Chapter Text
“Hey,” Belly says as she walks back into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Conrad looks up at her for a second as he dries the fork in his hands with a little too much care.
“Um, I just talked to Jere. He says he'll stay there and be back tomorrow around noon.”
“Oh, okay,” is his answer to her. He looks unreasonably tense. She takes a deep breath. Why does he have to make everything so awkward? Belly thinks as she replays the entire day in her head.
First, it was the look that he gave her when she called him her future brother-in-law –which was definitely not a test to see how he would react.
Then there was him telling her that his car seats were down right before he manhandled her bike. She's still trying to figure out why they were down.
And then how tender he was as he cleaned the peach juices off of her chin with his perfectly ironed and clean shirt, his only focus on her. It felt like she was out of her body almost as she was floating.
In the four years that have passed since their break-up they have shared countless amounts of looks. The kind of looks that were weird, that were surreptitious, that were apologetic, all kinds of looks that a person could give their exes without crossing any line. But that look..that look was the kind of one he hasn't given her since- well since the last time they've had sex in that guest bedroom. Third time Belly. This is the third time you've thought about that night today. Get it together.
But it's not entirely her fault because he was the one who showed the exact same flowers to her. So basically he planted the memory into her head. And overall he was just incredibly sweet to her today after avoiding her for a week. He literally did everything she originally expected from her fiancé and more. So it's normal for her to think about their shared memories. Especially after spending the entire day together.
Belly shakes her head as an attempt to bring herself back into reality when she realizes she had been staring at Conrad since the moment she walked in. ''Need any help?''
“Nah, it's fine. I got it,” he says without looking up at her. Belly walks closer to him. “I didn't say if you want any help, Conrad. I said if you need any. So, can you please just put your hero complex aside and let me help you with the dishes?”
He chuckles lightly and tilts his head as he looks at her. “What does my hero complex have to do with this?” He asks as he gestures towards the sink, clearly trying to look annoyed but failing. “Well, I have a feeling that you're being nice to me because of what happened earlier today.”
Conrad stills, his eyes not leaving the sink for a few seconds before he asks, “Wh-what happened today?”
“You know when I cried in front of you over-” she stops, thinking about what to say. Over not going to Michael's. Over my so-called fiancé being as absent as possible. Over all of my plans going to shit. But she doesn't say any of that. She just says, “basically nothing.”
Conrad finally moves again, finishing the last plate. And Belly feels herself exhale deeply –she didn't even realize she was holding her breath.
“Oh, that,” He swallows. “Belly, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just..” He shrugs. “I don't know. I like doing the dishes. Or just chores.” He says, and then adds quietly, “It helps me get my mind off of..things.”
He dries his hands with a towel and takes a step towards Belly. Her mind goes blank and her gaze drops to the floor. She doesn't know what he's going to do but she can’t bring herself to move.
She can't help but feel a little disappointed when he pulls back and puts his watch back on his wrist.
They stand two feet away from each other, not saying anything for a while. Belly can feel herself getting frustrated and she doesn't want to admit the reason for it so she forces herself to take a step back. “I'm.. gonna take a shower. You know to get all the peach..”
''Yeah, I'll be.. here.''
*****
Belly allows herself to take a longer shower than usual. She opens a different playlist to listen to in the shower. A kind of a playlist that includes more songs from Folklore than 1989. Which was her go to for a normal shower. But this isn't a normal shower.
Belly is currently having thoughts that are not normal to have about your future brother-in-law –thoughts like how thrilling it was to have sex with him in her house's guest room four years ago. And also how it doesn't feel like four years ago because she can still replay every single detail about that night– so to get those thoughts out of her head she even turns the water colder than her usual temperature preference.
After her shower she moisturizes her entire body to help relax her muscles.
When she finally leaves the bathroom after God knows how long later she goes to her bedroom and puts on her lilac pajama shorts with an oversized light pink t-shirt on it, takes her laptop with her and goes downstairs to watch a movie in the sitting room because her cold shower suddenly made her wide awake and she doesn't want to spend her night in bed rolling over as she tries to force herself to sleep.
She finds Conrad sitting on the couch, with his hair slightly wet just like hers –he has changed from his peach stained t-shirt and khakis into a light blue t-shirt and grey sweatpants– He speaks without looking up from his crossword puzzle. “God, I thought you fainted up there, Belly.”
She chuckles, dropping herself to the other side of the couch. “C'mon, Conrad don't act like you don't know that I always take long showers,” She says suddenly feeling a lot more comfortable in his presence than she did earlier. See, the cold water worked.
