Chapter Text
Adrien was getting used to waking up like this, slow and warm and happy. He rolled a little closer and wrapped his arms around her. This was dangerous territory but he was still half asleep and his mind hadn't caught up with his actions. She stretched and he had pulled her in close enough that he felt the movement up and down his body.
"You're clingy this morning, Kitten," she said.
"I was in Milan for too long, I missed you," he said.
He was stupid. He wanted this too much. He needed to turn down the honesty before he said something he couldn't laugh off as a joke. Instead of doing anything so reasonable he tucked his face down against her shoulder and breathed in the smell of her.
They had been Paris's child super heroes.
Chat Noir and Ladybug, running around the city and saving lives. They kept their secrets from everyone but each other. They'd met in costume and for years that had been how they'd known each other. Then one day, she had invited him hometo show him all her research. She had a board hidden in the back of her wardrobe where she'd laid out everything she could collect about Hawkmoth. That day when the transformation wore off, she just let herself turn back.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng was just a girl. They had been about sixteen that day and he hadn't been brave enough to let her see who he was. Not right away. It took about another week of sitting around in costume in her bedroom while they argued theories and she showed him news clippings and they shot down each others ideas and built them back up again. He was worried about not living up to the hero he pretended to be.
He shouldn’t have been so worried. She hadn’t recognized him as the vapid model he feared the world saw him as. Marinette looked at him, in or out of costume, like he was someone important. She was the only person who really knew who he was which was wonderful. That she still liked him even though she knew all his little flaws was a miracle.
Adrien Agreste was a celebrity to most people. The society darling. The rising star in the modeling industry. The pretty little shadow for his powerful father. He went to the parties and met the people his father wanted him to meet. His life was interviews and runways and beautiful clothing. He kept up with all the course work he needed to pass the state exams as well as all the extra work his tutors assigned. He readjusted who he was depending on who he was speaking to. Dutiful son, charming celebrity, attentive student, whatever they wanted.
Marinette, his Ladybug, was the only real exception.
He had been home schooled his entire life. He’d started a fight when he was thirteen to be enrolled in public school but in the end he had lost it. Public schools wouldn't challenge him enough according to his father. Marinette had gone to public school and she was doing fine but that wasn't an argument his father wanted to hear. He had always been a little jealous just at the prospect of having classmates and the opportunity to make unapproved friends. She told him he wasn’t missing much even as she kept up a running conversation via text message with a friend she had met at that school.
She had graduated that year and it was starting to feel like there was a time limit on this partnership they had. The clock would run out on late night arguments and sharing take out food in the park and talking about nothing for hours and sharing her bed in a way that didn't mean anything more than that he didn't want to go home that day.
University and the future was looming.
She was a little higher than him in the bed and she played with his hair as he dozed. His nose skimmed her collarbone and it would only take the tiniest shift to press his lips to her skin. He didn't. Her fingers slid down his nose and he tilted his face back to look at her with a sleepy smile on his face.
"I suppose you need to get up for work," he said.
"Saturday," she said.
"Oh, right, I like Caturdays," he said and she flicked his nose for the pun. "So how long can we stay like this?"
"I need to watch the shop after lunch, so I could stay in bed until at least ten," she said, "You don't have something important?"
"I'm going through a rebellious phase. I'm going to skip swimming lessons and my English teacher will only wait five minutes before he just bills my father and leaves," he said.
"You have tutors on Saturday mornings in July?" she asked.
"Mmhmm," he said.
He leaned into her hand as it moved down his neck. He was mostly awake but some parts of his body were more waking up faster than others. He pulled away so he could lie on his back and be a little less pressed against her. It wasn't going to help but at least he wouldn't be advertising it to her.
They were not like that.
They slept in the same bed but they'd been doing that since they were kids. It was not anything more than that. She was his best friend, not his girlfriend. While he sometimes flirted like they were, it was a boundary he wasn't going to push.
She took his rolling over as an invitation. Her hand kept going once it finished tracing down his neck. She smoothed his rumbled t-shirt down across his chest. She was petting, almost absently, the way you might pet a cat. It wasn't meant to be erotic but his body had decided it didn't care about what she meant. He shut his eyes and tried to think about other things. It almost worked but then her hand's pattern of lazy circles moved farther down and her palm against his stomach, even through the shirt, made him shudder.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said but his voice came out a little wrong, too breathy.
