him as he leans in closer again, offering up any place his lips can find.
He can even—
“Callum,” she gasps at the crest of a clumsy thrust, her legs twining around him to keep him there, near enough that their hips together grind his hardness against her core, so blatantly fueling his desire that he can hardly believe it.
“Too much?” he wonders, remembering how she’d had him slow down and ultimately stop the last time they’d been anywhere even close to being together like this. He’s reassured, though, by her hips rocking into his—just once more to answer his question—before her knees press him to the side, urging him to lie back against the headboard.
“Not enough,” Rayla says, with a smirk and a shake of her head, nudging him to the pillows and climbing over him in a fluid roll. Straddling him, she catches his lips in a familiar kiss and settles right over his aching groin, sending them right back to where they’d left off two years ago.
It wasn’t quite the same as it’d been that July, though, Callum recognizes, unable to stop himself the way he always had back then. Even through all their clothes, she’s so hot overtop of him and the pressure is so satisfying, and he can’t help but surge upward, grunting at the rough friction…
He starts an apology before her grin reminds him that she wouldn’t do any of this—moan at his touch, climb into his lap, rock against his arousal—unless she wants to.
“Sorry—”
“Relax, Callum,” she laughs, moving against him again, trailing fingertips down his front, then laying her hands over his. Sighing, she pushes them up and under her shirt, her stare glazed over in what can only be…lust, he thinks. “I…I want this, I promise.”
“I do too,” he nods, marveling at her smooth, warm skin under his hands, holding her hips as her back arches. She grinds down against him harder, and, humming in pleasure, he bucks again, hardly able to even think about anything other than the sparks of pleasure prickling like lightning through his whole body. “I really want this, Rayla.”
“Relax, then,” she repeats, insisting on taking the lead with her palm pressing down against his chest as she perfects her position until her core rubs against him, and he swears he can actually feel the dip of her sex running along his erection.
“Fuck,” he curses at the end of a slow, careful arc against him that ends with her hips flicking back to where they’d started.
“Callum,” Rayla gasps—as if he’d actually done something to make her say his name like that rather than just lying there shuddering—and repeats the same path. Her hips do that over and over: rock, then buck back to the start, harsher, faster, the rhythm growing more and more unmeasured. “This—feels so good. Please—“
She pushes his hands further up, past her flat stomach, over her tight waist, encouraging him to feel her up, and tenses once his fingertips find her nipples, brushing over the raised and—apparently—sensitive buds. Her hips quicken, her rhythm less deliberate and more frantic, it seems, the more he plays with her breasts, and he’s entranced by the whimpers, the pink flush spreading to her ears, the calls for him not to stop…
He knows he’s just as undone of course, too, feeling the heat burning down his face and across his chest, hearing his own grunts and curses interspersed with her name, needing it badly every time she knocks up her speed—
This is…definitely not just making out, he certainly realizes at this point, throbbingly hard and dangerously close to ruining his pajamas, well past anything even close to things they’d done before she’d left. As good as he feels with her rocking against him, though, he doesn’t know if just rolling around with him like this will be enough for Rayla to…finish.
“Rayla—“ he starts to ask, barely with-it enough to even name the peak he wants to help her to. “Are you gonna—uh—”
“Mmhm,” she nods, biting her lip and blinking open her bleary eyes. Slowing back to the controlled rocking from before that had her center stroking his length in full through the barriers between them, she balances with her palm at his chest again. “Is—is that okay? If I come? Please—oh!”
She calls out as he thrusts up against her again, trying to restore her lost urgency, spurred on by the idea of having anything at all to do with making Rayla come.
“Of course it is, Rayla,” he encourages, his fingers lovingly circling her nipples, then rolling them against his thumbs. “I want you to.”
Her answer is a deliberate, harsh circle pressed down against his lap, her lip caught between her teeth again as she hums and he groans back…
…and she quickly finds that same frantic, satisfying rhythm again, her motions rushed and reckless. She’s incoherent this round, mostly moaning, barely even stringing together his name, until she holds her breath, her hips pressing down the harshest few arcs yet that make him wonder if Rayla can feel how he pulses against the pressure of her sex…and sudden silence gives way to giggling, gasping climax.
Clearly coming, she grinds against him still, quick and light now, her mouth hanging open as she catches her breath…and Callum thinks he might lose it, watching her peak like that—her eyes rolling, her chest heaving, her ears twitching, her face fully flushed red. She’s hardly done, he thinks, before he bolts upright, holding her close, wishing the friction wouldn’t stop because he’s so close too—
“Callum, I—“ she hums, moving in slower, lazier circles as best she can with the way he’s holding her…and Callum can’t believe he does it, but his hands slide to her hips, and he guides her back to a quicker rhythm. She giggles, breathlessly in his ear, cooperating. “Oh?”
“I need you too” he admits, lips buried against her throbbing pulse, trying—and failing—to find a pace as satisfying as the one she’d set. She stops him, though, pushing him away by the shoulders, just enough so he can see her flushed cheeks again and the soft, contented look in her eyes…and he forces himself to be still.
