Chapter Text
Tim sat at his desk, staring blankly at the open case file in front of him. He drummed his fingers against the metal surface, willing himself to focus. It should have been a productive morning. He had plenty of work to do and many distractions to keep him occupied, but his mind kept wandering.
To her.
He exhaled sharply and leaned back in his chair, since his brain was too preoccupied to even pretend to do anything else. The memory of Lucy’s lips against his sometimes soft, sometimes wild, and always genuinely enraptured lingered like a brand as if his mouth had been marked by hers and would forever only belong slotted with hers. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her and felt her, but his imagination would never be enough anymore. It was after they had only kissed once for “work” that Tim indulged himself in a few rare daydreams about what it would be like to taste her again. But that would not satisfy him any longer, especially since Mother’s Day the day before when he finally let himself admit everything in his heart, and she accepted his feelings and fears so lovingly, it was like a switch had flipped. He had always felt drawn to her at varying degrees, but now it was different. Now he did not have to pretend for even a second that she occupied his mind constantly. Like a prayer answered, he heard her voice in the hallway. Pushing back his chair, he stood abruptly. He did not have a plan exactly, but his feet carried him to the door of his office before he could overthink it. “Chen,” he called, his voice firm enough to cut through the low hum of the usual goings on of the station.
She looked away from Aaron, startled by that specific tone she had not heard in a while filled with authority and sternness in a single syllable. “Yeah?”
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
Her brow furrowed in confusion, but she nodded. She smoothed her hands down the sides of her pants as she approached his office.
He held the door open for her and let it close behind them while he stared at her backside until she turned to face him, and suddenly, he was unsure what to do like there were too many options afforded to him, and he wanted to exercise each and every one.
“What’s up?” She searched his face, curious but unconcerned.
Tim did not answer right away. Instead, he reached out, his fingers finding her wrist. Her skin was warm beneath his touch, and his thumb brushed lightly over the spot where her new bracelet belonged that she only removed because she was on shift. A bracelet, much like the wedding ring she kept on during shift, that was a tether between them.
“Tim?” She prompted, her voice softening as she stepped closer. “Is this about this morning? Are you actually mad I couldn’t kiss you because Fiona asked for me? I’ll make it up to you later.”
He went to her while also driving her back a few paces in one fluid motion with the desk catching the backs of her thighs as he guided her against it. When he did, he looked at her, then dropped his mouth to her neck to suck on the skin without warning.
Her eyes widened as she expelled a half laugh half moan. “Okay, what’s gotten into you?”
“You,” he answered lustfully.
“What about me?”
His hands found a comfortable spot to settle low on her hips, and he dug his fingers in there, then he used his nose to push away the collar of her uniform shirt to get to a spot even lower on her neck. “I can’t stop thinking about everything about you.”
With an admission like that, she craned her neck to give him better access as she sighed. She knew her cheeks were flushing, and her heart was fluttering, and she was happy to feel him show her how much he wanted her. Still, she could hear people walking by his office, which thankfully had the blinds shut and the door closed, yet, it was a bad idea, “We’re at work,” she whispered, hating how her voice sounded more desperate for him than for following the rules.
That was enough to pull him off of her, but he did not move too far from her face. “I know,” he replied with anguish and his hands drifted towards the buckle on her duty belt. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I want you.” He dipped his head and captured her lips slowly at first, like he was savoring the taste of her, which was how he had wanted to start his morning before their daughter woke up early and asked for her mommy, which left him frowning in bed alone. Then, he had barely gotten to give her a quick peck with breakfast, and at a red light during their drive into work, and when he walked her over to the women’s locker room to change for the day, which all equaled to wanting her even more, so he deepened their kiss and fumbled to remove her duty belt before setting it aside so that he could bring his hips flush with hers, unwilling to have a centimeter between them.
She had to admit she had been quite lovestruck the day before, and he went to her for every kiss she wanted mostly without complaint, so she chose to oblige and let him take control of the speed and pressure while she made happy sounds and curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt to hold onto him for dear life while he positively unraveled her. When they finally broke apart, her breathing was uneven, and her eyes glassy. She rested her forehead against his, and a small, breathless laugh escaped her. “Okay, what are you doing? Because this is very un-Tim-like behavior,” she pointed out teasingly.
He chuckled as his hand slid up her back delicately. “Un-Tim-like, huh?”
“Very,” she confirmed, though the smile on her face betrayed her amusement.
“I actually think this is very Tim-like.”
“How so?”