She hears him take a deep breath before he murmurs, “Yeah, I do.” She starts to look for a movie to watch.
When she finally settles on It Happened One Night she starts the movie and goes to the kitchen to find some snacks to eat. “Aren't you gonna pause it?” Conrad calls out. “Uhh, no I know it by heart already. It's fine.”
When she goes back, she finds Conrad watching the movie, his crossword puzzle sitting on the corner, almost finished. She feels a strong sense of deja vu as she recalls the last time they sat in this very room, on this very couch. And to her surprise, that deja vu doesn't scare her. It makes her feel.. settled.
“I thought you always watch this one on the TV,” He says looking at her for the first time in the last hour. She doesn't know what to give as an answer to that. Because she simply can't tell the truth. Which is that, she just wanted to sit next to him, to spend a few more hours with him even if he won't say a word.
“Yeah, I did. But I already broke the tradition when I didn't watch it on my first night, last week. So, I figured..” She rolls her eyes. “Why not break it more?” That's the answer she manages to come up with and she gives herself a thumbs up in her head.
He nods, turning his gaze back to the movie. “Well, better late than never, right?”
She sighs. “Yeah.”
*****
They watch the movie mostly in silence, laughing together as they are in sync, leaning into the screen when something attracts their attention as if they hadn’t watched the same scenes a hundred times. Belly feels herself relax –maybe a little too much.
As the ending credits of the movie roll, Conrad checks his watch and gets up from the couch. She watches him as he stretches his body –his discomfort from sitting straight for almost two hours quite obvious– her eyes fixating on his back and the way his muscles work. She still doesn't want this night to end.
”Are you going to bed?” She asks as he starts to clean the coffee table.
“Don't know. You?”
She shifts and leans back against the armrest and stretches her legs on the couch. “Nope.”
He turns to her, an empty packet of sour patches in one hand and an empty packet of pretzels in the other. "Okay." He leaves the sitting room.
When he walks back into the room he sits back on the couch. But this time even more far away –if possible– as if her feet touching him is the last thing he wants. She wants to ask him that. She wants to ask him many questions to be honest.
But that's the thing, Belly cannot be honest with herself. She cannot be honest with herself to the point she literally forgot what actual honesty meant, to the point where she doesn’t even know if it’s her choice or not. And this past week has really made it clear to her that the claims she had been making in her head for the past four years were not honest. And definitely not real.
Thinking about the word ‘real’ makes her laugh internally. She used that exact word when she was telling Jeremiah that what she and Conrad had wasn’t real but they –Jeremiah and Belly– were. It had been four years since she said that to him while wearing his brother’s sweatshirt, covered in a scent that screamed Conrad, leaning against his brother’s car, waiting for his brother in his campus’ parking lot. That memory makes her wince. Having a feeling about her younger self she can’t quite name in the moment.
Belly is aware that she's not fully awake but she's also aware that she is in fact waking up. She wonders if Conrad can see that, if he can see right through her like he used to. She wants him to. God, she needs him to. Because what she's about to say to him now requires his full understatement.
“Conrad?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
He turns his her toward her, there’s a tiny knit between his brows and his lips are parted a little. “You’re.. welcome?”
She laughs, humorlessly. “Oh my- Conrad, you- do you really not know what I’m thanking you for or you just.. act like it?”
“What? Belly, no. Why would I do that?” The confusion on his face is growing bigger now. She can tell that he’s not acting which gives her no other option but to explain what she meant.
“I don’t know..” she scoofs. “I guess it’s because.. you used to see right through me. And now.. you not knowing what I’m thanking you for is making me feel like- like..” she inhales sharply not knowing if she wants to pour her heart out to him like this.
Conrad turns toward her even more, resting his hand right near her ankles, the side of his hand brushing against her skin. “What? What does it make you feel like?”
She shakes her head in an attempt to send the millions of thoughts in her head away. “Like we’ve grown apart.”
He presses his lips together, stilling for a beat. “Belly I don’t wanna sound rude but.. haven’t we already?”
“Maybe, but Conrad, It’s not the same. It was so much easier to act like this was all because of the thousands of miles that we had in between and not.. not..” she puts her head between her hands, trying to steady herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what the fuck I am talking about. I guess all the stress is messing up with my head more than I thought. And you’ve been nothing but nice to me. I shouldn't have dragged you along with all of this. I- ” Belly basically cuts herself off when she feels Conrad’s hand grab her ankle, gentle but also firm.
“Belly. Deep breaths.”
