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“I’d like to stay here,” I said. “On the footstool. And keep talking.”
She laughed, surprised and pleased, and we talked. About books, about her job, about the hell of being the sensible one. About how I’d spent three years not dating anybody because I’d got comfortable. We shared the last of her whisky from a flask. At some point she put her hand on mine, and at some point after that I kissed her wrist.
“That’s sweet,” she said. “Do it again.”
I kissed the inside of her wrist. Then her palm. Then the soft crook of her elbow, and she shivered. She slid down out of the chair onto the rug in front of the fire, pulling me with her, and kissed me slowly, thoroughly, the way you would if you had until morning.
She undressed me. I undressed her. The green velvet slid down to a lovely freckled body, soft hips, a full, heavy chest. I kissed all of it. I took my time with her breasts. I took my time between her thighs, until her hand was in my hair and she said, steadily, “Yes, there, exactly there,” and came with a long, low moan.
Then I was inside her, on the rug in the firelight, rocking slowly. She wrapped her legs around me. We moved like we’d done it for years. When she came again she held my gaze, and I came a minute later, shaking, her name unspoken between us.
We slept in front of the fire under Tom’s tartan throw.
She’d gone by morning. The butterfly mask lay on the pillow, and I took it home.
Ending 13 of 16: Slow Burn. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.