Something else was looking better by the moment, Tarin thought, as Lee stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck like she had earlier.

Lee looked up at him and Tarin wrapped his arms around her waist, fully intending to stay right there for the next however long. Lee had an excellent point, after all. Baseball wasn’t going anywhere for at least another month and there were plenty of games left.

Lee stretched up that extra little bit to kiss him and Tarin sighed slightly as he kissed her back, but boy that kiss was far too short and then Lee was shrugging and walking away and talking about baseball.

”Nuh uh…” Tarin said, reaching out to grab Lee’s hand and pull her back to him, ”Forget baseball…”

Lee smiled when she heard Tarin’s voice and felt him grab her hand to pull her back. ”Forget baseball?” Lee asked innocently as she turned to look up at Tarin again. ”But I thought you loved baseball, Tarin?”

Shifting her hand in his so her fingers entwined with his, Lee smiled up at Tarin. She lifted her other hand up to rest it on his shoulder as she looked up and into Tarin’s green eyes. ”If we’re not going to watch baseball, and definitely aren’t going to watch either of those documentaries, then what are we going to do?”

”Oh, I do love baseball Lee…” Tarin said as Lee turned around and he pulled her closer. ”I just love you way more.”

Their fingers were entwined now and Lee’s hand was on his shoulder and Tarin just had to smile again as Lee spoke.

Holding her gaze as she looked up at him, Tarin reached out, wrapping his free arm around Lee’s waist to pull her closer.

”I can think of a few things, and none of them involve the TV…” Tarin said, leaning down just a bit so that they were very close but he could still look into Lee’s eyes for a moment before he closed the distance for a much more thorough kiss than before.

Lee smiled as she heard Tarin speak. ”I love you, too,” she said softly. As she stood there, and felt Tarin’s free arm wrapping around her waist to pull her closer, Lee moved the hand on his shoulder to wrap her arm around the back of his neck.

But then Tarin was leaning closer as he spoke. Lee smiled wider even as she bit her bottom lip, looking up the small distance to Tarin’s eyes.

”I like the sound of that…” Lee murmured just before Tarin closed the small distance to kiss her. Returning the kiss, Lee released Tarin’s hand, moving it up to join the other wrapped around his neck, pulling her up and closer to him.

Well, that settled that, Tarin thought as Lee’s arms
found their way back around his neck and she pulled herself closer this time.

She liked the sound of his suggestion for the night and as they kissed Tarin vaguely wondered how it was that they tended to end up like this in the kitchen. The thing was though, they’d ended up this way in the entryway, the living room, the shower, and both of their rooms as well…so maybe location was immaterial.

It didn’t matter either.

Now that they’d decided what they were doing, the rest of the evening stretched delightfully in front of them and after a while, Tarin pulled back.

”Don’t forget to turn your siphoning off.” he said softly, only just remembering that he’d promised to help Lee remember.

As they stood there kissing, Lee couldn’t help but think that this was a good way to continue the night after the tension and stress she’d felt while they were cooking.

Yes, Lee knew that she hadn’t needed to be that stressed about cooking, that most people weren’t. But knowing that hadn’t stopped the tension from taking over her body as she and Tarin had cooked. And even when things had actually turned out well with dinner, there was still tension leftover in her body.

Feeling Tarin’s arms around her waist as she hugged herself closer to him, while they kissed, that stress and tension was not only leaving her body, but she was forgetting about it.

At some point later, Tarin broke the kiss and pulled back to look at her.

And reminded her to shut her siphoning off.

”Thanks,” Lee said softly. Closing her eyes for a moment, Lee shut her siphoning off. ”Now where were we?” Lee stretched up again to go back to that whole kissing thing.

Lee seemed grateful for the reminder about her powers and Tarin smiled even as she closed her eyes. Soon enough, Lee spoke and they were back to the whole kissing thing.

This was vastly preferable to documentaries and even baseball, though any opportunity to get Lee in his hat was hard for Tarin to pass up and she hardly even complained anymore… Lee was right though, they could watch baseball any time, no matter the present company.

Even semi-rational thoughts were becoming cumbersome and slowly faded into the background as they stood there, still in the kitchen, and kissed. This was only going to be practical for so long, Tarin knew, but since they’d cooked dinner at home and saved all that time in a restaurant or walking they had plenty of time.

So, for the time being, Tarin just wrapped his arms around Lee a little bit tighter and continued to kiss here right there in the kitchen, thinking that there was a solid chance that he was the luckiest person in two different universes.

Lee hadn’t even thought about her siphoning until Tarin had mentioned it, but was very glad for the reminder because the next evening, with having to go to the airport to pick Kevin up was going to lead to a long, very energized night.

But that was a problem for future Lee. Present Lee was back to being very distracted by kissing Tarin, feeling his arms wrapped around her waist.

And as she tightened her arms around Tarin’s neck to pull herself up and closer to him, the fingers of one hand slipped into the hair at the back of his head.

It was a little strange to Lee still to not feel her siphoning, not to feel any energy when she was touching someone. Never mind touching someone with this much contact. But the benefit of kissing Tarin, no matter where they were, was that it didn’t take long for Lee to forget about even that. Which was very good as every second that ticked past was making Lee wish there was more than just kissing going on.

