Chapter 74: Morning Devotion
The silence after Ashley hung up was a physical thing, thick and hot in the kitchen. Alexis stared at the phone, at the cracked screen protector she’d been meaning to replace. Her little sister’s voice, laced with a new, wary understanding, still echoed. ‘I get why you did it. Just… warn me next time before I have to fight at school about it.’ It wasn’t forgiveness, not exactly. It was a truce. It had to be enough.
Mark was a solid warmth behind her. He didn’t speak, just rested his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs working the knots at the base of her neck.
“She’s okay,” Alexis finally said, the words tasting like a release. “She’s gonna be okay.”
“Of course she is. She’s your sister.” He kissed the crown of her head. “Come to bed. The world’s still turned. It can wait until tomorrow.”
They left the glass on the counter and the lights off, moving through the dark condo guided by the city glow through the windows. In the bedroom, they undressed each other slowly, a silent unpacking of the evening’s armor. The sequined dress puddled on the floor like a shed skin. His shirt followed. They fell into the cool sheets, limbs tangling, seeking simple animal comfort. Exhaustion hit her like a weighted blanket, pulling her under before she could even rehash the call.
She woke to sunlight cutting sharp geometric patterns across the bed and the soft, insistent pressure of his lips on the small of her back.
It wasn’t a demand. It was a question. A whisper against her sleep-warm skin.
Alexis stirred, a slow unfurling. The anxiety from last night was there, a faint hum in the background, but it was muted under the sheer physical sensation of his mouth tracing the line of her spine. He kissed each vertebra with a reverence that made her throat tight. His hands smoothed over her hips, her waist, learning the topography of her as if for the first time, his touch unbearably light.
He took his time. His lips wandered to the sensitive dip beside her hip bone, to the soft flesh of her outer thigh. He turned her onto her stomach without breaking contact, his large hands spreading her gently as he kissed the backs of her knees, the curve of her calf. It was slow, worshipful, a deliberate counterpoint to the frantic, screaming release in the limo. This was about attention. About noticing.
She buried her face in the pillow, a soft sigh escaping her. The world outside, with its comments and its critiques, shrank to the four walls of this room, to the path his mouth was blazing across her body.
He nudged her thighs apart, settling between them. His breath was hot against her core, but he didn’t touch her there yet. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her thigh, just above her knee, then another an inch higher. A slow, tantalizing ascent. Her fists clenched in the sheets.
“Mark…”
“Shhh.” His voice was a low vibration against her skin. “I’m not there yet.”
He wasn’t. He kissed his way across her stomach, his stubble a delicious scratch, until he reached her navel. He lingered, his tongue tracing the rim, before finally, finally moving upward. He urged her onto her back, his frame hovering over hers, blocking the sun. His eyes were dark, serious.
“Hey,” he said, brushing her hair from her forehead.
“Hey back.”
“Last night was a lot.”
“It was.”
“This,” he said, lowering himself so their bodies aligned, skin to skin, heat to heat, “is just us.”
He entered her in one smooth, deep stroke. There was no pothole, no shock, just a seamless filling. A homecoming. She gasped, her legs wrapping around his waist, her heels locking at the small of his back.
He moved with a slow, devastating rhythm, each thrust a promise, each withdrawal a plea. She could see every micro-expression on his face—the concentration, the awe, the flicker of fear that this depth of feeling could even exist. She cupped his jaw, her thumb stroking his cheekbone.
“Look at you,” she whispered.
“Look at us,” he corrected, his pace never faltering.
This wasn’t the performative passion for a hidden camera or the defiant release against the world. This was a quiet conversation. A negotiation of scars and dreams conducted with hips and hitched breaths. The sun climbed higher, painting their sweat-slicked skin in gold.
Her climax built not as a sudden quake, but as a rising tide, warming her from the toes up, spreading through her pelvis, her stomach, her chest until she was brimming with it. She cried out, a broken, soft sound, and he caught it with his mouth, swallowing it as his own control shattered. He drove into her, once, twice more, his whole body tensing as he found his release with a deep, shuddering groan that seemed to come from his bones.
They collapsed, a tangle of spent limbs and shared breath. The only sound was the distant whir of the city and the pounding of their hearts slowing into sync.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him, keeping her close. His fingers traced idle patterns on her shoulder.
“I have a stream scheduled with the guys at four,” he murmured into her hair after a while. “Mostly Apex legends. Probably some Jujutsu Kaisen talk.”
“Mmm. Tell Desmond his take on Gojo last week was fundamentally unserious.”
He chuckled, the sound rumbling in his chest against her back. “I’ll put it in the charter. What about you?”
Alexis watched a bird, a tiny silhouette, soar past the window. The hum of anxiety was still there, but it was distant now. Manageable. She had a paper on constitutional ethics for her online course. She had a text from Ashley, just a meme of a kitten looking smug, waiting for a reply.
“I’m gonna make some tea,” she said. “And then I’m gonna log into my course portal and absolutely demolish that paper. After that, maybe I’ll finally start that Chainsaw Man rewatch.”
He squeezed her. “Normal stuff.”
“The best kind of stuff.”
They lay there until the sun had fully cleared the building across the street, bathing the room in a clear, hard light that left no shadows to hide in. It was okay. They had nothing to hide here.
Later, showered and dressed in one of his old Howard sweatshirts and her own shorts, Alexis sat at the breakfast bar with her laptop. Mark was across the room, testing mic levels, a controller in his hand. The casual, domestic normalcy of it was a balm.
He looked over at her, a grin spreading across his face. “Hey Lex.”
“Yeah?”
“Next time we rent a limo, we’re getting the one with the smoother suspension.”
She threw a blueberry at him from the bowl on the counter. It bounced off his forehead. “Noted. Now go be funny for the internet. I’ve got ethics to debate.”
He laughed, turning back to his setup, and the familiar, comforting click-clack of his mechanical keyboard filled the space between them. She took a sip of tea, scrolled past the still-buzzing notifications on her phone, and opened her document. The cursor blinked, patient and full of potential. She began to type.