"I can stop," she said.
He sighed as she pulled her hand back. He did not want her to stop but he also didn't want to admit where his thoughts were. She was propped up on one elbow over him and her hair was a mess. It had been pushed up on one side and he reached out and combed his fingers through the tangle until it started to lie back down. She watched him as he did it.
"Or you could ask," she said.
"Ask?" he repeated.
"Yeah, ask me," she said.
"Ask you for what?" he said.
She laughed and pushed herself up in one easy movement and landed over him. Her hands on either side of her head and her face above his. She stopped short of swinging her leg over him. They were too tangled in the sheets for her to get that close. She gave him a little smile and his entire ability to think had short circuited. He no longer understood anything about how words or even coherent thoughts worked.
He was an idiot. This was not anything special. They had had pillow fights and shoving matches that involved far more touching than this. She wasn't touching him at all but she was close and it felt different. He was supposed to ask for something. Since he didn't know what it was, he just stared like the idiot he was.
"Sorry," she said after a moment of holding the eye contact.
Marinette was blushing. He wasn't sure he had ever seen her blush like this before. She was the calm and collected one. On some instinct - because it certainly wasn't a conscious thought - he reached out and looped his arm around her waist as she started to pull away from him. She came back to rest against his side immediately. Her knee was over his and her hand was back on his chest but she was giving him a look that was almost wary.
"No, no, no. Don't be sorry," he said.
"I'm making you uncomfortable," she said.
"Not in a bad way," he said.
"How can you be uncomfortable in a good way?" she asked.
"I'm uncomfortable in a 'I don't know what you want' way," he said.
She tilted her head at him and pursed her lips like he was an unexpected piece in a puzzle. The smile playing around the edges of her mouth was going to cut off his access to proper thoughts again and he didn't know why. She was his Ladybug and she was the person he knew best. This was where he usually went when he was anxious. Being close to her was all it took to calm him down. Always. Except today.
"Adrien?" she said.
"Yes?" he said.
"I'm going to be the one to ask," she said.
"Ask me anything, always, you can always..." he said.
"Can I kiss you?" she cut him off with a finger on his chin.
Words failed him, again. Instead, he reached up and very carefully, very gently, let his palm settle against her cheek. She was still blushing and her skin was warm. She was so warm. He pulled and she giggled as she leaned in. They hovered for a moment. She was breathing against his mouth, her lips barely parted and her eyes half shut.
This was something they didn't do. The weight of the coming change was there in the back of Adrien's mind. There would be no going back, not for him. Once he let this cat out of the bag, he was never going to be able to go back to pretending he didn't want it. He wanted this kiss more than he had wanted anything in a very, very long time.
He pulled her in and tried to pretend he knew what he was doing.
Adrien had once kissed a girl for a magazine shoot but that hadn't really felt like a kiss. It had been as staged as anything else during a photo shoot. He had been fifteen and his father had thrown a fit over it and the pictures had been buried. He'd never even seen them. He had also been kissed but it had never been a participatory act. It tended to happen at industry parties and it tended to involve either drunk people or Chloe Bourgeois and he didn't particularly enjoy it.
This wasn't the same at all. Being kissed and kissing were different.
Marinette melted into him and she was soft and gentle. All his fluttering anxiety vanished. Her mouth glanced against his but she was smiling too much for it to really be a kiss. She leaned her forehead against his and giggled before she tried again. This was a kiss. Her mouth against his and it didn't seem to matter that he was clumsy. She had enough grace for both of them.
It lasted a long time and it wasn't one thing. He'd always thought of a kiss as a thing you did with your lips.
This was far more than that. It was her hands in his hair and his arm around her back. It was the soft little noise she made just as she opened her mouth and pressed in closer. It was him hesitating and her sweeping all the hesitations away by giving him exactly what he wasn't sure how to ask for. It was the way she leaned her head back when he couldn't quite get up his courage to kiss her throat. It was her pulse hammering beneath her skin while his mouth lingered. It was his heart beat trying to match that same rhythm. Mouths and hands and hearts.
When they stopped, she rolled onto her back and lay beside him. Shoulder to shoulder. Just like they'd done since they had first met. There was no going back and the weight of that finally hit him. She was his best friend and he was never going to be able to go back to what they had. He would never be able to look at her and not remember this moment.
"I've wanted to do that for a long time," she said.
"Me too, so much," he said.
