Chapter 232: Arriving at Sean’s Place
"Yes," she said. "Obviously yes. Sean, yes."
He smiled.
She stepped into him and kissed him right there on the pavement, not briefly, not the quick version, the kind that was warm and unhurried and said something she’d been carrying for a while.
When she pulled back her eyes were still bright.
"Call James," she said against his jaw.
He called James.
—---------------------
In the back of the car she was quiet in a different way from her usual quiet. Not thoughtful. Just full. The specific quality of someone sitting inside a feeling they didn’t want to rush past.
She was holding his hand with both of hers, turned slightly toward him, her head against his shoulder.
"I’ve wondered," she said quietly, after a while.
"About what," he said.
"What your place actually looks like," she said. "What the version of you looks like when you’re just there. Not performing anything for anyone." She paused. "I’ve had versions of you in hotel rooms and restaurants and front rows. I wanted the ordinary version."
"It’s a very ordinary apartment," he said.
"I doubt that," she said. "But I want to see."
He kissed the top of her head.
She made a small sound against his shoulder and said nothing else.
The city moved past the windows and James drove with the specific quiet he had when he understood the back seat was occupied by something that didn’t need his presence to register in it.
—----
She stepped into his apartment and stopped.
Not because it was impressive. Because it was real.
She walked through it slowly, taking it in properly, the way she did when she’d decided something was worth actually looking at. The books on the desk, the notes from the week still open, the specific evidence of how he spent his time when it was just him.
She touched the spine of one of the books lightly without taking it out.
"You’re actually reading this," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"All of it," she said.
"It takes a few weeks," he said.
She moved to the window and stood there looking at the street below, the building’s street, Makima’s street, the quiet Saturday night city doing its ordinary things.
"You’ve looked at this view every morning," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"And every night," she said.
"Yes."
She turned from the window and looked at him across the room. Just looked at him. With everything that had accumulated across months of showcases and hotels and contracts and a film from 1987 and pavement kisses and pinky promises and Paris and forty-seven minutes in a lobby and the specific ordinary extraordinary accumulation of all of it.
"Sean," she said.
"Yeah," he said.
"I love you," she said.
Sean crossed the room.
He stood in front of her and put his hands on her face the way she sometimes put her hand on his jaw, the specific careful gesture that meant something every time it appeared, and he looked at her at close range with the full version of his attention.
"I love you," he said. Quietly.
Her eyes filled. She blinked it back.
"Don’t," he said, his thumbs moving gently. "It’s okay."
"I’m not sad," she said. "I’m just." She stopped. "I am just so happy right now"
She laughed softly, a watery version of the real one. "It’s worth everything from you. You know that."
Sean kissed her.
Her mouth opened under his.
The kiss started soft—a benediction, a homecoming, the kind of kiss that said I love you in a language older than words. But soft didn’t last. It never lasted with her. Her fingers threaded through his hair, and she pulled him closer, and the kiss deepened into something hungrier.
Her tongue slid against his. Warm. Wet. Deliberate. She tasted like the champagne from breakfast and something sweeter underneath that was just her, just Olivia, just the woman who had walked into his life and rewritten every rule he’d set for himself.
His hands found the hem of her shirt. She lifted her arms without breaking the kiss, and he pulled the fabric up and over her head. It fell somewhere behind him—he didn’t care where. His mouth never left hers. Her fingers were working the buttons of his shirt now, quick and sure, and then his shirt was gone too, and the feeling of her palms flat against his chest made him groan into her mouth.
"Sean." His name was a breath against his lips.
"Yeah."
"I want—"
"I know."
She laughed—that quick, bright sound—and then she was kissing him again, and his hands found the clasp of her bra. One flick of his fingers and it loosened. She shrugged it off her shoulders, let it fall, and the feeling of her bare breasts pressing against his chest was so good it bordered on pain.
His hands dropped to her hips. Found the waistband of her pants.
"Jump," he said.
She did.
He caught her. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms wound around his neck, and he carried her through the apartment toward the bedroom. She was kissing his jaw, his throat, the spot just below his ear that made his breath stutter. Her teeth grazed his earlobe. Her tongue traced the shell of his ear.
"The door," she murmured. "Don’t walk into the door."
"I know my own apartment."
"Famous last words."
He laughed against her mouth and carried her through the doorway without incident. He laid her down on the sheets with a gentleness that made her eyes go soft.
She looked up at him. Her hair fanned across his pillow. Her breasts rose and fell with her quickened breath. The necklace was still there, still winking at her collarbone. She was wearing only her pants now, simple cotton pants that clung to her hips.
Sean knelt on the floor beside the bed. His hands found the waistband of her pants. He didn’t pull them off. Not yet. Instead, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the fabric just below her navel.