Chapter 70: The Sketchbook

POV: Carly

She lasted approximately eleven more minutes with Jane Eyre before she gave up entirely.

She set the book down on the nightstand and looked at the ceiling and listened to the record and looked at him.

He was still drawing. Completely absorbed. The pencil moving in long confident strokes and then short precise ones. His head slightly bent and his curls falling forward and one ankle crossed over the other and he looked so completely at home on her bed that she was not going to think about too hard.

She looked at the sketchbook.

She had seen pages of it. The night he showed her in his room. But she had not seen what he was drawing right now and the not knowing was doing something specific to her that she could not resolve by looking at the ceiling.

"What are you drawing." She said.

"None of your business." He said. Not looking up.

She pressed her lips together.

She looked at the bookshelf. Then the window. Then back at him.

"You literally never put that thing down." She said.

"Correct." He said.

"Even when you're with me." She said.

"I can multitask." He said.

She narrowed her eyes.

He kept drawing.

She thought about it for a moment. Then she closed her book loudly and let it drop to the floor.

The thump was satisfying.

He looked up.

She looked at him with her eyebrow raised and her arms crossed and her bottom lip slightly out in a way she was not doing intentionally.

He looked at her face for a moment.

Then he turned onto his back and lowered the sketchbook to his lap. Facing her. Waiting.

She smiled despite herself. It was hard not to smile at him. She genuinely hated that about him.

"Let me see." She said.

"No." He said.

She lunged forward.

He moved the sketchbook above his head in one smooth motion and she missed it by several inches and he was grinning now, the real one, and she was already moving again because she was not going to let him win this.

She got onto her knees on the mattress and reached and he stretched his arm further and she reached again and he switched hands behind his back and she made a sound she was not proud of and heard him laugh.

His real laugh.

Low and genuine and she felt it do something to her chest that she was not going to name while she was actively trying to steal his sketchbook.

She crawled forward.

He moved back.

She crawled forward again.

He lifted it behind the pillow and she lost sight of it entirely and she was now directly in front of him with her hands planted on either side of his torso and her knees on either side of his legs and they were both breathing slightly faster than the situation technically warranted and his eyes were bright and his grin was the widest she had ever seen it.

She glared at him.

He looked back at her with complete innocence.

She sat back onto his lap.

He went very still.

She reached behind the pillow.

He caught her wrist with his free hand. Not hard. Just there.

She froze.

They were both suddenly aware of the exact same thing at the exact same time.

Her sitting on his lap. His hand loose around her wrist. Their faces close enough that she could feel the specific cold of him and smell his soap and see the green rim around his irises that only appeared from this distance.

The sketchbook forgotten entirely.

His hand loosened around her wrist and traveled up her forearm slowly. Her breath hitched and she did not move away.

His other hand found her hip.

She felt the cold of his ring through the fabric of her sweatpants and her skin responded immediately with every goosebump available to it.

His eyes moved to her mouth.

She leaned forward.

Their foreheads touched.

She felt his thumb tracing her hip through the fabric and her eyes closed briefly and she thought that the sketchbook did not matter at all anymore and had not mattered for several minutes and they had both known it.

"I like your laugh." She said quietly. Because it was true and she was close enough to say it quietly. "You don't show it enough."

He was quiet for a moment.

"I never had much reason to." He said. Just as quietly. "Lately that's changed."

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

He looked back.

She kissed him.

Softly at first. Just their lips together and the warmth of the room and the music still playing and his hands finding her more securely and her fingers going to the back of his neck where the curls were shortest.

He kissed her back and the softness shifted into something with more intent and she felt his hands move and she shifted closer on his lap and heard him make a low sound against her mouth that she catalogued immediately and permanently.

She pulled his shirt over his head before she had fully decided to.

He went still.

She looked at him.

He looked at her with his eyes dark and patient and his hands resting at her hips and his expression asking a question very clearly without using words.

She answered it by running her fingertips down his chest.

He exhaled.

She traced the bird tattoo slowly. Then the feather on his arm. Then the faint scars she had found in the dark and was now finding in the light and felt him watching her face the entire time.

She looked up at him.

"I want you to touch me." He said quietly. Not performing it. Just true.

She kept her hands moving and felt him respond and the room was warm and the record was playing and she thought that this specific Saturday morning was going to live in her memory for a very long time.

His hands moved under the hem of her shirt and she felt the cold of them against her skin and exhaled and pulled him toward her by the back of his neck.

He kissed her jaw. Her neck. The spot below her ear that made her lose track of everything she had been thinking about.

Her hips shifted against him.

He groaned softly.

She felt the specific awareness of him that she had been dancing around for weeks and felt none of the anxiety she had expected. Just warmth and wanting and the specific safety of being with someone who already knew her and was not going anywhere.

He was kissing her collarbone now and she had her fingers in his curls and she was about to say something she had not decided yet when his hands moved to her waistband and paused.

She nodded.

He kissed her mouth once more and shifted them gently so she was on her back and he was above her and the room was spinning in the best possible way and she thought yes and kept thinking it.

His head was moving lower and she was watching him with her heart in her throat and her hands gripping the sheets and she was about to close her eyes when.

The door opened.

Author's Note:

THE DOOR. THE DOOR OPENED. I cannot believe I did this to all of us but also I absolutely can because the timing of Katy Spears is genuinely unmatched in this entire story. Drop a like and tell me in the comments how loudly you groaned just now because I need to know I am not alone.