Loving Him (Ashton Irwin a.u.)

Chapter 32

His fingers ran through my hair, along my neck, my shoulders, down my arms, down my waist, my hips, my legs, and all the way back up again. His fingers tingled like fairy dust against my bare skin, warm, soothing, comforting. "I love you," he whispered against my lips, an almost-silent promise of commitment, faithfulness, trust, adoration.

"I love you."

"Move in with me?"

I pulled away from the kiss then, shocked to say the least. "What did you just say?"

"Maisie Lee, will you move in with me?"

He shifted slightly to lie on his side, his head propped up by his hand, his bicep flexing to withstand the weight. In the morning light his torso was beautifully lit, almost glowing with a heavenly golden light, casting small shadows in the valleys between his well-defined muscles. His ambrosial chocolate-brown hair was tousled and messy, the grin tugging at his lips lazy but boyishly handsome.

"Why should I?" I questioned with a cheeky smile on my face, my hands now resting against my bare stomach while they had been in his hair just moments earlier.

He shrugged as well as he could in his position, then studied my face for a moment before replying. "How good of a reason do I need? I love you and I pretty much spend all my time with you anyway so why not? Instead of me coming to your place after work to see you, or you coming to mine after work to see me, we just come home. And I don't know about you, but I am in fucking love with the idea of you being my home."

I smiled at him, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear, then leaving my hand against his soft but stubbled cheek.  "You think we should?"

"Maisie, I know we should."

"Then let's do it!" I cried, pulling him down to kiss me again and he rolled over to hover above me once again. "We're moving in together!"

"We're moving in together!" he shouted, his beautiful laugh shaking his chest before he shook his head and ducked down once more to plant a series of kisses down my neck.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I was sat on the floor of my bedroom sorting through my sock drawer when Saskia popped her head round the door with an inquisitive expression on her face.

"Whatcha doin'?" she inquired.

"Nothin'..." I replied with a shrug. "Just...stuff."

"Why are you being tidy? You're the least tidy person I know."

"I am not!" I denied. "My room's tidy!"

"Whatever. Seriously, though, are you doing?"

"Okay," I conceded. I stood up and shuffled across the room to her. I bit my lip to contain my smile as I approached her before I blurted, "Pete asked me to move in with him!"

Kia screamed, waggling her hands like they were on fire before wrapping her arms around me and hopping quickly from foot to foot. "I'm so happy for you!" We laughed and hugged for a moment but she quickly moved away with a new thought: "Wait, no, now I hate you. You're leaving me?!"

"Shut up," I whined, batting her arm as I stepped away and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. "I'm not really leaving you, I'm only moving, like, twenty minutes away. And I'll visit all the time."

"It won't be the same," she cried and wiped a tear from her eye. "Okay, you have to promise me that every day you will come here and we will watch TV and eat popcorn and chocolate and complain about how we're getting fat and then throw out the chocolate and then watch more TV and decide we need food and fish the chocolate out the trash and keep eating it, deal?"