They take three deep breaths before Conrad speaks again. “Let’s go with one thing at a time. Okay?” she nods.
“Would you be fine with explaining to me what is the exact reason that you are thanking me for?”
She takes one more deep breath before she starts. “I’m thanking you for saying that whatever you buy I could have, for helping me with all the.. shopping, for suggesting that I use Susannah’s hydrangeas, for hyping me up when I was dealing with Jere’s cacao bullshit, for sensing that I was hungry and turning the car around so that I could eat those peaches, even though you knew you were still gonna be hungry because you’re allergic. And overall being the only person who has supported me both emotionally and in a real sense in this last month.”
Belly can swear that she feels a weight being lifted off of her chest with every word that leaves her mouth. She looks at Conrad, not knowing what he's thinking, and it thrills her.
After a moment of silence, Conrad finally finds his voice back again. “Belly, that was really nice of you to say. And you’re welcome. Of course you are. I really appreciate your honesty. More than you can imagine.” His thumb starts to trace circles on her ankles.
For a second she thinks that was all he had to say. And maybe he thought so too because Belly can see his eyes travel around the room before they settle on the fireplace.
He inhales sharply. And Belly almost laughs at the fact that they had been surrounded by the reminders of almost all the times they had sex.
First, it was his car –whenever she glanced at the backseat all she could think was how she rode him on it in that cold February night when he surprised her by showing up at her doorstep.
Then, of course it was him with those fucking flowers –just like the ones in her house’s guest bedroom when he went down on her, placing his hand on her thigh, stomach and mouth telling her to behave like a good girl and keep quiet. But then, failing to keep quiet himself when he was inside her, giving her no other choice to put her hand on his mouth then making him bury his face in her neck to muffle his groans and keep them from getting caught.
And now, the freaking fireplace. Their first time. It’s not like she doesn't have this subconscious thought whenever she glances at the fireplace but right now it’s different. Because he’s looking at it too, while he literally caresses her ankle –which Belly is for sure not freaking about that, not even a little.
“Belly, I need you to know that, when it comes to you there’s basically nothing that I wouldn’t do to help. Call it a hero complex.” He shrugs. “Call it what you want. I don't care. It has been like that for me since.. forever and it will never not be like that.”
Belly feels her heart melt from his words. She recalls the thought she had last December: A part of me will always love you. Looking back now, Belly can clearly see that she underestimated just how big that part was.
“And lastly, I have to say, I totally get what you feel but I don’t think I'm the only person that has been your supporter. I know Laurel isn’t onboard.. yet. But you have Taylor, Steven and Jere. They are always there for you. At least more than I have been in the last few years.”
“Conrad, I appreciate it but there’s more than you know.”
“Like what?”
Like all of the three people you just named are cheaters.
“Like when I called Jere crying and told him that I didn’t want to walk down the aisle and look at the faces of the people I have never met before, do you know what he said to me?” Conrad shakes his head. “So, don’t. Look at me,” She mimics his voice.
Conrad’s expression goes blank, his jaw dropping. He tilts his head. “No, he didn’t,” he says in disbelief.
She nods. “Oh, he did. And Taylor’s first reaction when I first showed her my ring was to laugh and ask me if it was made of tinfoil or not..Now that I think about it I can’t even blame her for it.” Belly tries to touch her ring with her thumb. But the ring is not there. It takes her a second to remember that she took it off before she went into the shower.
When she looks up at Conrad she can see his eyes fixated on her ringless finger. His hand goes higher on her leg, fingertips brushing her calf.
She wonders what he’s thinking at the moment. Like does he think she took the ring off her finger intentionally? Did she take it off intentionally?
“Me neither,” He says.
She feels herself relax even further under his touch by every passing second. Her eyes close and she finds herself saying, “I really don’t want to be thinking any of them right now or never.”
Conrad hums, the sound going straight between her thighs. “What do you wanna think about, then? He uncrosses her legs from her ankles. Then rests his hand right below her knee, waiting for her answer before going higher.
“This, you.” she doesn’t want him to hesitate so she puts her hand over the one that’s on her knee. Trying to give him the encouragement they both really need at this moment. Before everything changes for good, irreversibly.
Conrad holds her gaze for a moment, trying to find whatever it is that he’s trying to find. Then he slowly lifts himself off the couch, his hand never leaving her. Now, teasing the hem of her shorts. She wets her lips as she watches him. He puts his right knee between her thighs, as he places his right hand on the armrest, his forearm brushing her shoulder.