Just a few moments ago, Tarin had thought that he could probably stand there and kiss Lee for the rest of the night and be perfectly content. Then Lee had gone and pulled herself just that little bit closer and her hand found his hair and all of a sudden, kissing just wasn’t going to cut it, not anymore.

It was never an easy feat to walk while they were kissing like this, but Tarin figured that with as much as they’d been practicing lately they had to at least be getting a bit better at it. Besides, the alternative was to stop kissing and at this point that just seemed silly, even if Lee was at a distinct movement disadvantage with the way she was standing.

Tarin managed to turn them then, ensuring that if anyone ran into any walls it was going to be him, and started walking them backwards towards the rooms. Most of the something elses he’d had in mind were in that direction anyway.

Lee was up on her toes, to reach Tarin’s lips for the kiss and to be as close to him as she could be while standing. Her arms around his neck and his around her waist helping to keep her balanced.

A balance that was thrown off when Tarin seemingly suddenly turned them and started walking. It was hard to walk while they were kissing, even harder when she was pulling her up and as close to Tarin as she currently was.

But Lee couldn’t help but smile into the kiss. If Tarin was trying to get them to walk, it meant that kissing in the kitchen wasn’t enough. No matter how amazing the kissing was.

Then Lee stumbled slightly, though somehow managed to not break the kiss, and her hand tightened in Tarin’s hair. It only took Lee a moment to recover before she was walking along with Tarin again, though she didn’t loosen her grip.

Well, this was kind of working, Tarin decided as they slowly moved backwards through the apartment. The last time they’d done this had Lee been in heels? It was almost funny, and the whole problem would have been solved if they’d just broken the kiss long enough to walk the remaining distance, but neither of them seemed remotely interested in that as an option.

Lee stumbled a bit and Tarin stopped to give her a chance to regain her balance, but then Lee’s hand tightened in his hair and the half of Tarin’s brain that had been focused on walking carefully just shut off completely. The fact that she could get that kind of grip probably meant that he needed a haircut, but Tarin absolutely wasn’t thinking about that.

Nope, in that way that they had a tendency to happen, things had suddenly gotten far more urgent and Tarin started backing the two of them up more quickly figuring if Lee had trouble keeping up, he’d just drag her along or something. It wasn’t very far and soon enough his back came up against what had to be Lee’s door and he was blindly trying to find the damn door knob to open it, but the stupid thing had apparently disappeared.

When they started moving again, even with how distracted and occupied Lee’s brain was with Tarin and the kissing, she noticed that they were moving quite a bit faster than they had been. The fact that they were moving faster wasn’t a problem. In fact it was a very good thing. The problem was that she was trying to walk that fast while standing up on her toes and pressed so tightly against Tarin.

He also didn’t seem to care that much; his arms around her pulling her with him when she wasn’t moving fast enough even as the kiss had become more urgent and passionate.

They ran into something, the sudden stop of their momentum caused Lee to press even more against Tarin, and she moaned softly into the kiss. Lee didn’t even realize that one of Tarin’s arms ahad disappeared from around her.

Why were they still standing? The small part of her brain that was still forming actual thoughts wondered. Why were they still wearing so many clothes? The hand that was not in Tarin’s hair dropped down, slipping under Tarin’s shirt before sliding up his side.

The doorknob. Was. Not. There. Deciding that this door was well on its way to ranking up there with buttons on the list of things that he absolutely hated, Tarin struggled in vain for another moment then gave up for time being. Lee still had ahold of Tarin’s hair and now her hand was moving up his shirt and the half of Tarin’s brain that was still valiantly struggling to function was threatening to shut down.

His arms were back around Lee now, pulling her against him almost desperately, and Tarin’s heart was beating so hard and fast he was shocked he couldn’t hear it as he moaned back into the kiss. This was not sustainable and without thinking he reached back again, fumbling for the door knob in one more futile attempt to get them inside the room before he gave up on that idea all together.

This time, because he’d reached with the other hand, Tarin found the doorknob and was just brainless enough that he turned the damn thing without thinking about the fact that both he and Lee were pressing against it with at least their whole combined weight.

The door definitely opened then.

As her hand moved up Tarin’s side, Lee felt him tightening his arms around her, trying to pull her even closer if possible. Lee’s breath caught in her throat as she tried to slide her hand around to Tarin’s back, but was unable to because he was pressed against the door.

When she heard Tarin moan into the kiss, Lee felt a shudder run through the entire body. Wherever Tarin had been trying to get them, they needed to get there. Quickly.

Suddenly, they were moving. But not the way Lee had been expecting. She was still moving toward Tarin, still pressing close against him. They were also falling.

It was so unexpected that Lee didn’t even have a chance to react before Tarin had hit the floor with her landing on top of him.

Well. They’d made it inside the room.

For a moment when the door had come open it had been like things were moving in slow motion, but they’d sped up rather quickly as Tarin had stumbled backwards, dragging Lee with him as he fell down to the floor with her on top of him.

That definitely could have been worse.

For a moment, Tarin stared up at the ceiling of the room, blinking in shock at what had just happened and keenly aware that despite the unorthodox way they’d found themselves where they were, Lee was still on top of him and they weren’t standing in the hallway anymore.

”You okay?” Tarin asked, still breathing heavy, heart still racing, as he pushed up onto his elbows to make sure Lee was alright, because if she was…