As he finally moved up to cup her skull, he explained, “I’m more of an actions guy than a talking guy, and there’s a lot of to show you.”
“No, we’re balancing both, remember? So you have to use your words, too.”
While one hand still held the back of her head, the other moved down her neck until his index finger lightly tapped on the space between her collar bones where the necklace he bought her always rested. “I’m really happy that you’re mine now.” He covered the skin he was smoothing his finger over with a kiss, then pressed his lips to the inside of the wrist where his bracelet belonged, and finally a delicate one one where her engagement ring from his sat just claiming all of the spots where he marked her as his to cherish, his to spoil with gifts, his to care about, his to celebrate, his to take care of, his to coparent with, his to kiss, his to fall asleep next to, and his to appreciate every second of the day. If only his mouth could communicate that with words.
“That’s why you brought me in here? Aww, babe,” She swooned because of his simple yet sweet explanation, how he looked at her, and the soft way his mouth brushed over her skin so fondly. “You can kiss me when you’re happy any time.”
“And there’s more,” he added with more hunger than he could control. “You’re all I want, you know.” His eye flickered around her, unable to settle on any one part of her when every centimeter of her that he had seen and touched was perfect. “And I want you all the time.”
Her knees buckled. Being wanted by him was like a dream come true and also something entirely more special. Her gaze roved over his body, too. “I want you in this uniform. You have to take it home sometime.”
“Really?” His surprise caused his eyebrows to shoot up.
“The tight shirt? The cargo pants? It’s working for you, Bradford.”
He chuckled darkly. “Good to know.” His fingers ran over the dip of her waist. “So, since I’m wearing the uniform you like so much, and you said I can kiss you when I’m happy any time, does that mean…?” He bent down to bring his face close to hers and gave her a smirk.
“We should probably get back to work,” she said, though she made no move to pull away.
“Probably,” he agreed yet gathered her tightly in his arms.
“You’re impossible,” Lucy grumbled, feigning annoyance, but seeing him smile caused her face to mirror his.
“Only when it comes to you and Fi,” he admitted softly.
Her heart swelled at that. There was something about the way he looked at her like aside from their daughter, she was the only thing that mattered in the world, and she was too weak to care about the trivial fact that they were at the station when the priority was getting to feel and taste his desperation, so she initiated their kiss that he quickly took over with her favorite kind of ferocity.
A sharp knock at the door pulled them apart, and they both froze. He stepped away from her sadly, and his hands fell to his sides when he never wanted to be apart from her for a second. “Come in,” Tim called, his voice steady despite the tension that still hung in the air between him and Lucy.
The door opened, and Angela poked her head in to find more than one person occupying the office. “Oh, am I interrupting something?” She asked knowingly.
“Of course not,” Lucy lied.
Since it was his best friend that came upon them, he outstretched his hand to take Lucy’s. “Actually, you were.”
Pleased with his honesty, Angela responded with, “The joint patrol and Metro briefing is supposed to start any minute, but I guess I can stall and give you five.”
“Thank you,” he responded for the two of them. He waited until his office door was shut, and he was back to being alone with Lucy to frame her face with his hands and wondered, “Where were we?”
“Seriously?”
“We get interrupted all the time, but we were given five minutes. I say we take them.”
“That’s five more minutes than we got this morning, so come here.” She covered his mouth with his and purred, overjoyed that being on the same page with him and a lot of communication could lead to something so extraordinary. “Hey, just so you know,” she breathed when they eventually broke apart, “You’re all I want, too, and I do want you all the time even when you aren’t wearing this uniform.”
“I already knew that,” he responded smugly.
She playfully whacked his chest. “You’re supposed to say something more romantic, not be an ass.”
He presented her with an end of her duty belt for her to put it back on and lowly said, “Speaking of asses…” His eyes dropped lower on her frame, and she blushed.
“Don’t start. We have to go downstairs.”
He grabbed her elbow to hold onto her for another second. “Fine, I’ll stop for now, but this is to be continued later.”
“Is this what you felt like yesterday?” She wondered, focusing on how darkened his eyes were. She had been the one initiating a ton of affection on Mommy’s Dady, and she seemed to be getting a taste of being the receiver of such boundless desire.
“You were worse.”
“Was not.”
“I’m not complaining. I liked it.”
“Noted,” she murmured with a grin and finished securing her belt around her waist in the hopes that no one would be able to tell what they had gotten up to in Tim’s office.
