THE SECONDS ARE MINUTES are millennia are just heartbeats. The sound of my breath, shallow and short, is a manifestation of my pulse thrumming wildly in my chest. Time has slowed down almost to a standstill. All the noise of the outside world is swallowed up by my sharp intake of breath. Quiet, silent, static. Everything but him and me ceases to exist.

And then I'm kissing him, and the entire world comes crashing back down in roaring technicolour.

Suddenly I'm too aware of the heat of his skin. The promise of his touch materializes in the way that his hand cups my jaw and his nose brushes against mine. His eyes are closed, lashes sweeping down to his cheeks, but I can feel the scorching of his pupils trickling down my spine.

My mind and body haven't quite synced up yet.

My hands move in a way that's muscle memory of every midnight fantasy I'd devised up in my head, my mind too dizzy from trying to piece together reality and Noel's mouth coexisting as one to even begin to catch up. There's no alcohol on my breath, but somehow all my senses are dazed, numb, and on fire all at once.

His lips are soft and tentative against mine, revealing hints of hesitation that I'm too quick to annihilate as I climb into his lap. His laptop has been shoved off to the side and long forgotten. I'm almost flattered, but I'm more focused on slowly lifting his glasses off, placing them to the side and stealing his undivided attention.

There's a plunge in my stomach that is always two steps behind what my hands have already claimed. His surprise is betrayed by the slight flutter of his eyes and the small tense of his hands, but slowly dissolves as I press into him, deepening the kiss, quietly asking for more.

"What was that you'd said before? I want to take my time with you?" I murmur with a smirk tugging on the corner of my mouth, pulling back to meet his gaze.

His eyes widen a fraction. "Christ, you remember that?"

"Remember?" I scoff, shifting in his lap, the friction igniting exhilarating sparks through all of my veins. "You're blushing as if I haven't been touching myself to the memory for weeks. You're not breaking your promise, are you?"

He swallows, but I can't miss the way his hands travel down to curl around my hips, barely dipping under my shirt in a way that makes my entire body hum. There's a tinge to his cheeks that I hope isn't remnants of fever, and when he opens his mouth for a rebuttal, all I can focus on is his bottom lip shining all kiss-bitten and just begging to be pulled between my teeth.

Honestly, if teasing him wasn't so fun, I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth off him.

"At this point, I don't think I could," he admits with a breathless quality to his voice that threatens to wind me. "I mean, I wanted to, you know, something more than this but Christ, stop squirming around so much or you're going to kill me."

Hands hooked around his neck, I tilt my head, capturing his gaze with a cocked brow. "More than this? Noel, I hope you know we're only getting started."

I rock into him with an indulgent grin, the thin layers of fabric between us leaving little to the imagination. A low, hoarse noise sounds in the back of his throat that I would've never expected from him but somehow feels like molasses dribbling down to my tailbone.

"I meant- Vika, I mean on Mark's couch, you haven't had breakfast yet, sweatpants, I-"

"Noel," I cut him off with a sigh. "I'm flattered, really, that you're so concerned about my breakfast, it's very cute, but it's fine. This isn't The Notebook, and I don't think your friend digging into my thigh really cares all that much."

He turns his head to the side, pointedly avoiding my gaze, and the way that his cheeks dust darker melts something inside of me. Still, his hands are still pressing tightly into my hips in a way that says he hasn't surrendered yet, hopefully something more than curiosity keeping him compliant underneath me.

And I can't ignore the genuine sentiments that are hiding behind my words, of how resoundingly right it is to be straddling him on this couch, in this apartment, completely hidden away from the world. The only currency that exists here is our feather-light touches, and that's all I need in this moment between the two of us.

In the back of my mind plays a reel of the birthday party we'd been to, of those sparkling chandeliers and bubbling champagne flutes and an entire life that seemed built into Noel's blood but always barely out of reach for mine. And in the same breath, Noel too. As if I'd been sentenced to never break anything more than being a spectator, a bystander, exiled to the outside.

But here, almost naked in more ways than just skin, suddenly it's not so far. He's more real to me than he's ever been, the way goosebumps rise to my touch, the way his breath hitches in his throat, he's so human it hurts. Suddenly that overwhelming unsaid hierarchy suffocating the memory of that night dissolves in our kiss.

Also, he's really fucking hot. So there's that.

"Listen, I was made promises, and I'm here to collect," I murmur, smirking as I gently take his chin between my fingers and turn him back towards me, demanding his gaze. "Tell me you don't want this. Tell me you want me to stop, and it's done."

My words are dripping confidence, but I can't help the minuscule, nagging little thought in the back of my mind that he might. That maybe we aren't as far away from the entire world as I feel.

In a move that honestly surprises me, Noel's hand lifts to curl around my jaw, those fingers I'd always watch lacing through Cleo's spotted fur now threading through my hair. I barely keep myself from entirely unwinding underneath his touch.

"Do you know why I passed out when I came here?"

My brows pinch, unsure of where he's taking this, but with the warmth of his palm bleeding against my skin, I have no objections. "Uh, 'cause you overworked yourself?" I haphazard, my voice seemingly faraway.

