Contact...and a lazy morning.

Apparently Foster has taken an interest in my health. He has accessed all my medical records (without my permission).

I heard a knock on the door, it was louder then usual.

I opened the door, Foster was surprised when it only opened a crack, I peered out at him the same way I had done before we became closer. "Foster." I was even more worn down than I had been a few days ago when he had stopped by to see me, eyes bloodshot, skin pale.

"Hey," he said softly. "Can I come in?"

I almost cringed, then belatedly tried to prevent myself from doing so. "Yes," I answered, not meeting his eyes as I stepped aside to let him through.

He waited until the door had been closed and locked behind me before he reached out and pressed a hand to my cheek, trying to get me to meet his eyes. "I've been neglecting you," he murmured, trying to project the sincerity of his apology. "And I'm sorry. It was the last week of the semester and you know how huge my courses are."

"Yes," I repeated. I leaned into the contact that I starved for it but still couldn't meet his eyes.

He gave me what I was so obviously screaming for, wrapping his other arm around my waist and pulling me in close, nuzzling his cheek against mine, silently willing me not to shut down on him, not to panic. "I learned something about you this afternoon," he breathed against one of my ears, keeping his voice low and soothing.

I was clinging to him like I never had before, not even in the depths of my worst episodes. I was soaking up the physical contact like a sponge, eyes closed as I molded myself into Foster's body.

"What?" I whispered.

"Your past." He shifted a bit, pressed our foreheads together and watched me closely. "How come you didn't tell me?"

I let loose a minuscule gasp, it sounded as if it had been ripped from my chest before I stopped it. I swallowed hard, the lines at my eyes deepening as I fought for control. "I did not...I am..." I tried again. "I did not th-think it would be necessary."

He wrapped both arms around my waist, "Why wouldn't you think it was necessary? Didn't you...?" He stopped himself. "...want me to know?" he finished.

"Yes," I whispered, the word sounded extremely painful.

"I'd like to know more about you," he said quietly, kissing my temple.

"What do y-you wanna know?" I finally cracked my eyes open, the vulnerability visible but I got it back under control.

"Whatever you want me to know." He replied, his words lingered in my mind. I wasn't sure what I wanted him to know.

"Very well." I was back to clipped, anxious responses, and I was also too exhausted to argue the matter.

I pulled away from him stiffly, I reached for his hand and laced our fingers together as I led him toward my bedroom. "How much do you already know?"

"I know that someone beat you up a lot." He said, not going into detail.

I shook my head minutely, sitting at the foot of my bed and gesturing for Foster to join me. "There are...are certain risks..." My speech was still awkward, stilted. "Are you aware of them?"

"Um...no not really." He didn't understand.

"I may get really worked up, and I..." I trailed off trying to gather my strength before saying the rest, "I-I don't want you to leave me."

He settled one hand on top of mine on my lap, bracing it there. He curled the other into my hair, cradling the back of my skull, trying to will me to relax. "Hey," he murmured softly. "It's okay. You can be as emotional as you need to be and it isn't going to send me running."

I was shuddering all over, swallowing hard as I tried to keep myself together. "The l-last time I..."

He leaned in and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to my lips. "I can handle whatever feelings you want to throw at me."

The look of total desperation in my eyes stabbed at him, I wanted to believe him but I couldn't bring myself to. I was still trembling faintly. "Denken, Gabriel, die Vergangenheit." I whispered to myself in German, squeezing my eyes closed.

There was a startling blankness to my thoughts, as if my mind were some sort of light that had just been switched off. Time stretched endlessly as I remained perfectly still. I was beginning to wonder what the big deal was when-

Bits and pieces of memory started to surface along the river of chaos in my mind.

"I was utterly alone with my emotions, unable to control them, unable to find an anchor I could hold onto in order to even try." I was speaking in a monotonous, almost robotic voice. "I was trapped within my own mind, my mind prisoner within my own body, my body prisoner within a cage of its own, familiar walls that never changed, that never allowed me to leave, my bed full of memories and pleasure and pain and broken and a kind of mental agony, it is so much more than I could possibly bear-"

"Gabriel. Gabriel, I'm here. Gabriel-" Foster said, but instead of drawing me out of my trance he caused an entirely different set of thoughts.