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Tim looked around for Lucy at the station since the moment she walked out of his office when he had to keep his distance from her to be professional, but then he saw her walk into the supply room and caught a shimmer of metal out of the corner of his eye that he recognized as the wedding band on his finger that tied her to him. Keeping his distance was overrated and unnecessary, even if it was in the name of professionalism, so he rushed into the supply closet behind her and turned the lock. “Hi.”
She paused her search for sticky notes, and her voice caught when she saw the exasperated longing on his face. “What’s going on?”
He bounded right into her space, knocked the sticky notes out of her hand, then tugged her closer as he bent his head. “I’m losing my mind,” he complained. He kissed the spot behind her ear then his teeth grazed along the shell of it.
As her lungs faltered, she gripped his forearms. “Tim,” she managed, her voice catching somewhere between surprise and amusement, “didn’t we already go over this earlier this shift?”
“This shift is endless,” he groaned and kissed a line across her face.
“We still have a few more hours. Can’t this wait?”
“No, Luce, it can’t. How am I supposed to go from being around you one day to barely seeing you the next?” He sucked on the corner of her mouth until she smiled.
“Someone woke up a little thirsty,” she wriggled her eyebrow at him as she teased.
He pulled back to try to explain the drive that was clouding his judgment for the day. “I guess I’ve gotten used to you being stubborn in the morning. Those few minutes in bed with you make all the difference apparently.”
“Hmm, so no more complaining when I refuse to get out of bed before getting some cuddles in?”
“Absolutely not.” He pulled her against him, his arms wrapping tightly around her as he buried his face in her hair. “Since I didn’t get to hold you this morning, I want to hold you for the rest of shift.”
Her heart melted as she wound her own arms around him comfortably. She closed her eyes, leaning into him and inhaling his familiar scent. “Tim,” Lucy murmured. When he hummed as his reply, she added, “I love this.”
“Me, too.”
“I’m not just talking about us,” she said and pulled back only enough to find his eyes. “I hate to say I love whatever this…craving is. The right thing for us is to try to keep this under control at least at work, but I have no idea how to stop, and it doesn’t seem like you know either.”
A slow, confident smile curved his mouth. “Since when do we have to stop?”
She ran her fingers through his hair as she grinned. “Oh, is that how it works now?”
“That’s exactly how it works.”
Her eyes sparkled mischievously as she stepped back, her hands trailing down his arms until she caught his wrists. “If that’s the case, then come here.” She backpedaled slowly, pulling him with her until her back met the wall. His body followed hers instinctively, closing the distance between them until he was pressed against her. She tugged his face down, her lips finding his in a kiss that was slow and heated in a blissful way.
No matter how many time he got her under his fingers and captured her bottom lip, it was something to savor, especially since he learned that kissing her was one of his favorite activities ever. There was something about how they came together like halves of a whole and moving in tandem like the partners they always operated as that made expressing their connection so unique.
Everything faded away as the rest of the world ceased to matter. It was just the two of them with their hearts pounding in sync and their breaths mingling as they lost themselves in each other.
And then the handle on the door jiggled.
She smirked, grateful her boyfriend had the wherewithal to lock them inside and keep everyone else out.
What neither of them planned for was that the one person that came upon the locked door also happened to be the one person with a key.
Grey stepped in and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not you guys, too,” he grumbled, since he hated stumbling upon a growing number of couples not so smoothly escaping into the supply closet for a few heated moments.
“Uh, sir,” Tim started, his voice carefully neutral, though his ears burned red, and took a step between his boss and Lucy to silently take all of the blame for their tryst.
“Save it, Bradford,” Grey replied while holding up a hand. “I’ve seen enough.”
Lucy was well trained in coming up with cover stories, so she was quick to compose one, “We were just-”
“Yeah, I can see what you were just doing,” Grey interrupted, his tone gruff but not unkind. “Look, I’m happy for you two, really. I’m glad you’ve told everyone you’re together, and I was thrilled to watch you two get married, but maybe save this for when you’re not on duty?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” Tim assured with all of the confidence he could muster before making eye contact with Lucy for the briefest second, and it was enough to make his shoulders relax.
Grey shook his head and exhaled heavily. “At least go into Bradford’s office if you can’t help yourselves. We all need the supply closet.”
Lucy rested her head against Tim’s bicep as she beamed. “Yes, sir.”
Grey pursed his lips at them, trying not to smile to maintain his authority, before turning and walking away while muttering something under his breath about “lovebirds on my shift.”
As the door clicked closed behind him, Lucy looked up at Tim with bright red cheeks. “Well, that was mortifying.”
“Why does this keep happening to us?” Tim groaned.