She laughed again and he rolled into her so he could press his face against her skin again. She wore a t-shirt and shorts and he wanted to pull it all away so there was more skin to touch but that felt like more than he could ask for. He settled for nuzzling her neck and wrapping his arm around her waist. He found place where his hand could not-so-accidentally settle on a bit of bare skin where her shirt had ridden up over her hip.
He had forgotten in the rush of sensations everywhere else that he was hard. He was harder now than before the kiss. He turned scarlet but didn't move. As if forgetting how to speak wasn't bad enough, now he could add forgetting how to move to the list. Why did love songs always make “the things you do to me,” sound like something romantic. This wasn’t romantic.
His cock was pressed against her leg. He wondered if you could die of embarrassment or if that was just a figure of speech. He'd never had someone else pressed against him during a moment like this and it was bringing up all kinds of desires he wasn't sure he was ready to give names. He was frozen in place by it all.
"Hi," she said.
The spell broke. He swore and pulled away in a rush of stuttering apologies.
"You don't need to apologize. Really. I'm the one who started it," she said.
She followed him before he could get too far. He was floundering and graceless, the blankets were tangled, and he didn't really want to be anywhere but in her arms. He stumbled and landed on his back and she followed him down. He fell still and silent and she lay on top of him. Stretched out with her fingers laced together in the middle of his chest and her chin resting on the back of her hand.
"You're blushing," he said.
"Not as much as you are," she said.
He coughed out a laugh. Even though his body was still too aware of her, the touch made him feel better. She was lying low on his body so as his hardness was against her stomach. It was less terrifying than it might have been to have her straddle him but it was almost more intimate. Her skin there was soft enough and sensitive enough that she smiled at him when he tensed and made it move. He wasn't quite sure how to not do that again.
"Was this part of your devious plan?" he asked.
"No," she said, "I hadn't even planned to kiss you until you looked at me like that."
"Like what?" he asked.
"Like that," she said trailing a finger along his lower lip. He tensed again. She was heavy enough and he was sensitive enough that it was bordering on pain to have her pressing into him there but he was not going to be the one who asked her to move.
"I don't know how I'm looking at you," he admitted.
"Like you want to kiss me again," she said.
"Oh, that, I thought you meant something unusual," he drawled and it came out as flippantly as he had intended.
"Am I bothering you?" she asked.
"No! What? No," he said.
"I meant," she said and then rather than telling him, she twisted her hips. It made her entire body move. Just a little bit. But a little bit was enough. He gasped. It was too much and not enough all at once. He ached and she wasn't giving him enough to make it better. She grinned and did it again and this time he moaned. He snapped his mouth shut. Just realizing he had made that sound brought him back down to earth.
"Oh, that, well, I," he was trying to come up with something to say. Flippant and flirty would have been his first choice but apparently he couldn't even get to words with more than one syllable. He closed his eyes. His hands had developed a mind of their own. He wasn't sure when it had happened but they were on her hips and he was holding her close. He relaxed his muscles but didn't let go. He was going to leave bruises on her if he grabbed her that hard. She didn't seem to notice.
"Make it simple, how about a Q and A? Like those stupid interviews you're always doing for gossip magazines," she said.
"Ok," he said.
"Should I get up?" she asked.
"No."
"You like this, right?"
"Yes."
"Can I touch you?"
"Yes. Where?"
"You should probably ask that question before you say, 'yes.'"
"Ok, fine, but it doesn't matter. I don't care. Yes, then. Just yes. I trust you. You can touch me anywhere."
"You are a hazard to yourself. I could be into nasty stuff, maybe you don't want to offer me anywhere."
She let her head fall to his chest as she laughed. He kissed her hair and wrapped his arms the rest of the way around her. A hug. Just horizontal and so turned on that she was absolutely right, he was a hazard. He was prepared to do anything she asked, nasty or not. Surprisingly, that made him feel better again. He would do anything she asked and he was completely content to give her that power.
"If I have to put myself at someone's mercy, I'm happy to have it be you. Besides, I think we already established that you started it," he said.
"Does that mean you're going to finish it?" she asked him.
"If you keep doing that thing with your hips, I'm going to finish it before it even gets start-" he said.
He got all the words out before he choked on the last one.
He coughed. He had actually said that out loud. His face was burning and he tightened his hold on her and buried his face in her hair. She calmed him down regardless of what was freaking him out. She was capable of being the source of and solution to, all of his problems. She wrapped her arms around his back, making him arch a little to allow her to slip them below him.
