Ten Years

They made it to the hallway before she pulled his shirt off.

Her hands went to the hem while they were still kissing and she yanked it over his head and broke the kiss to get it past his face and then her hands were on his chest and she stopped.

"God." Her fingers spread flat against his pectorals. Her eyes went from his face to his body and her mouth opened. "When did you-" She traced the line between his chest muscles with her index finger. Down to his stomach. The muscle definition that years of training had carved out of him and that he forgot about because he lived in the body and didn't look at it the way other people did. "You were skinny. You were a skinny kid with a big head."

"Thanks."

"Shut up, I'm having a moment." Her hands moved across his shoulders, down his arms, back to his chest. Her palms flat, feeling the muscle underneath. She was mapping him. Her touch was warm and her magic was humming against his skin wherever she pressed and the humming was louder than it had been on the terrace.

A spark jumped between her fingertip and his collarbone. Small. A pop of white light and a tingle that sat on his skin.

She snatched her hand back. Her face went red from her cheeks to her ears.

"That's- I can't control it when-" She pressed her hands against her thighs. Another spark popped between her fingers and her own jeans. "Fuck."

He reached for her hands. Took them. Brought them back to his chest.

"I like it."

She looked at him. Her mouth was open and her eyes were wet and the gold flecks were catching the hallway light and she was searching his face for the flinch.

He didn't flinch. Her magic popped against his sternum and it felt like static from a doorknob and he didn't move.

Her mouth closed. She kissed him. Hard, pulling him down by the back of his neck, and her hands went back to his chest and the sparks came again, three of them, small white pops across his skin, and she kissed him through each one.

His bedroom. She'd been here before. Slept on the floor when they were kids, sat on the bed eating takeout during his first week back from training. She knew this room. The ceilings and the dark wood and the window that looked out over the garden and the reading lamp on the nightstand that had been there since he was twelve.

The lamp flickered when she walked past it.

She stood near the bed and pulled her t-shirt off. White bra underneath, plain cotton, and her stomach was flat and her skin was pale where the sun hadn't reached and the candlelight from the hallway caught the chain around her neck. She reached behind her back and unhooked the bra and let it drop.

He watched. Her breasts were small and round and her nipples were already hard and a spark traveled across her collarbone and down the curve of her left breast and she flinched and her arms started to come up to cover herself.

"Don't."

She stopped. Arms halfway up. Her face was red and her breathing was fast and she was standing in his bedroom half-naked with magic sparking across her skin and she looked like she was about to bolt.

"You look-" He stepped closer. Put his hand on her waist. The warmth of her skin radiated into his palm. "Zee."

"If you say something nice I'm going to cry and then the magic is going to get worse and we'll be here all night and nothing will happen."

"Would that be bad?"

"Yes. I came here to have sex with you and I'm going to do it even if every lightbulb in this house explodes."

He laughed. She was standing topless in his bedroom making threats about lightbulbs and her face was red and her magic was sparking and she was Zee. Completely and unmistakably Zee.

She hit his shoulder. "Don't laugh at me."

"I'm laughing with you."

"I'm not laughing."

"You will be." He kissed her. Slower than the hallway. His hand on her bare waist, his thumb tracing the line of her lowest rib. She shivered. The shiver ran up her body and her breath caught and a glow started under her skin, faint, gold-white, visible at her wrists and her collarbones where the skin was thin.

He kissed her neck. Down. His mouth on her collarbone, the ridge of bone under thin skin, and she made a sound that was half a word and half air and her hands went to his hair. He kissed lower. The top of her breast. His mouth closed over her nipple and she gasped and her fingers tightened in his hair and the glow under her skin brightened.

"Bruce-" Her voice was breathy and tight. His tongue circled and she arched into his mouth and a spark jumped from her fingernail to his scalp and it stung and he didn't stop. His other hand came up and his thumb found her other nipple through the space between them and she made a sound that was louder than she expected and she heard herself make it and her face went redder.

"Sorry-"

"Stop apologizing."

"I'm loud. When it's- I'm loud and the magic-"

He pulled back. Looked at her face. Red from the cheeks to the chest, eyes bright, mouth swollen from kissing. The glow under her skin was pulsing slowly, brightening and dimming with her breathing.

