"That’s it." I pulled her ass forward, made her grind harder. "Come for me, Felicity."

"Haah... haaah... Lukas..." Her movements had lost all rhythm, becoming jerky and desperate. Her thighs shook against my hips. Her hands clawed at my back through my shirt. "I’m... I’m gonna... MMNNN!"

I sealed her mouth with mine right as she came, swallowing the sound of her release. Her whole body seized against me, hips bucking wildly, inner thighs clamping around my waist with strength I hadn’t expected. I felt the additional wetness flood through her underwear, through my shorts, evidence of exactly how hard she’d peaked.

The kiss turned sloppy, more breathing than contact, as she rode out the aftershocks against me. Little tremors ran through her body every few seconds, making her twitch and gasp and clutch at me like I was the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid.

"Oh my god." The words came out slurred, drunk on pleasure. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..."

"Felicity."

"Mmm?" She lifted her head. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. Her smile was the dopiest thing I’d ever seen on a face that usually projected nothing but sharp intelligence.

"That was just the preview."

She laughed, the sound warm and genuine, still catching her breath between the words. "Are you seriously quoting the movie theater metaphor at me right now? While I’m sitting in your lap with your hands on my ass?"

"Context felt right."

"You’re such an asshole." But the smile didn’t fade, and her hips kept moving in those slow, lazy circles against me even though she’d already peaked. The aftershocks were still rippling through her system, making her movements uncoordinated and honest. "A beautiful, talented, infuriating asshole who just gave me the best orgasm of my life while a superhero movie played in the background."

"The best?" I kept my tone neutral. "That’s a specific claim."

"Oh my god, don’t fish for compliments."

"Not fishing. Establishing a baseline." I squeezed her ass again, felt the full-body shiver that ran through her in response. "So I know what I’m competing with next time."

Next time.

The words sat between us, heavy with implications neither of us had explicitly agreed to yet. I watched the post-orgasm haze in her eyes clear by degrees, replaced by something sharper and more exposed. More real.

"Lukas." The lightness dropped out of her voice entirely. "What is this? Like, actually."

I could have deflected. Could have made the joke, changed the register, pulled us both back to safer conversational ground. The Oracle Feed had given me three separate opening lines that would have redirected this conversation toward something easier.

But Felicity Hardy had just come apart in my lap while trusting me completely, and she deserved better than the easy version of this answer.

"This is whatever we decide it is." I held her gaze, kept my voice level. "I have a girlfriend. You know that already. She knows I’m here with you tonight. She doesn’t know this happened, obviously, but she knows you exist and she knows we’re spending time together. And before you ask the next logical question, yes, things are complicated. Yes, there are other women in my life. Yes, this entire situation is the exact kind of interpersonal disaster that makes smart people turn around and walk in the opposite direction."

"But?"

"But I like you." The admission landed easier than I thought it would. Genuine. "Not because you’re gorgeous, or because that Aspect of yours runs at a frequency that makes every room you walk into look at you. Not because you make me laugh, though you do. I like the version of you that exists when you stop being what everyone wants to see. The real Felicity. The one who spent her entire childhood learning to be charming because charming was the only currency that made people stay."

Her breath hitched. The sound was quieter this time. Emotional instead of physical. A crack in the performance that had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with being seen too clearly.

"How do you do that?" Her voice came out barely above a whisper. "How do you just say things I haven’t even let myself think about?"

"Because I watch you." I reached up, tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. My fingers lingered against her jaw. "I pay attention to the parts that matter."

"And I matter?" The question was almost inaudible. Fragile in a way nothing else about her had been tonight.

"You matter."

She kissed me again. This one was different. Softer. Slower. The kind of kiss that carried weight beyond attraction. The kind that meant something neither of us had fully named yet.

When she pulled away, her eyes were wet. Not crying. Just full. The kind of full that came from someone finally saying the thing you’d been waiting years for someone to notice.

"I don’t know how to do this." Her voice cracked on the last word. "Be part of something instead of trying to control it. Share you with other people instead of making you choose. Trust that you won’t leave when someone better comes along."

"Hey." I cupped her face in both hands. "Look at me."

She looked.

"I’m not going anywhere." The words felt true in a way that surprised me. "You want to be my best friend? Fine. You want to be more than that? Also fine. You want to figure it out as we go and not put labels on anything until we both know what we actually want? That works too."

"What about Sloane?"

"Sloane knows who I am." The Heroine Bond Resonance hummed in my chest, warm and steady. "She’s known since before I did. And she chose to be with me anyway."

"She’s not going to be happy about this."

"She’s going to be territorial and possessive and probably slightly murderous." I grinned. "But happy? Sloane Fitzgerald hasn’t been happy about anything except explosions since before I met her. She’ll adapt. She always does."

Felicity laughed, watery and real. "You’re insane."

"Probably."

"This is a terrible idea."

"Almost certainly."

"I’m going to fall for you so hard it ruins me."

"Wouldn’t have it any other way."

She kissed me again, and this time when her hips started moving, it wasn’t desperate or frantic. It was slow. Deliberate. The grinding of a woman who’d already gotten hers and was now focused entirely on returning the favor.

"Your turn," she murmured against my lips. "Fair’s fair."