Changed, Cass sat cross-legged on the end of the mattress, content to watch him explore.
He leaned in close to the corner of a big canvas and clocked her signature. “You did this one.” He tossed a proud glance over his shoulder, then looked back at the piece. “Who is it?”
“Roy Mustang.”
“He some kinda cartoon character?”
She sighed. “Do you really want to discuss the finer points of manga in general, andFullmetal Alchemistin specific?”
“Nope.” He moved on to the next canvas with her signature, ignoring the band posters and bought art, and then chuckled. “Family portrait?”
“Yes.”
She’d had to cobble it together from various photos, so it didn’t look like a staged group photo, but a very retro sequence of floating torsos. Her brothers and their old ladies, and Raven, and Reese, and Toly. And…
“Hey.” Shep pointed, finger hovering over the canvas, the thick scores of red and blue and black oil paint she’d used to create her stylized portraits. “Is that me?”
Once, not too long ago, she would have been self-conscious to admit that it was him. Now, she said, simply, “Yes.”
He shot her another over-the-shoulder glance, this one stunned.
“Why are you surprised?”
He rubbed at the back of his neck, which had gone pink. “Dunno. Guess I’m not, really.”
She made grabby hands. “Do you want to keep playing art critic or come to bed?”
In answer, he started stripping off his clothes as he moved to join her. He lost his balance tugging his jeans off his left leg, wobbled, muttered, “Shit,” and nearly face-planted on the carpet. Cass laughed. “Shuddup, brat,” he said, when he was finally free and climbing up onto the bed in just his boxer-briefs.
She caught him by the shoulders when he swayed in toward her—but he wasn’t off balance, just leaning in for a kiss. A very wet, heated, whiskey-flavored kiss.
Cass wound her arms around his neck and climbed up into his lap, wanting closer. She hadn’t yet found a definition forclose enough. Like this, heat radiated off his skin, and his muscles shifted smooth and hard beneath her hands when he took her by the hips and hauled her in even closer, so shewas straddling his waist. She loved the way they fit together physically, the breadth of his shoulders under her arms, the way his hands covered her breasts over the threadbare cotton of her shirt.
He hummed a low growling sound against her mouth, and then trailed his lips down her jaw, her throat, his nighttime stubble striking sparks along her skin.
Cass shivered and speared her fingers through his hair, cupping the back of his head, urging him on.
He paused when he reached the chain resting in the join of her neck and shoulder, and pulled back with the damp sound of a seal breaking to hook a finger in the chain and draw the dogs tags out of the neck of her shirt and into the light.
Cass kept her hands in his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp as he smoothed a thumb over his own name, his ID number, his blood type, his religious affiliation. She hadn’t taken the tags off since he gave them to her on her birthday, not even to shower. She’d grown used to their smooth weight between her breasts, the gentle chime of metal. She found herself fiddling with the chain or stroking them in class when she felt restless. Maybe it was silly or childish, a symptom of a young woman in love, but she relished having them, touching them and knowing he was out there beyond the walls of her classroom, thinking about her, and waiting on her, and probably formulating a plan for dinner that he would relay when she swung on the back of his bike.
How can he be so mean, and so scary-looking, and so damn cute?she wondered. What she said, smiling, smoothing her thumbs along his temples, was, “No thoughts, head empty.”
“Hm?” He tipped his head back, gaze searching her face, soft and fever-bright in a way that had nothing to do with alcohol.
“Nothing,” she assured, chest full to bursting. “It’s just a meme.”
His brows drew together. “The fuck’s a meme?”
Cass laughed, and kissed his frowning mouth.
Twenty-Four
I’m forty-six and nobody’s ever loved me, Shep had said on her birthday, kneeling before her, the skin covering his heart freshly inked with her name. But he’d wanted someone to, she’d understood. She thought that was the reason he was a cuddly sleeper. She’d resolved not to ruin it by bringing it up, which meant she woke most mornings with six feet of man wrapped around or half-draped over her.
The only difference this morning was that someone was rapping sharply at the bedroom door, and when she opened her eyes, it was to her candy-colored, juvenile room in Raven’s flat.
She lay on her side facing the door, Shep behind her, one heavy arm snug around her waist. He shifted when the knocking started, pressed his face to the back of her neck, and grumbled a wordless protest.