“We can—” Rayla starts at a simper, with that daring, confident sparkle…but seems to lose nerve part way through. “Uh—”
Biting her lip, she looks down to undo a few clasps on his shirt, shifting her weight to her knees instead of his lap.
“If I hadn’t left—“ She starts again, and he sucks in a sharp breath as she drops a hand behind her back, to his aching arousal. “I think I would’ve been ready a long time ago,” she explains, eye contact unbroken, gently groping through fabric to stroke his length. “But I did, and I’m sorry, but I’m not.”
“It’s—it’s okay,” he concedes, more than a little disappointed, truthfully, but mostly confused about why her hand is still moving if she doesn’t want to touch him. It feels so amazing to have her tend to him like that…but he catches Rayla’s hand in his. “We—we can stop.”
“What? No,” she says, sitting back down, her bottom landing between his legs, sweeping her disheveled hair back behind her horns. “No, I mean, you can…finish too. I’ll help you, even.”
Smiling slightly, sweetly, she slips her hand free from his to continue undoing his buttons, as if to demonstrate...and Callum knows it’d be lying to say he’s not relieved. He lets her lead, though, like he has all night, relishing the not-quite familiar feeling of her fingers at his chest.
“It’s just that, if we’re pretending I hadn’t left, we’d…” Rayla trails off again, mulling over the words and looking conflicted—like maybe she doesn’t want to upset him?—so he presses the hand that’d slipped beneath his shirt flat to his heart, encouraging her to go on. She blushes as she finally explains, flustered, actually, it seems. “Well, we’d be lovers already, but—“
“Oh. Oh no,” he shakes his head briefly, then cups her cheeks and pulls her close enough to brush his lips briefly against hers. If she wanted to, he’d make love to her in a heartbeat, of course, but— “That’s not what I meant when I said I wanted to pretend. I didn’t mean that we’d—uh…”
He hadn’t really even thought they’d kiss, nevermind being all wrapped around each other like this, nevermind getting each other off, nevermind thinking they might actually make love…
“You just wanted to cuddle, huh?” she scoffs, smug and self-satisfied, casually slipping his shirt off his shoulders and then sliding her hand down to his lap, thrumming gently over the bulge there. “That’s what the world’s most obvious stiffy is all about?”
…he’d hoped maybe, though, for some of this, he can admit.
“Well, I was hoping that maybe you might want to—”
He stops himself, determined to get the words to come out right, even if she is already stroking him again. He really hadn’t come here looking for this, even if he obviously wants it.
“I mean, I definitely wasn’t expecting that we’d—”
…and that makes it sound like he is expecting something now.
He stops again, focusing through the feeling of her finger tracing a light little line all the way along his shaft.
“To be clear, I’m not expecting anything, but if you’re doing that—“
Rayla silences him with that same finger at his lips, wearing an amused smile.
“I’m gonna make you come now, okay?” She simpers, her lips all smiley and sideways and sassy, eyes sparkling again like she’s just so pleased with herself…and he—of course—grins back.
He nods, snickering with relief under her fingertip—Skies above, he loves her so much—and balls up his shirt to toss it away as she moves off of him and kneels at his side, pressing him back down, leaning in close.
Her lips meet his neck and her fingers skim down his stomach teasingly before pausing at his hips. “Can you show me how?”
Head foggy and—perhaps—overly eager from her touch dancing along his waistband, he reaches down to undo it hastily, shimmying his pants to his knees and freeing his arousal along the way. He swallows as she sits up, though, wishing he’d slowed, his chest tight with the thrill of showing himself to Rayla, unsure if this was—if he was—anything like what she’d been expecting.
“Uh—you meant for me to do that right?” he asks, flushing, feeling her stare. Even just her looking at his cock makes him twitch, and then how she bites her lip…he throbs, hard and hot, and shudders in anticipation, suddenly strikingly aware of the cool air up at this altitude. “To, you know—”
“Take your pants off?” she teases, warm and affectionate. “Obviously, Callum.” He holds his breath watching her reach for him…but she hesitates and offers him her hand instead, grinning like she thinks it’ll keep him from realizing that she’s a little nervous. “Show me, dummy.”
Gently, Callum takes her hand in his, his thumb slipping along the soft center of her palm, and he watches her until he sees her showy confidence soften to certainty before he flips it over. He guides her to wrap her fingers around him, leaving his hand over hers, and can’t help the way he shivers at the long-imagined feeling.
“It’s—warm,” she blushes, slowly slipping her grip up and down his shaft, and, quickly, he remembers how worked up he’d been just before they’d stopped. “Is this—oh.”
“S-sorry,” he hisses, finding that squeezing her light touch alleviates some of the ache in his arousal. “If you could just, uh—”
“Tighter?” she asks, obliging him already, unfazed as he lets his own grip fall away and hums in approval. “Your hands are a lot bigger than mine, you know,” Rayla warns, her left hand finding his and weaving their fingers together.