“Maybe we suck at timing,” she suggested.
“Or maybe you’re just too irresistible,” he offered alternatively and pecked her forehead.
“Cheesy,” she called him out.
“I mean it. You’re making it really hard to focus on anything else.”
Her smile softened, and she reached up to cup his face, her thumb brushing lightly over his cheek. “You’re not exactly making it easy for me either.” They stood there for a moment, the tension easing into something quieter, more tender. “Then again, nothing about what’s happened between us has been easy, so I wouldn’t expect that to change now even when everything else has.”
“I don’t know. Things are pretty easy now.”
“We have a chaotic three-year-old at home.”
“Yes, and she’s as perfect as her mom, who is the easiest person to be with.”
“Even though we’re constantly getting interrupted, we hardly have a second alone, and getting to this point has taken a lot of work?”
“It’s especially because of all of those reasons. We wouldn’t want to fight so hard to be together if we didn’t know it was worth it, and it is.”
“Totally worth it,” she agreed and met his lips happily.
And had to wrench away an instant later when someone opened the door.
“Oh, geez, we need an ‘occupied’ sign on this door,” Smitty commented when he realized what he had walked into. “I won’t stop you from getting it on, but maybe lock the door first.” He stepped out of the closet as quickly as he entered it.
“Smitty totally just ruined the mood,” Tim said, embarrassed.
“Do you think he’s the cure to our cravings? Should we invite him over sometime, or maybe I should try riding with him from now on.”
He snickered and looped his arms around her. “There isn’t a cure for me,” he knew, since his previous statement about Smitty ruining the mood was false as that feeling only lasted a few seconds before the onslaught of lust returned to his veins and compelled him to ghost her lips.
“We have to learn how to figure this out at some point to keep our jobs.”
“Yeah, we should listen to Grey. Come by my office later and lock the door behind you.”
“Tim,” she tutted and took a huge step away from him.
He thought she was about to walk away, but she only locked the door again before returning to him for an even longer and deeper kiss she wanted to enjoy until the chaos of their shift pulled them apart again.
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The drive home was a nice kind of quiet as Tim held the steering wheel with one hand while the other rested lightly on Lucy’s thigh. He glanced at her occasionally with a tiny smile tugging at his lips whenever he saw her scanning the streets, since a cop’s work was never done. When he parked in the driveway, he squeezed the hand on her thigh to keep her in the cab of his truck for a second. “Before our chaotic three-year-old makes sure we don’t have a second alone-”
She was right there slamming her mouth against his, since she read his mind and felt the same way. “God,” she sighed and beheld his freshly kiss swollen lips, “I don’t even care that I can’t stop craving you.” She stopped herself from going back to him for another kiss, but only narrowly. “No, we’ve got a kid waiting for us. We’re getting out of this car and going home right this instant.”
“You act like you can’t kiss me in front of Fiona when we both know she’ll just clap.”
“Do you want to watch a princess movie with her after dinner and recreate the kiss for her?” She had come up with that particular idea to steal more kisses from Tim in a time before he gladly gave her as many as she wanted.
He snickered. “That sounds perfect.”
Once inside the house, the sound of Fiona’s giggles floated down the stairs from her bedroom. Tim and Lucy exchanged a knowing smile as they slipped off their shoes and made their way toward her room. When they peeked inside, they found their daughter sitting cross-legged on her rug with Kojo, Nell, and her stuffed bear arranged in a semi-circle around her with plastic teacups in front of each of her friends.
“Mommy! Daddy!” Fiona exclaimed, her face lighting up as she jumped to her feet the second she saw her parents. She ran toward them and threw herself into her dad’s arms first before reaching for her mom.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Lucy said, crouching down to pull her into a warm hug. “Looks like you’ve been having fun.”
“We had a tea party!” Fiona declared proudly.
“That’s quite the guest list,” Tim said with a smile.
Nell stood and brushed her hands on her pants. “She’s been a delight as always,” she reported. “I’ll head out now and let you all have some family time.”
“Thanks, Nell,” Lucy replied warmly.
“Of course. See you tomorrow!” Nell responded with farewell waves.
When Lucy returned her attention to what was happening in Fiona’s room, Tim was sitting cross-legged on the rug with Kojo curled up beside him as Fiona tried to balance a tiara on the dog’s head.
“Mommy, can we have cookies?” Fiona asked. “They go great with tea.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow, sensing that it was not the first time that day she made that request. She crouched down to daughter’s level to study her face. “Cookies? The ones we made yesterday for Mommy’s Day? How many have you already had today?”
