Page 41 of When He Calls

"Yes."

His hands are shaking. His whole body is shaking, fine tremors running through the shirt, the sweatpants, the bare feet on the floor. Bean moves from my feet to his. She presses against his ankle.

"You came to find me."

He’s incredulous, but at least he isn’t trying to get me out of his house.

"I came to find you."

Four feet become three. He moved. Not me. His body took a step before his brain approved it.

"How long?"

"Since the first call."

His eyes are on mine, tears sitting on the rims.

"You said you were walking past."

"I was. I've walked past often, waiting for this moment.”

"How did you find my building? I never told you where I live."

"You did. You just never noticed." I keep my voice in the register he trusts. "The skeleton next door. The alley behind the houses. The coffee shop two blocks over. You drew me a map one call at a time."

His mouth opens and closes, the editor's brain running back through two weeks of calls, finding every street name he ever said out loud.

Two feet. He moved again.

"Jesus fucking Christ. I should be scared," he says. "It's Halloween. A man I met at a coffee shop is standing in my apartment and telling me he's the voice I've been falling asleep to for two weeks. I should be terrified."

"Are you?"

He was falling asleep to me…

"No." His voice breaks on the word. The crack goes through my sternum. "I'm not. I'm not scared. I spent fourteen hours sitting in the dark with every nerve in my body waiting for something to come through the door and something came through the door and it's you. And I'm not scared."

One foot. His hand comes up. His fingers touch my jaw. The first time his conscious hand has touched my skin. His fingertips on my jaw, his palm following, his hand on my face. He's looking at me from ten inches away with eyes that have been crying without producing tears.

"You're real," he says.

"I'm real."

"You're here."

"I'm here."

His mouth finds mine. The kiss is not gentle. Hours of Halloween panic. Days of midnight phone calls. The soreness. The dream. The two men collapsing into one. His mouth is open against mine. Both hands on my face, holding my jaw, pulling me into him. His body pushes against mine, chest to chest, hips to hips, the heat of him through his clothes radiating into my jacket.

My hands go to his waist. The sweatpants sit low. My fingers find the gap between the hem of his shirt and the waistband, the strip of skin, the heat of his stomach. He gasps into my mouth. The sound goes through me. My hands tighten and I pull him closer, eliminating the last inch, my hips pressing into his. He's hard against me. Already. The body that's been responding to my voice for two weeks is now responding to my hands.

"Bedroom," he says against my mouth. The first decision his conscious mind has made about my body. Before, I took. Tonight, I'm being given. The giving is better because it comes with his eyes open, his hands on me, his voice saying the word that grants access.

The same room. The same bed. Different sheets. The trazodone is on the nightstand. He reaches past it to flip on the lamp. Low light. Amber. His face in the glow. Bean follows us to the doorway, stops. Turns, walks to the couch, jumps up. Territory assigned.

He pulls his shirt over his head. The body underneath is the body I've already touched in the dark, the body I've already been inside, but seeing it in lamplight with his arms over his head and the fabric clearing his face is new. The stomach. The chest. The line of hair below his navel that I followed with my mouth while he slept.

"You too," he says. Looking at me. Waiting.