"Foster! Freedom in the stars, exhilaration under the night sky. Want, desire, affection, need- no! Rejection, fear, alone. Caged, bound to hell. Home, center, hello, welcome, bed. Bed, rejection, distance, dissolution, pain. Pain of the mind, pain of the body, pain of the deepest part of self where Eden is no more. Gone and yet not gone, a voluntary severance, and the mind bleeds, bleeds, bleeds into the nothingness on the other side. Alone and yet not alone, traces of it everywhere, in this room, in this bed, in the walls, in the air, and yet one cannot leave because out there is the cause, out there are the emotions that batter against the controls, out there are the reasons why in here is a cage and out there is a wasteland, no safety to be found anywhere-"

I knew that Foster's body was shuddering violently, I knew he was choking, sobbing. I tried to draw on those physicalities, but it still wasn't enough for me to come out of my trance.

Foster spoke of the memories of our night on the rooftop, of how totally at ease I had been, of the endless vista of stars that stretched out above us. He spoke of the softness in my eyes, the sensation of my hands and mouth over his skin. He tried to gather up all the held back desire, all the affection, all the heartbreaking love that he felt for me and pushed it at me.

Several things happened at once. I felt as if some sort of explosion had gone off in the base of my skull, and the agony of it distracted me from the sudden blankness of thought. I wrenched my hands away from Foster's hands. And the sudden lack of physical contact alerted Foster to the fact that I had just vomited all over the sheets.

It took several minutes before Foster could act, letting out a long, wet, shuddering sigh as he pulled himself back together. He tugged me up from my perch on the bed, leading me over to the wall and helping me sit on the floor there. Wiping the last of the wetness from his eyes, he stripped the bed as quickly and efficiently as he could, shoving them down the nearby laundry chute before the smell could spread around the room. He stood in front of the chute for several minutes, I'm assuming he was trying to piece himself back together, to comprehend all that he had just seen, heard, felt.

He made his way back to me on the floor, sitting next to me and pulling me so my head was in his lap. "We're leaving," he informed me quietly.

I shuddered, pressing my face against Foster's thigh, my fingers digging bruises into his legs where I was clinging to them.

"We're leaving," he repeated undeterred. "Both of us. You tell me when you're ready and we'll go. I want to tell you a few things, but I won't do it here."

"Why?" I rasped, the pain still evident in my voice.

"Because this isn't your safe haven. It's just the lesser of all evils as far as you're concerned. And I don't want to talk to you in a place where you're still miserable. So you tell me when you can manage to walk, and we'll go."

"To the roof?" I asked, and the feeble hope in my voice pierced him.

"Maybe some other time, when we can arrange it so no one will bother us when we get there." He leaned down, pressing a kiss to one of my ears. "We're going to my place. We're going to head back to my bedroom, to my bed, and I'm going to show you what I see, what I feel when I think of you. And you're going to hear it in a place where your demons aren't there to distract you." He paused, rubbing at his forehead. "And I'm gonna fill myself up with aspirin."

I was silent for a long time, I had shut down my mental processes as a defense mechanism. But after an age had passed, I whispered in the air.

"I am ready."

I was too exhausted to panic by the time Foster led me out of my apartment. I barely reacted at all as he pulled me from my room and back into Foster's room. My blank expression remained as Foster guided me to the bedroom, pushing me to sit at the foot of the bed while he dug around for his much needed aspirin.

"You have been speaking with the doctor," I observed, my voice low and monotone.

"Yeah. He's the one who clued me in about your past." He swallowed three pills. "He wants to meet you sometime, by the way. To growl at you about not taking proper care of yourself. Try not to get too offended about that when it happens - it's just what he does."

I said nothing, watching Foster blankly as he moved around his bedroom, stowing the pill bottle in a drawer before sitting next to me.

"Hey," he said softly, taking my clammy hands in his own. "Talk to me."

"What do you wish me to say?"

"How bad were things for you?"

I stared at our hands resting in Foster's lap. "I-I was....it was...he was...Foster, you cannot know."

Foster's face twisted into a sad kind of smile at that, leaning forward to press a kiss against my temple. "I think I need to know sometime."

I closed my eyes and leaned into the contact, the first few signs that I was starting to relax. "Interesting."

He pushed his luck. "How come he did those things to you?"

My fingers gripped Foster's tightly. "I was widely considered a failure." I pulled back as if I wished to make eye contact but wound up staring at Foster's mattress instead.

"You aren't a failure, you're far from it." He kissed me lightly on the cheek, "I think you're perfect."

My expression trembled, threatened to break, I closed my eyes again.