She feels like she’s in the most beautiful trap anyone could ever be in. But she doesn’t want anyone else to be in this beautiful trap that is: Conrad Fisher.
She knows it’s a selfish thought given that they aren’t together anymore but she can't help it nor she wants to. Isabel Conklin had a mental list of what she wanted to keep to herself and only to herself from a very young age and Conrad has never left the top of that list.
He presses his lips to where forehead meets her hairline. She can hear him inhale her scent. If she was having this moment with anyone else she would’ve used that as her advantage to tease the other person, to have the upper hand. But none of those thoughts even crosses her head. Instead she does the exact same thing, and takes a deep breath.
A moment later he pulls back. One of her hands goes to his arm that’s on her side as the other one goes to cradle his jaw. She wants to lose herself at this very moment.
And there is that look again. The look he gave her all those years ago when they were just teenagers, the look he gave her today earlier by the peach stand. She feels like the most precious being in the entire universe under his gaze. Like nothing that could happen would ever hurt her when she has him looking at her like this. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible.
She doesn’t even know what she wants to do first. Kiss him like there’s no tomorrow, cry in his arms and tell him about everything that happened, yell at him for keeping this side of him away from me for all of those years, fuck him like there’s no tomorrow. But she doesn’t do any of that. She just leans back and enjoys every single drop of this moment.
Because neither of them knows what the sun's gonna bring when it rises in less than twelve hours.
But there’s one thing that Belly’s sure they both know: they missed each other, religiously.
His eyes go down to her lips and stay there for what feels like a lifetime. And then they both finally lean into each other.
When their lips finally meet Belly feels like her sixteen year-old-self who got to kiss the boy she loved for years for the first time ever. But there's one obvious difference, this kiss feels even better. Too long. Belly thinks. Those years were too long to spend without having you like this. And now that she’s had him like this she doesn’t know if she’s ever gonna stop. And surprisingly she doesn’t feel guilty about it.
She had always thought cheating on someone was something that would make the cheater feel absolutely fucking guilty. But right now, as Conrad pulls her even closer, his hand reaching behind her back, letting his hands roam around her body just like the way he used to, Belly doesn’t even feel a friction of guilt. She doesn’t feel guilty because it's Conrad.
“Belly,” he pleads in between kisses.
“Conrad,” she pleads back. She feels him shiver lightly above her.
He moves about half an inch back. “Are we-” he starts but Belly pulls him back to her lips.
They keep on kissing, their bodies as close as they can be to each other.
He pulls back again after a while. “Are we really doing t-this?” he manages to ask as she kisses the mole on his upper lip tenderly, his voice barely a whisper.
“Mhm.” Belly hums in agreement. She's not sure what Conrad means by this. He might just be meaning making out. She hopes that he's not. She wouldn't survive the night if they stopped after kissing.
Conrad hums back, smirking. Belly kisses that smirk out of his face, trying to control it.
He starts to kiss her neck, biting playfully, sucking gently, exhaling intentionally.
“I missed this.” Belly says as she runs her hands through his soft hair, pulling the way she remembers him liking it.
He goes even lower, kissing the soft cotton of her light pink shirt. Then, he opens his eyes, and looks at her. She can see the glint in his eyes forming.
Their lips collide again, moving with a different kind of need. Their tongues meeting for the first time in years.
Conrad gradually pulls her to her feet and she happily obliges, not knowing where he wants to take her but still letting him guide her without a care in the world, without a single thought about all of the drama she had going on. Because none of them matters when she is in his arms.
When they pull back for air they both grin like they just won a prize. And Belly remembers just how devastatingly beautiful he looks when he smiles. She doesn’t ever want him to frown ever again.
She hugs his neck tighter, attempting to pull him back to her lips. But instead leaning in to kiss her, he leans down to grab her legs and she immediately understands what he’s trying to do, so to help him she jumps, wrapping legs around him.
He chuckles, looking satisfied with her movements and he brushes their noses together as he starts to walk out of the room.
She considers every second that passes without kissing him as a waste. So when he tells her to wait until he gets through the stairs to touch his lips she finds a solution by kissing his neck. And maybe biting when he can't find the doorknob of his room's door fast enough. He winces. “Ugh, did you just.. bite me?” He asks, looking at her in amusement as he leans her against the door.
She bites her lower lip, nodding. “Fuck, Belly,” He says with a smirk on the corner of his mouth. She leans to kiss him but he pulls his head back, clearly teasing her.