"Yeah, but- I can't believe I'm saying this." He draws a deep breath, and somehow, unconsciously, I'm holding my breath too. "Vika, I wanted to see you. I came straight from work here as soon as I was done because I couldn't stop thinking about you all week. It's been killing me trying to stay away. Almost literally."

His burning gaze completely devours mine and immediately steals the air from my lungs. It's too much, there's too much drowning in his coffee dark eyes, and I'm drowning in it too.

I have no answer other than to pull him in for another kiss, wet and hot and frantic, needy in a way that I'd never admit to. I'm chasing his mouth with a hunger that's scorching too hot in my belly, twisting and coiling as he tightens his grip on my hair.

I can feel his movements resonating in the way he's stirring underneath me, against me, stiff to the touch. Any uncertainty has vanished between us, replaced only with the all-consuming need to get closer.

Wandering fingertips dip under the waistband of his pants, but our kiss doesn't break, refuses to. The heat of his mouth drips all the way between my thighs in a rain of sparks that have me completely unwinding. The blood's pumping in my ears in a way has a moan building in my throat and he's barely even touched me.

I'm hindered by silk, and a smirk once again toys on my lips as I gently pull down his sweatpants to reveal a smooth, glossy flash of cherry red. It's completely unexpected but thrills me like no other pair of boxers ever have in my entire life.

"Silk boxers?" I muse, mouthing the words into skin under his ear. "Well, aren't you a regular Casanova."

"They're comf- Christ, Vika," he breathes out, the words dying from his lips.

"Hmm?" I murmur, a little too cocky for my own good as I pepper kisses down his jawline. "C'mon, you can tell me."

His head falls back, exposing the Adam's apple of his neck and soliciting all sorts of filthy thoughts running through my mind. There's a new boldness spurred by the unraveling of Noel underneath my touch, completely at my mercy.

And somehow what threatens to obliterate me are the soft reassurances he's still rubbing into my hips in small circles, gentle but still enough to remind of his presence, remind me of something I'm not sure I can quite swallow. It's almost enough to be unfamiliar, but I never want him to stop.

"Shouldn't-" he says, but his breath catches and I can barely contain myself, to the point where when he does manage to lift his head, slight hints of composure returning, I'm almost disappointed. "Wasn't I supposed to be the one fulfilling promises?"

I tilt my head, amused, as I place another kiss on the corner of his mouth. "Oh, is this not good enough for you? Should I change it up?"

"Vika- I mean, fuck, you're going to be a death of me, you know that?"

When I meet his gaze, I'm beaming. "Is that a no?"

"No-"

"No?" I raise my brows.

"I- let me, when I make a promise, I tend to keep it," he says, but I'm barely listening as both of his hands migrate from my hips to my neck, cupping my jaw and pulling me closer so he can capture my mouth into a kiss. Everything but the warmth of his mouth is long forgotten. When he pulls away, he's smiling. "Would you let me keep it?"

These sorts of things leaving his mouth should be fucking illegal.

I all but keen into him, nodding my head as all the impatient and eager words collect too quickly in my throat before I can even get my mouth around them. He chuckles, deep in a way I've never felt deep.

Then he's nudging me off, and I'm missing his warmth before I'm reluctantly moved to my back. I meet his gaze. His pupils are blown, wide and dark, and the red tinge is still clinging to his cheeks in a way that echoes throughout my entire body.

I've never seen Noel so affected. And it could, quite possibly, be one of the hottest things in the world.

He's hovering over me, caging me in under the couch, but I can't even begin to make sense of it before his hands are travelling down, over and under and leaving a sensory fire in their wake.

His touch is slow, wandering, as if he's committing every moment to memory. It drifts up from my neck, to my jaw, to my cheekbone. He's barely brushing against my lips in a way that can only be described as a tease. Noel pauses, and I can see a look of consideration cross over his features before he's gently pressing his thumb along my bottom lip and I'm gone.

Without breaking eye contact, his thumb falls into my mouth, so soft it almost hurts, and I'm readily running my tongue along his skin. It's an uncharted territory between us, but I can't deny that it has my stomach and thighs tightening in eager approval, a faint hum sounding in the back of my throat.

He seems almost as mesmerized with it as I am, though, judging by his breath hitching audibly in his throat.

Noel blinks, and only moves his thumb to replace it with his mouth, warm and inviting and shooting tingles down every inch of my body. "Was this was you were thinking about all week?" he asks, and for a moment I have to remind myself to breathe.

"Better," I admit.

He chuckles, dropping another kiss on my lips as his hands stray farther down, dipping under my shirt only to climb back up to my bra, which I'm surprised I'm still wearing. My chest is heaving and I realize that we haven't even had the decency to get undressed yet, our clothes a wrinkled mess between us, but I don't mind. "You'll have to show me," he says.

Somehow, in this apartment, I've got all the time in the world. There's no deadline to learning every contour and crevice of his body, or of him discovering mine. Time's a consequence of an outside world that can't touch us.