She averted her gaze from her mom. “None?” She tried, but the way her voice went high revealed her obvious fib.
Tim bit down on his lip to keep from snickering, and Lucy fought to keep a straight face. “Fi,” Lucy said, her tone mock-serious. “I think you’ve had enough cookies for today.”
Her shoulders slumped dramatically, and she let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “Fine,” she grumbled, flopping onto the rug beside Kojo. “Sorry, buddy, no more cookies today.”
“Let’s get ready for dinner, everyone.” Lucy coaxed everyone out of the green bedroom that was her favorite space in the house. “And when we finish dinner, we can watch a princess movie.”
“Oh, yay!” Fiona cheered, her previous loss of a sweet treat forgotten upon knowing the evening’s plans, so she ate every morsel on her plate in record speed and hoped she could encourage her parents to eat faster, since after all, a princess movie was promised, and she could not wait. To speed up the process even more, she tried to take her plate to the sink. Thankfully, her dad lunged forward to help her do it the right way, since her little arms could not reach all the way inside.
As Lucy wiped down the counters, Tim suggested, “Go to the TV and pick our movie. We’ll be right there,” to his daughter. Instead of rinsing off plates and loading the dishwasher like he was supposed to, he snatched the cookie jar off of the top of the refrigerator and took a cookie out. Acting like a thief sneaking towards their target under the guys of night, he crept into the living room and presented it to Fiona. “Because you’re such a good kid, you get one more for the day, and only one more.”
“Thanks, Daddy” She responded happily as her face lit up.
Lucy walked in just in time to catch her daughter’s first bite of her cookie. Her hands went to her hips, and she gave Tim an annoyed look.
He went to her with a smile that he hoped would make her see his side along with his explanation of, “I know all about how bad cravings can be.” He snaked his arms around her midsection to hold her.
“Oh, do you?” she asked knowingly.
“Absolutely,” he replied and inclined his head. “In fact, I might have one right now.”
The way his eyes were warm and teasing made it hard to stay mad at him for his pushover ways. “Is that so?”
“Mhm,” he hummed before kissing her.
“Cookies are so good! Here, Kojo, I saved you a piece.” Fiona held out the last bit to her dog.
“You can’t fight a craving that long when it tastes so good,” he murmured to Lucy lowly.
“I can’t stand you,” she whispered fondly.
“Good thing opposites attract.”
She rolled her eyes and left his embrace to divert her attention to their daughter. She got comfortable in the middle of the couch with Fiona curling into her one side and him leaning against her other. As much as she craved Tim, she also craved time as a family happily enjoying the love they planted that grew every single day, so she appreciated that her days were filled with plenty of time to indulge herself with two of her favorite things.
The final scene of the movie ended, and Tim took Lucy’s hand to stand up with her in front of the couch. “Fi, do you think I can give your mommy a better princess kiss?”
“Yeah! Do it!” She insisted, since their recreations at the end of the princess movies had become her favorite part of each viewing, and she applauded as her parents shared a special moment that made her believe that even if her only memories of the first few years of her life were not filled with the magic and beauty of the epic love found in her favorite books and movies, her parents showed her every single day that love was no fantasy; it was a huge part of her new reality and one she would always celebrate, because the alternative was so much lonelier. Thankfully, every time her mommy and daddy kissed, she was reminded that she would never be alone or without love ever again. As her mom helped her change into her pajamas, she asked, “Is everyone’s mommy a princess like you?”
“No, Fi, your mommy is special,” Tim interjected through the bathroom door, since he had walked up the stairs after letting out Kojo just in time to hear the question.
“Get in Fi’s bed. We’ll be there in a minute,” Lucy called back to him before he continued to fawn over her enough that her craving for him would return in full force.
He obeyed as he tended to, and Kojo hopped up to the edge of the mattress to assemble for story time as well.
Fiona’s giggles echoed down the hallway as she burst out of the bathroom. She raced into her bedroom and made quick work of getting in her bed. “Daddy! Daddy!” She said, snickering. “Mommy told me to give you this!” She sat up tall on her knees and planted a loud, exaggerated kiss on his cheek.
His lips curled. “Thank you for delivering something really important to me. Do you think you could help me send a really special one back to her?”
“I can do it!”
He peppered her face with kisses, making her squeal with laughter as she squirmed and squirmed until he thought he had given her enough. “Alright, alright. Your turn. Go deliver those to your mommy.”