"Wouldn't want that," she said.
"So tell me what you do want," he said nuzzling in until he was whispering in her ear.
"Not all the way but farther than this. I haven't got any kind of protection, so we're not doing anything that would need it,” she said.
“Pretend I’m idiot,” he said.
“Done,” she interrupted.
“Listen, smart ass,” he said.
She interrupted him again with a finger on his lips, “I want to make you moan again. I want to be this close but with a lot less clothing. I want you to kiss me again.”
“Two way street,” he said.
“That sounds like a euphemism for something dirty,” she said.
“You want to make me moan and are threatening me with "nasty" and you’re concerned that I might be saying something dirty?” he asked.
She exhaled hard in an exaggerated bit of exasperation. She did the hip twist again, making him gasp and grab hold of her again. He rolled over and took her with him. It was easy. She was little and already wrapped around him. All he had to do was flip her. Marinette yelped and then started to laugh. It set him off as well and they giggled together until he caught her face between both his hands and she fell still.
“What I meant,” he said, “Was that I don’t want to be the only one moaning. If you’re taking off my clothes, I want to take off yours.”
She nodded and her confident little smile was back. She pulled him back down to kiss with an elbow crooked around his neck. The kiss started harder than the last one. She was holding on and keeping him close. He was pinning her to the bed but it still felt like she was the one taking the lead. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and he stilled. She didn't. She kissed him very slowly and waited.
He had told her yes and he meant it. He pulled back and took the shirt off. The self-consciousness rushed up his throat and he tried to lie back down. She stopped him. Her hand was warm and gentle on his breastbone and he froze in place. She smiled and ran her palm down his bare skin to his navel. He needed to remember to breathe or he was going to pass out.
"I like you better in person than in the magazines," she said.
"They airbrush all the worst parts out in the magazines," he said.
"Not possible, you don't have a bad part," she said, "I like you better without airbrushes and photoshop."
He smiled at that. He'd been there for the retouching meetings on some shoots. They'd pick apart each photo and make notes for the digital artists to fix later. He could catalog all his physical flaws with alarming accuracy and wasn't used to being looked at like this without makeup and lighting and photoshop. He grinned down at her, she was still exploring with small and careful hands.
"You're not kitten, I'm pawsitively beautifur," he said.
"I am not so turned on that I won't push you out of bed," she said.
"Beautifur was too much?" he asked because if he thought about the first half of her sentence too much his ability to speak was going to vanish again.
"Just a bit," she said.
"Noted," he said.
She sat up and pressed a kiss to his chest and his eyes fluttered shut. The line of kisses were light and soft down his body. Her hands followed. She paused with both palms on the lowest part of his stomach. He was wearing sweatpants and they weren't hiding much about his arousal.
Marinette looked up at him with that little smile on her lips again. She slid her hands down and hooked her fingers into the elastic at his waist. The feeling of her knuckles against his hips bones shivered up through him.
"I don't have any idea what I'm doing," she said.
"Neither do I but I am really enjoying it. ," he said.
"Lie on your back again," she said.
He flipped back onto the bed, forgetting that she was still holding onto his pants. He nearly undressed himself in the least graceful possible way. They were both laughing as she pulled the rest of his clothing off. The laughter eased his nerves until he looked down at her. She had a half smile on her face as she ran her hand down his bare thigh but didn't touch him there yet. She bit her lip. Her eyes darted away and then back, to his body then to his face and then to the window.
"Come closer," he said.
She lay down beside him again. She wore shorts and the hiked up t-shirt so when her leg touched his, it was bare skin to bare skin. He was a bundle of electric nerves and desires held together by some tattered shreds of self control. Once she was close enough to kiss a line up his neck, he relaxed again. Her hand wandered downward. He kissed her forehead as she ran her tongue along his pulse.
Her fingers brushed the tip of his cock and he shivered and pulled her in tighter. Her leg was wrapped around his and she was pressed into his side. She kissed her way up to the corner of his mouth, silent but demanding. He kissed her as she wrapped her hand around him. His entire body shuddered and he kissed her harder.
Marinette was gentler with him than he usually was with himself and that was the only comparison point he had for this feeling. Gentle and consistent. Keeping his hips still was hard. He wanted to take the control back, he wanted to thrust back against her hold and force her to go faster. He didn't. He had made his decision, he let her do what she wanted. She went from stroking to trailing her fingers over the details. He'd never been so aware of his skin or the lines of his body.