"Gabriel," he sighed, letting go of his hands so he could pull me into a hug, wrapping himself around me as if it would protect me from all the hurt I had gone through in the past. "He's a fucking idiot, okay? Sometimes there isn't any other explanation."

I allowed myself to be held, my hands still resting in Foster's lap, not reciprocating the touch. "I do not understand," I admitted, face pressed against Foster's shoulder. "I am mentally and emotionally unstable. I cannot leave the building but I cannot stand remaining inside. I am nothing like you." It took me several minutes before I gathered the courage to ask my question. "Why would you remain when others have not?"

He pressed his nose to my hair, inhaling the scent of me and gathering his thoughts.

"Because I'm not as different from you as you seem to think," he murmured into my temple. "Maybe the reason I'm so drawn to you isn't that you're so different from me, but because we're also a lot alike."

"In what way are we anything alike?" I asked, my tone disbelieving.

"Do you love me?" Foster asked.

"You don't have to answer that," he assured me belatedly.

I pulled away from him and succeeded in meeting his eyes this time, my expression open, vulnerable. "Yes," I said, and while my voice wavered a little, my gaze never did.

Foster broke into a grin. "Well, there's one thing we have in common," he smiled, leaning in to kiss me.

I didn't share his joyful expression, my face guarded. "Love is not always enough to ensure a lasting connection between two people."

"You're right." Foster said. "But sometimes it's enough to keep two people together when everything else would break them. Besides, we're alike in other ways, too."

"How so?"

He cradled my face in his hands, keeping me from breaking eye contact when he spoke. "I saw you that night on the rooftop. I saw you. You've got the same love of the sky that I do, that same desire to visit each and every star just to see what's there. You were so different that night, Gabriel. It was like the real you came out from under all that panic and guilt and other stuff that takes over you. And you were...god, Gabriel, you were gorgeous."

"Come here," Foster whispered, tugging at me gently to move up on the bed, pushing me down into the unmade sheets and smiling down at me. "Don't go anywhere." He got up and took a moment to lift the blinds on all his bedroom windows, letting in the late afternoon sun, watching as it spilled over my prone form. "I'm going to tell you everything I see in you, everything I feel when I'm around you. But we're going to do it with the outside world coming in a little bit." He cracked his windows open, letting a cool breeze flow into the room. "Because you're a lot more at ease when you're out there."

"Yes," I agreed, my gaze fixed on the windows for a few moments, taking in the unobstructed view of the clouds, of the slowly dying sunshine. Then I looked at Foster, never breaking eye contact with him as he walked back towards the bed. I reached a hand across the mattress, beckoning him to join me.

"Not yet." He pulled his old t-shirt over his head and tossed it in a corner, unbuttoned his jeans and hobbled out of those as well. He left his underwear on for the time being and looked up at me.

My face was a combination of uncertainty and lust, the tips of my ears flushing red and my eyes darting from Foster's face, to his chest, to his groin, and then guiltily back up to his face again.

"You can look," Foster assured me, crawling up to sit on the bed next to me and taking the offered hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing the knuckles. "You can look all you want. But I'd like...I'd like to see you, too."

The uncertainty won over the lust in my expression then, my gaze darting nervously to Foster's face. "Foster..."

"Gabriel, I've seen you have a panic attack. I've seen you throw up. And I've seen you when you come. If I've seen all that and haven't taken off, what awful thing do you think is going to happen if I see you naked?" He chuckled. "And how ridiculous is it that I've seen you come and yet I have no idea what most of your body looks like?"

I considered that, my face still carrying traces of anxiety. I sat up and began unbuttoning my shirt with trembling fingers.

Foster kept his eyes glued to the newly bared inches of skin on my neck, below my collarbone, the fabric parting all the way down to my waistband before I shrugged it off.

"Oh," Foster breathed, he traced his fingers up the newly bared arm, across my collarbone, and onto my scarred chest. He pressed his hand there more firmly, trying to feel my heart beating under the skin, frowning when he could feel nothing past the searing heat of me.

I understood what he'd been looking for. I took Foster's hand in my own, kissing the palm and then looking self-conscious about the display of affection before I pressed it against the low thrumming beneath where he thought it would be.

"Okay," he murmured, moving closer to me until his lips almost brushed against mine as he spoke. "There's one of the best things I see in you: your capacity for love and emotion. It kills me that you always look so guilty after any display of affection, like you've screwed up and you're waiting for me to call you on it." He closed the gap between us, not so much kissing me as mouthing at my lower lip. "I know you want your controls back. And I want that to happen for you. But I hope no matter how far you go in reclaiming that, this part of you remains, even if only in private."