"Be loud."

Her jaw worked. She looked at the ceiling. Looked back at him. Her chin set.

"Take your pants off."

They ended up on the bed with the lamp buzzing and her jeans on the floor next to his and she was in cotton underwear and he was in boxers and she was lying beneath him and her hair was fanned out on his pillow and the black against the white sheets and her skin glowing faintly and her eyes wide and watching everything he did.

He kissed her stomach. Flat and warm, her muscles twitching under his lips. Down to her hip bone. His fingers hooked the waistband of her underwear and she lifted her hips without being asked and he pulled them down and off and she was naked under him and wet and the magic was getting louder.

He touched her. Two fingers sliding along her pussy, finding her wet, wetter than he'd expected, and she sucked in air through her teeth and her thighs tensed. His thumb found her clit and circled and her hips jerked and she grabbed the sheets with both fists.

"Oh- oh that's-" She bit her lip. Her eyes squeezed shut. His fingers slid inside her and she was tight and hot and soaked and the warmth of her magic was in the wetness, a heat that pulsed against his fingers like a heartbeat. He curled and her hips lifted and she made a sound that filled the room and a book on the nightstand rattled.

"That's me," she gasped. "Ignore it."

He pushed deeper. Curled again. Found the spot that made her thighs shake and pressed and she cried out and her hand flew off the sheets to grab his wrist and her grip was strong and her magic sparked against his forearm in a burst of white.

"Too much?"

"Don't you dare stop."

He didn't stop. He worked her with his fingers and his thumb on her clit and she got louder and wetter and the book fell off the nightstand and the lamp flickered and the curtains drifted without wind and the glow under her skin was brightening, spreading from her wrists and collarbones to her stomach and thighs.

She was close. He could feel it. Her walls clenching around his fingers in a rhythm that was tightening, her breathing short and shallow and held, her hips grinding against his hand, her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth open and her face beyond red now, flushed from scalp to sternum.

He slowed down. She whimpered. An actual whimper, high and frustrated, and her eyes opened.

"Why did you-"

"I want to be inside you when you come."

Her mouth opened. Closed. Her chest was heaving and her eyes were wide and the glow was pulsing with her heartbeat and she stared at him and nodded once.

He took off his boxers. Her eyes went down. She stared. Her lips parted and her breathing got faster and her hand came up and she touched him, her fingers wrapping around his cock and the warmth of her grip and the hum of her magic against him.

"You're-" She stroked once. Twice. Her thumb ran over the head and he exhaled hard and his hips moved into her hand. "You're bigger than I-"

"Don't finish that sentence."

"Why not?"

"Because I'll think about it every time we do this and I'll never think about anything else."

She laughed. Short and bright and real. The laugh was Zee. The magic settled for a second, calming, and then she pulled him closer by the hip and spread her thighs and he was between her legs and the head of his cock pressed against her and she was slick and hot.

He pushed in. Slow. The first inch was tight, her body adjusting to him, her breath catching. She was wet enough that the friction was minimal but the stretch was there and her face showed it. Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened and she exhaled a long wavering "Oh-" that started as surprise and ended as pleasure and her hands found his arms and gripped.

More. Deeper. She was tight and hot and the heat of her magic was inside her too, pulsing against him, and the deeper he went the louder the hum got. He sank into her until his hips met hers and she was full and her legs wrapped around him and her ankles locked at his lower back.

"Fuck." Her voice cracked. She was looking at him. Right at him. Brown eyes, gold flecks, close enough to count, and she was full of him and the room was glowing faintly from her skin and her hands were on his biceps and her nails were digging in. "Move. Please."

He moved.

Slow. Long strokes that pulled almost out and pushed all the way back and each push made her breath hitch and her eyes flicker and her fingers dig deeper into his arms. Her pussy was wet and hot and gripping him and every stroke changed the feel because she was getting wetter, her body opening to him, and the sounds were getting louder. Wet sounds. Her breathing. The small broken "ah-" that escaped every time he bottomed out.

He kept his eyes on her face. She held his gaze. Brown and gold and wide and every thrust made her blink and her mouth open and close.