At that moment, Lucy appeared in the doorway. She stood there to watch two of her favorite people grinning at each other in a certainly not scarce sight but one that never failed to make her chest warm. “Okay, it’s been a long day, and someone has had a lot of sugar, so let’s get story time started.” Expertly, she selected a story about bears that she knew was a quick read and settled in on her side of the mattress, but before she could open the cover, her daughter launched herself at her and clung tightly around her neck.
“Mommy! These are from Daddy!” Fiona exclaimed before showering her mom’s face with kisses just as her dad had done to her.
Lucy laughed. “Thank you for doing a good job of sending that message.”
Though she would consider her parents to be quite happy people in general, she had noticed a bit of a shift in the house, and it was, of course, welcome, and also worth asking about. “Why are you and Daddy smiling so much now?”
Such a question was easy for Lucy to answer. Her hand instinctively touched the pendant of her necklace, a simple but meaningful gift from Tim that helped her to feel him constantly. She glanced over at him, and their eyes met in a shared moment of understanding. Her mouth quirked into a grin before looking down at her daughter and brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “Well, sweetie, it’s because we have everything we’ve ever wanted. How could we not be happy when our family is so perfect?”
Fiona beamed at that, clearly pleased with the answer. Her mom leaned down and kissed her cheek, but before she could turn to pass it along to her dad, Lucy shook her head gently.
“No, honey,” Lucy said with a soft laugh. “That kiss was just for you.”
Perfectly content to receive an expression of love all her own, she sank back into her pillow to signal that she was ready for story time.
Much to her surprise, Lucy actually managed to make it through the whole book before Fiona’s eyelids drooped shut. She pressed another kiss to daughter’s forehead and lowly said, “Goodnight, Fi, I love you.”
Tim bade their daughter goodnight, too, then joined Lucy in the doorway. He loved that they made an agreement to share a goodnight kiss every night in front of Fiona for some distant reason he forgot about. He captured Lucy’s lips happily then rocked away to see a distinct expression on her face. “What?”
“She’s pretty much asleep.” She did not even have to look back to know that their daughter was experiencing a sugar crash.
“A deal is a deal.” He flicked off the light, but he could still make out how Lucy was smiling, so he leaned in for a goodnight kiss of his own that was loving and a bit longer to give him time to taste her happiness like it was its own flavor.
They retreated to their bedroom and got ready for bed while gazing at each other’s reflections in the mirror, which was a distracting yet welcome way to wind down at the end of the day. Lucy sashayed out of the bathroom knowing he would be right behind her, and she went under the covers in the middle of the bed with her hands instinctively reaching for Tim.
He nestled his head into the side of her neck and draped his arm and leg across hers.
They only inhaled and exhaled as they enjoyed being snuggled together for a beat, but they were both quite restless, since their craving for each other had certainly not subsided for the night. “Babe?” Lucy husked.
Babe. It was a new term of endearment he thought she merely slipped into a previous conversation, but when she repeated herself hours later, he could not help but think that she came up with a term of endearment for him like the adorable girlfriend that she had become. He cradled her closest hand against his chest then nodded. “Yeah, babe?” He tried it out and hoped to see her reaction, but she kissed him so quickly the next thing he could see were stars exploding behind his eyes. She shuffled until she was on top of him, and he decided he would have to come up with something sweet and permanent to call her in the hopes it would elicit such an eager reaction every single time.
Her hands slid under his shirt and mapped out his bare chest, making herself dizzy, then he moaned into her mouth, and she might have collapsed if his kiss was not breathing so much life into her.
Until they had to stop when their bedroom door was opened and in padded Fiona.
“I brought my baby bear for bedtime hugs,” Fiona announced and made her way onto her parents’ bed in time for her mom to get off of her dad, so that she could rest on her mom’s chest.
“Bedtime hugs are always the best,” Lucy said as she lazily combed her hand through her daughter’s silky brown hair. At the expense of giving up a night of being wrapped up with just Tim, she was able to have both of them in arm’s reach, and that was worthwhile.
Fiona’s head shot up, preventing her from from drifting off again. “Wait, I almost forgot. One for Mommy,” she said and leaned up to plant a kiss on her mom’s cheek, “and one for Daddy,” she added and strained to reach her dad’s cheek to give him one as well. “I wanted to give you kisses from me.” All of that excitement zapped the last of her energy, so her head dropped heavily onto her mom, and she fell asleep instantly.
Lucy looked over at Tim, and they silently communicated that they had accepted that they might always get interrupted, but neither cared with cravings that kept them going back to each other to gladly steal special moments whenever they could.