My eyes grew wider and wider as Foster let his mouth run away with him. No one had ever spoken to me this way and I had no idea how to handle it past moving closer for more contact, keeping my gaze glued on Foster. "It is not against my social mores."

"Glad to hear it." Foster pushed on me gently until I was on my back again, drinking in the sight of me before pressing a soft kiss to my throat, and he shivered at the low rumbling sound it produced. "There's another thing I can't get enough of: your voice. I didn't notice it for the longest time at first - you were always so damn quiet. But when you finally started speaking up...God, Gabriel, you could recite the dictionary and it would still be sexy."

I swallowed hard, squirming under all the praise. "Foster," I whispered hoarsely, fingers digging into his hipbones where I'd grabbed onto him like an anchor in a storm. "Foster, this is...It is too much."

"Too damn bad," Foster returned, kissing down my chest. "You've been shut up in that room with nothing but your own demons for company. Jayden (Foster's doctor friend) said you needed your boundaries pushed at times, so you're going to lay there and let me push for awhile. I've had just about enough of you thinking you're somehow less of a person." He emphasized his point by dragging his teeth over my skin.

I jerked in surprise, fisting my other hand in Foster's hair and hissing at him quietly. "Foster," I said again, with more of a warning in my voice than a plea.

"Too much?" Before I could answer, Foster had already kissed it soothingly, hoping that would get a better response.

"Yes. No, I..." I squirmed. "More," I finally choked out, then squeezed my eyes shut, ashamed of my request.

"Oh no," Foster muttered, stopping his exploration of my chest. He swung a leg over me, straddling me and pressing more kisses along my jaw, my cheekbone, then into the worried creases at the corners of my eyes. "Open up. Look at me."

I started trembling again, my hands digging bruises into Foster's hip and scalp. "I..." I shook my head, fighting an internal battle before opening my eyes, some of the anxiety in my expression making the slow slide into fear.

Foster was having none of that, kissing my forehead, the bridge of my nose, my upper lip. "You don't ever, EVER feel bad about asking for something. Not ever. I'm a fish out of water here, Gabriel. I have no idea what makes a you feel good and even less of an idea of how to make you feel good without freaking you out. So if there's something you want me to do, you tell me."

I worked my mouth a few times, the fear slowly melting from my eyes. My fingers relaxed at the nape of Foster's neck so I was cradling him rather than bruising him when he pulled me down for another kiss. It started out tentative, began to build in intensity when my lips opened under his and I licked at the seam of Foster's mouth. Just as Foster was opening to me, I broke the contact to look up at him. "So long as you will agree to those same terms," I murmured.

"Uh..." He was dazed, his erection pressing against the bulge in my trousers. "Yeah," he finally managed, his brain tripping over itself in an effort to catch up. "Although I'm not feeling all that picky right now. All I want is more of you."

"Yes," I agreed, not quite meeting his gaze as my hands drifted down Foster's back stilling there, I didn't dare move any further then that.

But Foster shuddered as if I had groped him obscenely. "Can I-" he began to say, his voice going rough in the middle. He cleared it, nuzzling against the soft skin under my ear when he tried again. "Can I take these off?" he asked, fingering the fastenings of my pants.

I shifted restlessly underneath him. Silence lapsed between us, I gathered strength for the battle, I took one of Foster's hands in mine and led it to my waistband. "You may."

He began pressing a trail of kisses down my neck and chest, avoiding my scars, until he was at eye-level with my groin. He licked at each new bit of skin he revealed as he unbuttoned the soft black trousers, nuzzling against my skin leading down, down...

Foster pulled my pants down my hips and off my legs, leaving me laid utterly bare underneath him. Foster wrapped one hand around my shaft, my hips jutting helplessly forward at the sensation. His other hand trailed under it, tracing the smooth skin along the base, then further down-

And almost being thrown off the bed from the force of me bucking, laughing breathlessly as he pinned me back down to the blankets. "Sensitive, I take it," he grinned, licking into the crease of my thigh.

"Foster," I pleaded, the barest hint of a whine coloring my voice. "Foster, I... I want..." I was unable to verbalize the rest, spreading my legs and reaching down to tug at Foster's shoulders and neck.

"Me too," Foster whispered, scraping his teeth over my ribs and along my side as he shifted back up to face me. "Fuck, Gabriel, me too." He was pulled into another drowning kiss, open mouthed and somewhat graceless but wet and perfect all the same. "Do you-" Foster began to say, distracted momentarily by an urgent need to suck on my ear. "Can I?" he finally managed to ask, hoping I would understand.