But she doesn’t want that, yet. Belly is not in the mood for any teasing. She thinks she might explode if they don't get into bed as fast as possible. So she grabs the back of his head pulling him back to her mouth.
After a beat she pulls his hair, which leads him to part his lips even more, a sound coming from the back of his throat. Their tongues meet again and Belly can’t help but grind her hips against him to take the edge off. But it only makes her want to get their close off faster.
One of her hands goes to the hem of his t-shirt. But before she can manage to take it off of him he says something to her,
“Door. Belly. Open it.”
It makes perfect sense that Conrad can’t open it himself, given that both of his hands are literally on her –one of them on her waist, the other one on the back of her head protecting it from the hard surface of the door– so Belly’s hand reaches behind her back and she finds the doorknob after a second or two, twisting it, and kicking the door open immediately.
He walks them on his bed with steady steps, putting her carefully in the middle. His hands go to his t-shirt, taking it off from his neck, throwing it to the floor. Her hands don’t stay empty, pulling his sweatpants down without breaking eye contact, not even for a second –Belly knows she has pretty eyes, and she definitely knows how to use them. Especially on Conrad.
Belly remembers to undress herself too and just as she was about to take her t-shirt off of her, “I wanna do it,” Conrad says. And she lets him take it off. Her sports bra and shorts go off next.
Then, he leans over her. Belly uses her elbows to push herself up higher in the bed, giggles when her head hits the headboard lightly. Conrad giggles too but there is also a concerned look on his face. “You good?” He asks, brushing her skin.
Belly’s heart warms, nodding she says, “Yeah.. Beyond good,” Then with a more playful tone she adds, “I can be even better if we take those off.” Her fingertips brush the waistline of his underwear, eager to take them off because from her point of view they look incredibly tight and painful to be in.
One of her fingers slips in and tugs at it. A moan escapes his lips, his eyes shutting like he’s trying to restrain himself. A beat passes and he nods. “Yeah, yeah. Let's take them off.”
Together, they pull his underwear off. When he throws it away it catches on the bedpost, neither of them even cares enough to even glance at it. When Belly looks at him she feels her mouth water at the sight.
He notices her staring but thankfully he doesn’t tease her about it.
“Belly, you can tell me if you want to stop. Doesn't matter when. The tiniest bit of discomfort and you tell me to stop. Okay?” he says with the sweetest tone. “Okay.” she nods.
“Still remember our safe word?” Conrad asks.
Nodding again, she gives him one final answer. “Yes. And I don’t want you to stop. Just to be clear.” She gives him a peck.
He glances at the wet line in the middle of her underwear and Belly can swear she sees his lips quirk up. Which, somehow makes her want him even more. She likes the smug side of him –more than she would admit.
He carefully pulls her underwear, the last piece of clothing they had in between, down.
When they are fully bare in front of each other she feels another weight being lifted off her chest.
His hand starts to travel down her body. Making a stop at her breasts as he kisses and sucks on one nipple and toys with the other one. He had always liked to show attention to her breasts and he knew just the right spots to show the most care to make her squirm underneath him –or one top of him if we’re counting the Valentine's day night they spent in the backseat of his car.
After a moment his hand moves lower. He looks at her before touching the part of her that had been burning for a while now. She nods in a hurry, and finally he lets his fingers dip into her folds.
“Oh, Conrad,” His name escapes her lips as she shivers under his touch.
“Fuck, Belly. You're soaking. Is that all for me?” He says looking up at her from where he was just kissing her sternum, his hot breath creating a strong contrast against the wetness of his spit that covers her entire chest.
She hums, not trusting her voice at the moment. “Mm, I guessed so.” Conrad murmurs as he gradually pushes his middle finger inside of her. A deep moan comes out of her mouth, his cock twitches on where it was resting on her upper thigh and he switches to her other nipple. After a few thrust of his finger he adds a second finger, working her open for him.
About half a minute later he pulls his fingers out of her. She whines at the loss of contact. “Shh, it’s okay. You're going to feel even better now.” He licks his fingers clean, a low sound coming from his throat as he tastes her.
Does he really like the way I taste? Or is this just for show?
Conrad pushes himself up, facing her again. He kisses her, smoothing her hair down.
Then, he stills, their foreheads still pressed together. “Fuck, Belly, I don’t have a condom.”
“Um..I can take a pill tomorrow,” She says quickly, not wanting the moment to die.
“You sure?” he asks, his thumb caressing cheek bone.
“Yeah. But I’ve never done it without a condom before. Just so you know.”
Conrad's expression changes into something almost cocky before hunger takes over it again.