It’s true that it’s different than doing this for himself, with how little her hands were compared to his, small enough that she’d need both to cover him completely…but it’s also so much better. It’s Rayla’s hand on his cock, tending to the ache he’s had for her for years now, with care and heat sparkling in her eyes, the friction of a few callouses novel and new and the smile on her lips so familiar and fond, and—
—and he loves her.
“You’re perfect,” he breathes, pulling their joined hands to his lips, watching himself slide through her fist over and over. “Prom—mmm,” he trails off as her stroke changes, her thumb slipping across the tip of his shaft he can’t help how his hips react. “Promise.”
“That’s good, too?” she snickers, working his length in steady rhythm and slipping her other hand out of his grip to touch along the trail of hair from his navel, to trace his hips, to caress his balls.
“Sensitive—” he says, unsure about stringing together more than a few words, especially since his answer makes her repeat herself, her thumb circling now around the head of his cock until he bucks against her hand again. “—and so good, but—”
Rayla reaches for his shoulder as he reaches for her hip, and asks: “What do you need?”
He covers her hand with his once more, showing her to speed up her strokes. “I’m, uh…not gonna last much longer.”
“Like this, then?” she asks, her right fist tighter and quicker, her left hand gentler, wandering to cup his jaw.
“Yes,” he nods, determined to resist the urge to screw his eyes shut in favor of committing to memory the image of her blushing and so beautiful, smiling at him with such satisfaction. “Just…just like that. Rayla—”
Desperate to come and more than ready, Callum holds back as best he can to warn her, gasping, his hand scrambling for purchase against her pajamas to pull her closer, his grip matching the tension coursing through the rest of his body.
“Rayla, I’m—this is messy, and I’m gonna—” he babbles, wanting to be able to wrap his arm around her and press her against his fevered-feeling chest. “I need you, I—”
“You have me, Callum. I’m right here.” She follows his bidding down to an elbow to lean close. Kissing his neck, then his jaw, then his cheek, Rayla presses flush against him, her right hand never slowing, always minding how he moves against her. “You have me,” she repeats, the words staggered between hot breath and gentle lips, her voice low in his ear. “I’m right here.”
Callum holds in a shaky breath while the throbbing tension climbs to the brink, and, gripping tight against her shoulder, he can barely manage more than a choked sob as she tends to him.
He pants her name, heart pounding, hips bucking, jerking, thrusting…until she strokes him into relieved, shuddering oblivion at last.
Finally overcome by pulsing, perfect release, he spills over her hand, coming in ebbing, dwindling streams…until his hips still and he’s spent.
His mind a blank, blissed-out slate, he couldn’t have managed the words to tell Rayla what he needs if he tried…but she figures it out. Once he finishes, her rough, hurried strokes fade out to nothing more than a soft, tender hand there against his groin while her face buried against his neck stays just as sweet, nuzzling there against him…and Callum drags in a long, deep breath, satiated at last.
“By the way,” Rayla laughs, like she’d been waiting for that sigh. She shifts to rest her head against his shoulder with a parting kiss, holding up her wrist, streaked with his seed. “Gross.”
She wrinkles up her nose, making a face, and he chuckles breathlessly.
“Hey, I warned you,” he shrugs, then dizzily tries to roll away, thinking to find the shirt he’d thrown across the room. “Here, let me—”
“Wait, Callum…no,” Rayla stops him with her messy hand catching his, and Callum smiles at first. She’s concerned, obviously, and it’s sweet, he thinks, given how he’s still hardly breathing, let alone fit to stand.
“I guess I can just—” he lifts a finger, thinking to just aspiro the wet mess dry. A little magic had almost always served him well with Rayla, after all…but he stops short seeing the furrowed brow that’d so quickly taken the place of her giggling. She sits up, suddenly serious, and he scrambles to right his clothes, the flush of satisfaction quickly replaced with worry. “What is it?”
“Callum…” she begins again, her wrist against his chest, her eyes full and focused and fond. “I love you. You don’t have to say it back, but…so much, Callum. I love you so much.”
Had he not…?
Oh.
“Oh, Rayla,” he breathes, realizing what they’d done without her understanding—without him saying—what’d seemed so obvious to him. Of course he loves her. That was why he’d yelled all day, why he kept coming to her at night…and why he needed her so badly, too. He’d been so wrapped up in wanting her and wondering if she wanted him back, though, that he hadn’t even considered that there was any doubt.
She hadn’t known that he loves her, and they’d just—
Oh.
Callum reaches for her, regretting the weepy shine in her eyes.
“I love you too,” he whispers, incredulous that it’d taken more than a week of having her back—and all of this—to say it. Touching the tip of her marking with his thumb, he catches a couple of fallen tears, as if that’d make up for letting them fall at all. “Of course I do.”
“Are we…are you still pretending?” she sniffles and it’s almost a snicker, but she looks away doubtfully, pushing at her eyes with the heel of her clean hand like it’ll keep the tears in. “Like I didn’t leave?”
“I am not pretending,” he insists, guiding her gaze back to his.
Heart aching, he cups her cheek, needing her to believe him.
She does, he thinks, from the way she rests her forehead against his, just like she always used to do…
“I love you, Rayla. I really do.”
Just like she’d never left.