I shuddered underneath him. "Yes," I whispered, slipping my fingers into the waistband of Foster's underwear and peeling them off his body.

There was still a faint trace of anxiety in my eyes, but I shifted until I had one leg hooked over Foster's hip, spreading the other open in blatant invitation.

Foster pushed forward, intending to take his time to ensure I was comfortable with penetration.

I pulled him in, and in a rush of slick heat, Foster was buried deep in me, smothering a cry in my shoulder. As he collected the shreds of his self-control, he became aware of a low rumbling noise coming from somewhere.

"Are you purring?"

My eyes cracked open, somehow managing to look both lustful and indignant. "I am not."

"You are," Foster insisted, grinning down at me. "Like a goddamn cat. Do you always do that or is it j-nngh," he moaned, his question forgotten because I had tightened around his shaft. Foster thrust forward instinctively, dropping his forehead to rest against mine and trying to steady himself again. "That wasn't fair."

"Foster," I didn't quite whine at him, cupping his jaw, pressing our mouths together.

Foster swallowed down the rest of the purr, tongue delving into my mouth to chase the feel and flavor of it as he began to rock his hips in a deep, steady rhythm. He let himself go for long minutes, drowning in the rhythm of our bodies together, the desperate, suckling quality of our kisses, the way my body opened to his and embraced it, the rumbling emanating from my chest.

He was fast approaching his climax, pulling back from the kiss to make sure I was there, too. The moment our lips parted, he had his answer. "You're...not..." he gasped between thrusts.

I looked just as lost as Foster felt. "I..." I shook my head, looking up at Foster helplessly.

I was hard at least. Foster could feel the slick length of me pressed between our bodies. I was simply nowhere near as close as Foster was. "What do you need?" he breathed over my lips, slowing his thrusts to get an answer out of me.

I closed my eyes momentarily, it is such a battle for me to ask for what I want. But seconds later there was a hand grabbing for one of his. I laced our fingers together and squeezed gently, explaining myself through actions rather than words. Foster gave a hesitant squeeze back.

And watched in shock as I arched under him, only adding to the feline characteristics I'd displayed that night. "Holy shit," Foster whispered, belatedly remembering what I had told him about the importance of hands to me. He rocked his hips against mine, squeezing my hand at the same time, groaning at the look of ecstasy slowly taking over my face. "Fuck, yes," he muttered against my shoulder. "Can you come like this? Want you to come, Gabriel, wanna feel you fall apart, wanna see you put yourself back together just like this..." His mouth was running away with him as it always did.

"Foster," I gasped, and it seemed to be my mantra, one of the only words I could choke out as we moved against each other. My free hand flailed in the air for a moment, almost reaching for him before I consciously jerked it back into the pillows, gazing up at Foster with a plea for understanding in my eyes.

It took Foster a moment to get it, eyes lighting up when realization dawned. "Yes," he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine again. "Do it. I want you..."

I squeezed his other hand in mine, my head fell back, as my back arched further, my legs squeezed around Foster's hips while I groaned and shuddered, and Foster could have sworn he was being scalded. Foster thrust into me and stilled there, his body shuddered and collapsed onto mine.

After awhile I realized he was sleeping...and I thought I was the only one who did that.

Foster let out a halfhearted grumble, hunkering back down in the blankets.

I was stretched out next to him, my ribcage expanding and contracting in time with my breathing, our legs tangled together under the sheets. Foster shifted closer until his chest was plastered against the warmth of my back, his hands wandering over the sinewy strength in my arms, the low vibration of a heartbeat under my ribs.

I felt boneless under Foster's wandering hands, relaxed and pliant. Foster's cock started twitching to attention against my lower back. There was a slow, deep intake of breath, and Foster realized that I wasn't actually asleep. I looked completely at ease, no lines of tension visible around my mouth, my eyes hooded and nearly closed. But I wasn't asleep - Foster could just tell. Something else was going on under the surface. Foster swept his fingers along my arm, over my shoulder, along the cords of my neck, around the point of my ear, until they were settled on top of my hand.

"You awake?" he whispered, pressing himself up closer against me, watching my face curiously.

There was a long moment of silence, my eyes cracked openly slowly, blinking at the clock before I turned my head to look at Foster. "I am now."