“Me neither, Belly. You're the first.”
They kiss, as if to seal the importance of what they just said –and are about to do.
He lines himself in her entrance and despite the heat of the moment he still looks at her, as if to give her one last way out.
She nods, breathless to even say anything. But not as breathless as she feels as he slowly pushes himself into her with no barrier between them. They both groan each other's names loudly.
Once he’s settled into her fully he stills, letting the both of them adjust. The stretch that he gives her is mind-blowing and Belly can’t help but add the feel of him inside her to the mental list of the things that feels even better than they used to do.
She doesn’t know if it’s because he has gotten better or because she tucked every single intimate detail about him so far back in her mind that she can’t even remember just how miraculous it felt.
But she knows one thing for sure and it’s the fact that both Conrad and her are having sex without a condom for the first time in their lives. And just the idea of it –being Conrad’s first at one thing– is enough to make her even wetter than she was before.
“Conrad,” she swallows, grabbing his face with both of her hands. “Move, please.”
He kisses the corner of her mouth and pulls almost all the way out before he thrusts back in.
It’s obvious that he’s pouring his unspoken feelings into his moves. And Belly’s totally fine with him making love to her rather than fucking her like this is only physical.
Because even though none of them had accepted it yet, this is more about their infinite love for each other than it’s about their physical desires.
He looks at her like he's thinking about the exact same thing. She feels warm both physically and mentally.
His hands roam around her body like he's trying to memorize everything about her.
And her hands do the same thing.
His movements grow quicker with each thrust just enough to make her unravel with each one but not enough to make her come yet.
Conrad takes Belly’s left leg and places it on his right shoulder, creating a new angle for both of them to feel each other a lot more deeper. “Fuck!” She squeals. “You feel so good.”
“You have no idea how much I missed this.” Conrad says kissing the spot below her ear.
They go on like that for a long time. Kissing each other open-mouthedly, holding each other's gazes for several minutes, moaning without a care in the world given that they are the only two people in the house, whispering sweet nothings that mean more than either of them would care to admit–yet.
When Conrad finally starts to lose control the feeling gets even better for her. She can finally see just how much he feels lost in her and that does something to her. The knowledge of being desired by the man she had yearned for as long as she could remember is making her burn with lov- desire.
His hand goes lower to circle her clit to get her to the edge even closer. “Yes! Oh yes, Conrad! Just like that.” She moans deeply as the knot in her stomach tightens further. “That’s it. That's it sweetheart. I can feel how you clench around me. Come for me.”
Belly hears herself letting out an animalistic sound she didn’t even know she was capable of making. “I want you to come with me. Together.” She manages to choke the words out. Her hands dig into his back, definitely leaving marks.
And then, at the same time it hits them.
It's nothing like she had ever experienced before. The sharp waves of Belly’s orgasm makes her feel like she’s out of her body and floating. The ecstasy of it almost makes her black out.
She's for sure having the best and longest orgasm of her life. She barely registers the warmth of Conrad's cum inside her. The only thing she can register is Conrad's loud and deep groans mixing with hers.
When she starts to come back to her senses she finds Conrad collapsed on top of her, his full body weight dropped onto her like a blanket. His panting breaths hit her goosebump covered skin. She starts to smooth one of her hands onto his hair, the other one onto his back, tracing the places she left scratches all over almost as an apology for all the stinging feeling she must’ve had caused.
He leaves soft and absentminded kisses to the side of her neck and shoulder.
They hold each other after the extraordinary minutes they just shared.
Then, slowly he pushes himself up looking at her with that devastating post-sex look on his face. They smile at one another, lazily. He looks down at where their bodies meet and pulls himself out of her tenderly.
Both of them wince at the loss of contact. He rolls onto his back, turning his head towards her. He gestures to her to come closer and she rests her head on his chest.
They stay in that bubble for quite some time, their eyes closed, he kisses her temple several times. They hold hands in the dark.
“You know, I used to have this fantasy of having sex with you in your room.” Belly says, smiling to herself in the dark.
“Oh, did you?” Conrad asks, all smug. His voice is as deep as it can be.
She hits his chest playfully. “Don't laugh.”
“I'm not. I'm..” he sighs. “I'm glad to make your fantasy come alive. To make it real.”
To make it real. Real.
The words settle deep in her chest.
Just as Belly was about to drift into sleep she hears Conrad say her name.
“Belly?
“Yeah?”
He doesn't speak right away. The sounds and the lights of the fireworks come through the open window, making the night even more magical as she waits for him to speak.
“Good night.”