"Bruce-" Her voice was thin. Her hips started moving to meet him. Rocking up on each push, taking him deeper, and the angle changed and she gasped and her head went back and the glow under her skin flared.

Faster. She was making sounds with every breath now, "ah-" and "nn-" and broken fragments of his name, and the sheets were warm and the curtains were swaying and the book on the floor was vibrating and the lamp was rattling in its socket and her magic was filling the room, a pressure he felt in his teeth.

Her hand left his arm and pressed flat against his chest. Over his heart. The hum concentrated there, warm and deep, and he felt it in his ribs, in his sternum, in the marrow of his bones. Her magic pouring into him through the point of contact.

Her face was wrecked. Flushed from her hairline to her chest, mouth open, eyes struggling to stay open, tears at the corners. Her hips were grinding against his, desperate, chasing it, and her walls were clenching in that tightening rhythm.

She was close. The glow under her skin was pulsing faster now, brightening with each breath, dimming between, a rhythm that matched her gasping, and she didn't know she was doing it. The room was warm and bright and humming.

She turned her face into his shoulder. "Don't look- I can't- when I-"

He slowed. Put his hand under her chin. Tilted her face back to his.

"Stay here."

She looked at him. Eyes wet. Gold flecks bright. The glow pulsing through her skin.

"I can see everything when you-" She lost the sentence. He thrust and she gasped and her eyes rolled and she caught herself and came back. "When I come it's going to be- the whole room- you can't-"

"Stay here. Look at me."

She looked at him. Her legs tightened around him and her hand pressed harder against his chest and her mouth opened and she was shaking and the glow was brightening, fast, pulsing faster than her heartbeat now, gold-white light filling the spaces between her fingers and radiating through the thin skin at her wrists and her collarbones and her eyelids.

He didn't look away. He pushed deep. Held.

"Zee."

She came.

Her back arched off the bed. Her mouth opened wide and his name came out broken into two syllables with nothing between them. Her pussy clenched around him so hard he couldn't move. Light poured out from between her fingers where they pressed against his chest, gold-white, warm, and the whole room went bright. The sheets glowed. The curtains lifted. The lamp exploded. Every surface lit up like sunrise was happening inside the bedroom and she was shaking and clenching and crying out and his chest was warm where her hand was pressed, warm deep, warm in his bones, warm in a place he didn't have a name for.

He came. The light and the heat and the sound of her voice and the grip of her body pulled it out of him. He pushed deep and his hips locked and the sensation was everywhere and he said her name and her magic flared one more time and then started to fade.

The light dimmed. Slowly. Like a sunrise running backward. The curtains settled. The sheets stopped glowing. The lamp was dead, the bulb shattered, glass on the nightstand. The book on the floor was still. The room was dark except for the garden light coming through the window and the fading glow under her skin, gold-white embers cooling to nothing.

She was breathing hard beneath him. Her hand was still on his chest. Her eyes were closed. Tears on her cheeks and her lashes wet and her hair tangled across the pillow in every direction and she was shaking and her body was still clenching around him in slow aftershocks.

He didn't pull out. He stayed. His forehead against hers. Breathing together.

"You killed the lamp," he said.

She laughed. Wet, shaking, tears and air.

"I'll buy you a new one."

"It was vintage."

"Shut up." She pulled him down and kissed him. Slow. Trembling. Her arms around his neck and her legs still locked around his back and the last sparks of magic fading in her fingertips. She pulled back. Looked at him. Her face was blotchy and tear-streaked and her makeup was ruined and her hair was everywhere.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"That was..." She closed her eyes. Opened them. The gold flecks were bright. "I've never. Not like that. The magic has never-"

"I know."

"Nobody's ever stayed. When it starts, they- people pull away." She pressed her lips together. "You stayed."

"I stayed."

She put her face in his neck. Her breath was warm against his skin. The magic had gone quiet. Just warmth now, soft and deep, like lying in sunlight.

"I'm going to need a minute," she said. "Then I want to do that again."

"The lamp can't handle it."

"I'll unscrew all the bulbs first."

He laughed into her hair. She was warm beneath him and the room was dark and the broken lamp glass was catching the garden light and turning it into small scattered stars on the nightstand.

He stayed inside her. She held on. The room was quiet.