He finally cracked and whispered into her mouth, "Harder, please, you're stronger than that Bug."
She closed her hand around him again and this time it was tighter and while she went just as slow, it wasn't as teasingly gentle. His body was reacting before his mind could catch up to it. He wasn't able to hold himself still. He held onto her and broke the kiss because he couldn't concentrate on it. They were forehead to forehead, nose to nose and he was moaning for her just like she'd asked him to. He tried to keep it quiet, to bite off anything louder than a whisper but it was hard.
Adrien came with a gasp and turned his entire body into her. He was pushing into her hand as he held her against him. Release and relief and the intense desire to keep her there forever rolled through him. He nuzzled in until he could press his face against her throat. His hands had slid up her spine, under her shirt because touching her skin had somehow become essential to his survival.
"Adrien?" she asked.
"That was amazing," he said.
He held her while she went back to petting him. Her fingers in his hair, over his shoulders, down his back and his hips and his thighs until she couldn't reach any farther. He didn't so much decide to start anything as he realized that he had the option of taking her clothes off so he did. Her eyes were blue and soft and he held her gaze when he slipped his hands up her stomach and pushed her shirt higher. She arched her back and raised her arms but let him take it off.
Pale and narrow with faded crisscrossing tan lines on her shoulders from different tank tops or bathing suits or whatever it was that she wore. He couldn't remember things like his own name at that moment let along what kind of clothing Marinette wore. He kissed her shoulder and she squirmed away to lay back against the pillows. She didn't seem nearly as nervous as he felt. She was all smiles and she kept reaching out to touch his face or his hair or his chest. Little glancing touches. Brief and soft and reassuring.
There were things he wanted to say to her while she was laid down like that before him but his breath caught and he couldn't say anything. Not yet but he would. He tried to put it into touch but it was hard to translate that much emotion into words let alone into the way his hands held her. She smiled like she understood him.
"Can I?" he asked.
He had run his hands along her arms and her shoulders and down her back. He had touched her like this before but she was lying down and that wasn't the same thing. His hands hovered at her knees. She had ben them up and without meaning to, he was sitting between them. He was naked. He'd forgotten that he was naked until he was staring at her and how very close to naked she was.
"Yes, very yes, absolutely yes," she said.
He let his hands fall to her knees and then ran them up her body very slowly. The muscles in her thighs shifted as he touched them, tensing and relaxing and then tensing again as his hands went higher. She spread her knees and even though she was still wearing the shorts it was enough to short circuit his thought processes all over again.
Even the lines of muscle in her stomach felt soft and vulnerable under his fingers. He let his hands linger where her body dipped in at the waist and then he slowly climbed up her rib cage. She moved with him the entire time, twisting and pushing into his hands. He cupped her breasts and she murmured something indistinct and happy.
Her hands stroked his and then loosely braceleted his wrists. She held him but didn't take back the control. He kept his hands where they were, gently circling her nipples with his thumb and watching her squirm and smile.
He carefully lifted their hands together and put them above her head. She frowned in surprised as he lay down on top of her. So much skin against his. He smiled and just held her there. Her knees were spread so when he lay on top of her, they were pressed together from their hips all the way to where his cheek rested against hers. He rubbed his face against hers and smiled. She let him hold her for a stretched out moment before she twisted against him.
"Chat," she said.
A long time ago, she had called him by his costumed name more than his real one but these days it was only when she was particularly annoyed or concerned. He pulled back until he could see her face. She twisted her hips and frowned at him. It was almost the exact same movement she'd used to tease him before.
"Yes, my Lady?" he said.
"Are you doing this on purpose?" she asked.
"Maybe," he said with a grin.
He wasn't. He had no idea what he was doing. She twisted again and sighed and it finally clicked into place. She was a girl and her arousal wasn't something as easy to see as his was but now that he was looking, he could tell. It was there in the flush that spread across her cheeks and her chest and the little movements that were all about pressing her skin into his and nothing else. Her teeth sinking into her lower lip. The nervous look in her eyes.
