"Why are we even talking about this?" she asked, shaking her head.
"We needed to clear the air."
"Not that," she objected, sliding out to the side, putting some distance between us. "Everything else," she corrected, taking her cup back to the machine, pouring more.
"You still remember how I take my coffee."
"What?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at me.
"Fifteen years. And you still remember how I take my coffee."
"So?"
"And you're still wearing the necklace."
"I explained that."
"And you couldn't hurt me, even thinking I had been the one to try to kill you."
"I shot you."
"In the thigh."
"And hit you with a lamp."
"Not hard enough to kill me," I reminded her. "And you couldn't bring yourself to leave town."
"None of that means anything," she objected.
"You let me fuck you again," I added, watching as her eyes flashed with memory. I moved closer as she backed herself against the counter. She could have moved away, but chose not to. "You can't tell me it wasn't just like it used to be. Maybe even better," I told her, body pressing into hers, hand raising to stroke her hair behind her ear.
"Says the man who ran out before it was over," she shot back, lifting her chin.
Defiance, something she'd never had when she was younger, something she wore well now.
"Promise I'll stay till the end this time," I told her, lips curving up.
"There isn't going to be a 'this time,'" she objected.
"No?" I asked, hand lifting, sinking into the hair at the back of her neck, curling, yanking the slightest bit. But enough. Enough to make her eyes flare, her lips part, her air gasp inward as it sparked desire off her nerve endings.
"Roan..."
"Why deny it?" I asked, head tilting down, pressing my lips to the side of her neck, moving slowly upward toward her ear, sinking my teeth into the lobe.
"It's not a good idea."
"Why not?" I asked, lips tracing down her jaw. "We both know it will feel good."
"It will confuse things," she insisted as her breathing got faster, got more shallow.
"There's no confusion. I want you... you want me..." I told her pressing quick kisses to her lips that had her head angling back, inviting more.
"I meant after."
"Sounds like a problem for 'after,' then, doesn't it?" I asked, hand sliding down her side, slipping inward, pressing between her thighs.
"Yeah," she agreed suddenly, reaching for the back of my neck. "We can deal with that after," she told me before sealing her lips over mine.
From there, something new happened, something that had never been a part of our lives before, something I found even better.
She took over.
Her hands were greedy, yanking at my shirt, my pants, at her own clothing, not satisfied until our bodies were pressing, until her breasts were crushed to my chest, until her hands were roaming over my body in a way that spoke of memory, of familiarity.
She raked her nails down my back, sank her fingers into my ass.
Her lips pressed hard to mine, demanded mine become harder, rougher.
And, well, I was happy to deliver.
Until her mouth ripped from mine, her lips trailing down my neck, my chest, the center of my stomach, lower.
Her lips closed around the head of my cock, and I swear my vision went white for a long moment as my hand slammed down on the counter behind her, holding onto the edge as she started to work me. With confidence, certainty, with familiarity.
"No," I told her, hand sinking into her hair, pulling upward, when it seemed like she was intent on making me come in her mouth.
There would be time for that.
Later.
But not now.
Now, I needed to be inside her.
Now that there were no more secrets, no more confusion, now that everything was on the table, that we saw each other - and our journeys - clearly.
Now, I wanted her to have me. Fully. For the first time. And I wanted to have her fully again.
As soon as she was standing again, I swooped down, forcing my shoulder into her hip as I snagged my wallet, sealing my arm over the backs of her knees as I threw her over my shoulder, hearing the hiss of surprise, then the old snorting chuckle I had been so certain I would never hear again.
I had never been so happy that I was wrong about something in my life.
Making it to the couch, I turned us, sinking down on my ass, pulling her to straddle me, being graced with one of her old, beaming smiles, the one without any fear or regret or ghosts. Just pure. Just, well, happy.
Happiness was always a beautiful thing.
But nothing, nothing was more beautiful than seeing it on her face.
My hands moved up her sides, watching as her muscles twitched under my touch before closing my palms around her breasts, rolling the hardened nipples with my thumb and forefinger, my cock twitching when she arched backward slightly, letting out a low moan.