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He insists against it until he's red in the face—that there's nothing the slightest bit gentlemanly about sharing a bed with you, no matter how much he may want to. (He says that last part under his breath, but it doesn't escape you. You weren't even sure if he wanted it to.) He'll take the couch, he says, and you can have his bed. He'll make do. He's done it before, hasn't he? That's what he tells you, anyway, with a sheepish grin and the twirl of silken silver hair around his fingers.
Truthfully speaking, it isn't the first time you've been to the cluster of small basement rooms that Zen is proud to call an apartment, but it is the first time you're sleeping here. All things considered, it probably should have been the second, and you suppose it will be the first of countless ones, but maybe he's choosing to ignore that. You can't exactly blame him; the poor guy's standing there with a too-tight grip on the back of his couch, flooded with what you can only assume is every possible scenario that could play out after ten at night.
Of course, he knows better than to go forth with it—it's the whole reason he's claiming the couch at all—and he might keep rambling about men and wolves and this so-called "beast" of his if you don't make a move to stop him. Or encourage him, depending on how he chooses to interpret it. So instead, you reach for his free hand, fingers entwining, and grace him with a patient smile and a gentle tug.
"Come with me." It's a press, a suggestion rather than a command, and suddenly Zen seems to be red in the face for a different reason.
"Just sleeping," he says after he's composed himself and his grip on the couch has loosened. You can't tell if the limit is for his sake or yours.
"Just sleeping," you agree with a step back and the hope that whatever charisma the moment holds keeps you from crashing into a wall or a doorknob. "But no promises about cuddling." Or kissing. He's only given you one, burning and desperate and relieved all at once, and you still aren't able to shake off the taste of safety.
It might mingle better with home and all its lazy accompaniments.
Zen takes you up on the offer with a newfound smile, and laced fingers become linked arms as he takes the lead. "No promises," he repeats, laughing and nudging the door open, and his voice does more to ease the tension of firsts and the recollection of what happened earlier in the night. He seems to pick up on it, too, and gives your hand a squeeze and reassures you that you're secure here. No bombs. No hacking. No broken windows or strange men or chokeholds. "Just us," he says, "and sleep."
He doesn't turn off the lights.
The relief is a little more tangible when he urges you into bed first, when he swallows thickly before climbing in with you. It's the weight of him, here, instead of a tinny voice lulling you to sleep with songs and sweet words. Before, the warmth of him used to spread to every tip of you; now, he has your heart pulsing at the base of your throat, begging not to be swallowed down, and finding allies in trembling fingers and quiet wants and needs.
Not that you want to be stiff as a board next to him, or him next to you, but it turns out that way. (You have to cut yourselves some slack. It's been years for him; it's a first for you.)
Zen breaks the silence with another laugh of his, and with the rustle of blankets as he drapes an arm over your waist. And all the warmth of his phone calls and text messages spill over in the space between you, just from one gesture, and he closes it all in. Leaves no room for escape when he tucks your head under his chin and coaxes your ear up against the firm expanse of his chest.
"How are you?" His words are soft, a low hum against the top of your head, and his fingers are curled in the hem of your sweater, frantically pulling it down. You can't help but hide a smile in his shoulder—as if he'd really play out any wolfish intentions he had. But you find comfort in his question, and bite back a shiver when his fingertips trail up the dip in your back and his legs tangle with yours.
He's working with you in steps and gauges. Could you really ask for anything more careful? More loving?
"I'm okay," you tell him, and his shoulders slacken almost in time with yours. Slowly, your palm skims along his side, like he needs more solace than you do, and you can practically feel the hitch in his breath as he tenses under your touch. "I'm with you."
The way Zen tucks his knees in and curls up next to you says more than any look you might have seen on his face, or any sound he might have stifled. "You can't say things like that, babe, you can't"—his voice cracks a little, and this time it's hard to hold back a laugh of your own—"You don't know what it does to me." He settles a little more, limbs unfurling, muscles relaxing, and his fingers find purchase in your hair, stroking idly. "You don't know what you do to me."
For a while, you bask in the silence and the closeness of it all. Your body hasn't moved; your heart hasn't, either. There are moments, you've come to realize, that feel like opportunities to speak. Pockets in the silence, where the urge nearly claws its way out of your body, aching to live, to be known. You count them, and when the pockets come as frequently as seconds and begin to blur together, you blurt out, "I can hazard a guess."
Before Zen can ask what you're talking about, you're shifting in his arms, easing a leg over his hips as you sit up on your knees. It seems to take him a second to realize the position you're in, but his eyes widen, and he starts to choke on whatever words he's trying to form, and the more your weight settles on his thighs, the more it melts into gibberish.
"Zen." You're tracing the line of his jaw, focused on the almost instinctual pucker of his lips, and when you swallow your heart back down it starts up a hard drum in your chest. You're hoping he can hazard a guess about you, too, from all the haze in your words and the way your body locks above him. "Can I have a kiss good night?"
His chest rises with a gasp, as silent as it is wanting—and once he catches himself and clears his throat, he starts rambling again, a half-serious insistence on etiquette and sleep, and—
And you ask him again. You ask him like you want him, thumb brushing his cheek, voice dropping to a murmur.
This time, he sighs, and his fingers splay out over your hips, and he says, "I'm supposed to be doing this, you know... leaning over you, looking down at you like not touching you is killing me, making you melt..." He manages a breathy laugh. "You took my job, babe."
"You weren't doing it," you whisper back, and he tugs you down the rest of the way by the front of your shirt. He kisses you like he wants you, with all the relief that this is a second, that there will be a third and a fourth and enough that he'll lose count. He's as soft as he was the first time, lips moving in a rhythm that's growing more and more familiar to him, and you shudder against his half-open mouth when his hands slide up your back to pull you closer.
He pauses, eyes half-lidded, noses brushing, lips inches from yours, breath fanning out against you.
Then he takes his job back.