He nearly panicked. He had no idea how to give her what she wanted. He started by letting go of her hands. She stayed stretched out below him and her eyes were serious as that playful smile was back on her lips. While he was busy sitting stock still and freaking out about what one did with a girl in bed, she arched her back and lifted her hips and suddenly she was naked. He wasn't even sure how she'd managed to do it one movement but she dropped her shorts off the edge of the bed and gave him a grin.
"Mari?" he said.
"I want you close, anything else isn't as important," she said holding out her arms.
He lay back down with her so they could cuddle in face to face on their sides. They'd fallen asleep like this before. He repeated what she had done to him. He pet her skin and played with her hair and waited for her to relax before he brought his hands near more intimate places. She moved with him, anticipating where he wanted her before he had even figured it out. Or maybe, if he was being honest, she was telling him what to do without using a single word.
She draped one leg over his hip. It let them stay on their sides, nose to nose and gave him enough room to reach between her legs. He had heard people talk about girls being wet. He hadn't realized it was literal. He found warm soft skin and then slick wet skin. She murmured when he touched her there. The desire was there, to flip her back and push the blankets away until he could see what he was doing but it wasn't as strong as the desire to keep her this close.
He was fumbling around by touch alone. Rubbing and teasing and testing. He watched her face as he did. She didn't leave him guessing. She murmured and smiled at the things she liked and very softly pushed him away from the things she didn't. He kissed her over and over. Every time she opened her mouth in a gasp. As he got better at it, he pressed a kiss to her lips with every groan.
He paused.
"So should I do that again?" he asked.
"No stopping," she told him. She had her arms around his neck and she pulled him in closer when he stilled. He smiled and kissed her again as he went back to what he had been doing with his fingers. He rubbed harder.
"Adrien," she gasped.
She was moving with him now and it made it harder to keep to keep his hands in place. He had figured out how to get the strongest reaction from her but it was hard to manage when her hips didn't stay in place. Her fingers tightened in his hair and she hid her face away against his chest.
She gasped out his name again as she shuddered and arched into his touch. It took him by surprise but he didn't stop until she twisted away and pushed at his hand. She was breathing hard and the tremors were still running up her body. He rubbed her back as she rested her head against his chest.
They didn't let go for a long time. She traced patterns on his skin and he kept smoothing down her hair in the same repetitive pattern. He shifted when his arm fell asleep and she stretched out her leg when it got stiff from being tangled with his but they didn't move away from each other.
"Do you know what this means?" Marinette asked.
"No," he said frowning at the top of her head.
"It means you owe me a real date," she said.
He laughed, "Can I take you somewhere expensive and elaborate?"
"Seriously?" she said.
"Yeah, romantic comedy kind of elaborate. Flowers and dinner and I'm sure if I look hard enough I can find someplace with an old fashioned dance hall. You could get all dressed up in one of those post-war dresses with the polka dots and the twirly skirt," he said.
"You've thought about this before," she said.
"Yeah," he admitted, "I've got a few plans up my sleeve and I had really cute plans on how to ask you out but I couldn't get my courage up to do it."
"My top choice was picnic on the top of the arc de triomphe at sunset. I wasn't going to ask you out exactly, I was just going to set it all up and then have you meet me up there," she said.
"You had dates planned for me?" he asked.
"Yeah, I've had a bit of a crush on you for awhile now," she said.
"Ask me," he said.
She laughed.
"No, seriously, ask me," he said.
"Will you go out with me?" she asked.
"Oh, hell no," he said.
She reached out and grabbed a pillow and bashed him across the face without looking. She got in two more good hits before he wrestled it away from her. They were both laughing and his body was pretty sure it wanted to do everything all over again.
"I love you and I will go anywhere with you," he said once he'd pinned her back against the mattress and pushed any pillows out of the way so she couldn't use them as weapons anymore.
"I love you too," she said before he could start to panic that he had said it aloud.
He kissed her. They were naked and all the sheets and blankets were rucked up and shoved around them but she was smiling as she kissed him back. They stayed like that - kisses and skin on skin - until her phone beeped and told her she needed to leave for her shift at her parent's bakery.
They kissed again before she left him alone in her bed to scurry around getting washed up and dressed. He smiled at her the entire time.
"Chat?" she asked pausing at the door, fully dressed and presentable and the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"Yeah?" he said from where he still sat in the tangled blankets.
"I do love you," she said it again.
"I love you too," he said through a grin. She returned it before she left. He just sat and smiled at the space where she had been. He was going to be smiling like an idiot for days, maybe years, decades if he could manage it.