Foster was relieved that I didn't seem to be panicking the way I had the first time we'd spent the night together. He smiled down at me, kissing my forehead. "What were you doing just now? I know you weren't sleeping."

I raised an eyebrow, my body turning slowly until I was stretched out on my back. "How did you know?"

He shrugged, tracing both of my eyebrows, unable to keep himself from touching me. "I just knew. I could feel it in you."

"Hm." I said contently. "I was attempting to meditate."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Jayden said you needed to start doing that more often. I wouldn't have bothered you if-"

I pressed my fingers against Foster's mouth, silencing him. "I welcome the interruption," I said, soft brown eyes sweeping over Foster warmly.

"You look so relaxed," he murmured, kissing the fingers pressed against his mouth and then taking my hand in his. "I was worried I'd wake up to you having another panic attack."

I shook my head. "You being around has...helped with the instability of my emotions. I can feel you here," I gestured with our linked hands, then shifted back against Foster to emphasize the way our skin was pressed together. "I find I cannot be ashamed of my lack of control when you are so obviously pleased with the events of last night."

Foster was caught somewhere between a wolfish grin and faint humiliation. "Yeah, about that, I promise I don't usually pass out afterward."

I almost smiled at him, the lightest traces of smugness in my expression. "I understand people react to it in a variety of ways."

Foster laughed at how self-satisfied I looked under the layer of calm I was attempting to hide under, shaking his head and leaning down for a kiss. "Maybe I have to build up an immunity to it. I guess we'll have to run a bunch more experiments to see."

"Perhaps," I allowed, more interested in the kiss than the conversation if the way my whole body was turning toward him was anything to go by.

Foster settled down beside me, one hand still laced with mine, the other delving into my damp black hair, and pushed forward for another kiss, and another, and another. My free arm rested over his hip, palm pressed against his lower back, urging him forward until we were pressed
flesh-to-flesh against one another, the curve of Foster's steadily growing erection brushing against mine, our hips beginning to rock together.

"Mmm," Foster murmured against me, licking some of the staleness from the roof of my mouth until he started getting those metallic hints of flavor from me instead. "Are you... Do you...?" he tried to speak, pressing against me with a little more urgency, loving how our lazy, late-morning thrusting was leaving a trail of slickness between our bellies, the jut of my erection growing harder against him.

I lifted a leg over Foster's hip and drew him forward, opening myself to him in blatant invitation.

The rhythm that had been building between us stuttered at the display of trust I was giving him.

"Too close already."

I didn't say anything about that as I did a smug sense of superiority, raking blunt nails lightly down Foster's spine.

Foster bucked forward, his moan lost in my mouth as I thrust against him.

"Gabriel," Foster whined, in the midst of our groping, kissing, thrusting.

"Yes," was the throaty response, the pleasure melting down our spines, igniting something deep inside of us. "Please. I wish to feel you. Your freedom is mine," and then there was that strange word Foster didn't understand. But it was so full of meaning, so ripe with a sense of security, devotion, longing, that he found it didn't need a translation. The sense of it boiling through him was enough, and with another few thrusts against my slick, searing skin, he separated our mouths just enough to gasp as he came, coating our bellies with another layer of slickness on top of the sweat I had already smeared between us.

The slickness between us fast turning into a wet, slippery mess as Foster's orgasm triggered my own. The low rumble of a purr echoed deep in my chest as I groaned, my eyes blown wide and dark in the late morning sunshine streaming through the window.

"Oh," Foster breathed, his gaze fixed on my open, euphoric expression. "Oh my God." He let go of my hand in order to cradle my face in his fingers, pressing sweet, fleeting little kisses to my lips, the corners of my eyes, the faint red staining my cheeks. "You are so gorgeous like this."

I was coming down from a haze, my body gone slack and still but my eyes locked on Foster's. I was almost lost for an instant, then I saw something soothing in Foster's face, the anxiety melted away into a soft, openly adoring expression that squeezed around Foster's heart. "Foster," I breathed reverently, tilting my head forward to press a kiss against his temple.

Foster could only shiver at the sensation, shifting until we were pressed skin-to-skin again, heedless of the swiftly cooling mess solidifying between us. "We'll shower in a bit," Foster whispered, burrowing his head into the juncture of my neck and shoulder, not wanting to leave our little cocoon of bliss. "Just want you awhile longer."

I looped my arms around him and pulled him closer. "That is... agreeable."

Foster couldn't help a fond snort, kissing under my ear. "Glad to hear it."


Gabriel.