Lindsey knew it was her before he even opened the door.
They hadn't seen each other off stage for days and one of them would break eventually. It just happened to be that he was typically the one to break first.
He opened the door and she breezed past him, scanning the room. When she was sure it was clear she turned to him and pulled her shirt over her head, "fuck me."
Well, that was enough for him. He grabbed her and bruised her lips with a kiss; tugged a little too hard on her hair. It was the way she liked it.
Usually.
She pulled back and he looked in her eyes. He was looking for something; for a sign she wasn't herself, that she had come to him at a time when she should have known better.
But the only thing he could find in her eyes was desperation and a crushing need that he could feel all the way down to his bones.
She surprised him. She took her fingers and laced them with his. She kissed his knuckles; the back of his hand.
"Not like that. Not tonight," she took him to the bedroom.
He hid his surprise well enough, and he slowly undressed her. She let him touch her in ways she hadn't allowed since they were still together. It made him ache to be inside her; to be gentle and look her in the eyes and show her his soul.
She was so, so beautiful it was almost blinding. It was like looking at the sun on a cloudless day. For the first time in so long she looked healthy. She wasn't just skin and bones and bitterness.
She looked like herself.
She touched him gently, like she might break him when clearly it was she who had been broken. He let her undress him slowly; her hands steady and her focus completely on him.
To his surprise, she did not mark him with each patch of skin revealed beneath her hands. She wasn't looking to bruise him or make him bleed so that he would remember her in the morning.
No, this time it was different.
This time she needed something else from him.
He ducked his head and attempted to look into her eyes. She met his briefly and she gave him a smile that didn't quite reach her brown eyes, but he wouldn't say anything. She needed something from him, and he would let her take it. He always did.
When she kissed him, it didn't hurt. She didn't sink her teeth into his lips and he didn't shove her down on the couch (and where was the couch anyway? Why were they in the bedroom?).
He kissed her back, slowly and languidly, like they had all the time in the word. Perhaps in this moment, they did.
He ran his fingers down her back. Instead of a hiss and a curse he got a moan and she pressed herself closer to him.
What was happening? Why was she being like this?
She reached for him and he stepped away. He didn't miss the look of pain that crossed her face and for a moment he hated himself for putting it there, but he had to know.
"What's wrong?"
She only stepped closer to him again; his knees hitting the bed when he stepped back. She sighed and pushed him to sit on the bed. She took his face in her hands and he saw her, really saw her, for the first time in a long time.
That was all he needed. He pulled her close; let her straddle his lap and slide onto him until he was buried deep inside of her and he didn't know where he ended and she began.
She let him look her in the eyes.
God, she was so beautiful.
She was so much like herself.
She felt familiar and new at the same time.
He held her close. There was no space between them. They didn't want it. Not here; not tonight and not in this moment.
She shook in his arms as she came and pulled him over the edge with her.
It was amazing.
It was beautiful.
She wrapped herself around him like a blanket.
In the morning she would be gone and it would be as though this never happened; as if it were a dream.
But for now, he had his Stevie.
That was enough for now.
