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The entirety of Emily’s apartment, except for the glowing beacon of her bedroom, is shrouded in darkness. It gathers thickly in the corners between the walls, broken only by the slightly lighter indigo of the night outside, let in by a hastily shoved open curtain hours since.
It’s quiet, too. The only sounds permeating the silence are muffled from the heavy oak of her closed bedroom door, shielding her and Aaron from the world outside.
She always wants it this way, she thinks as she watches his jaw go slack, the warm brown of his eyes disappearing as his lashes flutter shut. She always wants him laid back, languid. Safe enough to let her name fall from his lips in a low whisper, the sound rough around the edges, as tangible as the scratch of his calloused fingertips on her hips.
A shiver goes through her, despite the stifling warmth fogging up her windows. The cold outside is chased away, taking up no space in the safe haven between their bodies. There barely is any space; their hips are flush, their chests touching, noses just about to bump with soft crashes. Somewhere in her head she knows she’d never have allowed this five months ago, but Aaron has irrevocably shifted something in her and locked it tightly in place.
She didn’t do...this. Didn’t tug people—let alone her boss—into her apartment with the promise of the weekend stretching behind her, didn’t stifle any protests with soft kisses because she hadn’t wanted to hear them. She didn’t ache at the thought of them leaving because she was always the one who left without a second glance, lips reddened and hair mussed after she passed the slow hours of the night with someone whose name she didn’t remember.
Emily Prentiss didn’t do dating. Until Aaron pressed his forehead against hers and said he couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t simply be content with having her for a night, a quick tryst, a meaningless fuck. A mistake after a heavy case had turned into something more, and now he’s in her bed, and she thinks she possibly might be ruined.
Seeing him like this—unguarded, his lashes kissing his cheeks as he loses himself in her, finally allows himself to let go—makes her skin flush, her body curving to meet his. It’s hardly a new sight but Emily is enraptured anyway. She circles her hips, her fuzzy vision growing sharp to catch his reaction.
Aaron hums low in his throat and she’s breathless, mesmerized with the way he lets his head fall back until it softly thumps against the headboard. A strange urge comes over her; to cup the back of his head, gather the softness of his hair in her palm and dull the hardness of the wood beneath her knuckles. Her heart tumbles from her chest, too full of him to rightfully call her own, and as she digs her nails into the overly warm skin of his shoulders, the heat in her belly coils into a tight spring.
But his eyes, she needs his eyes.
So Emily slides her hand into his hair, tugs as she rocks her hips into his, and whispers, “Aaron.” Her voice just about cracks around his name. She’s close to begging, but she doesn’t have to.
Aaron opens his eyes. Emily smiles, her pulse tripping as brown meets brown.
There they are.
They’re a little glazed, the warmth of her bedside lamp reflecting in the depths of honey brown. Aaron mumbles something she can’t pay attention to as his hands skate up her waist, reach her face and cup her cheeks, thumbs gentle on the sharp line of her jaw as he brings their kiss swollen lips together. It sets her off; Emily tips over the edge and drags him with her, stifling both her moan and her relief against his mouth.
Again, three words had dangled precariously on her tongue.
Now they’re pressed firmly beneath her teeth, lost as her body tenses and relaxes, a matching rhythm to Aaron’s as their hearts beat out of their chests. Emily swallows the words down, feeling the itch of them down her throat as Aaron’s grip on her loosens, then tightens again. They slump together in a sticky mess, lips parting to draw breath into tight lungs. Emily needs the oxygen, but she doesn’t like the distance.
Aaron doesn’t either. He tilts his chin up; she tilts hers down. They meet in the middle, damp foreheads and ragged clouds of air and wandering fingers.
It’s habit to slip her hand into his hair. Emily drags her short nails down his scalp, draws swirls and lines as she feels the goosebumps rise along the curve of his shoulder. Aaron thumbs the curves of her waist. He traces circles, somehow both rough and soft as they catch their breath, his lips occasionally touching her jaw. She starts to feel the dull ache from her position, thighs encircling his hips, but moving is an egregious thought.
Aaron’s nose bumps into hers as he looks further up. Dimples play in his cheeks before he even speaks, a sight that makes her drag her hand out of his hair and press her finger onto the divot. It makes him smile wider, soft lips pulling over the glint of his teeth.
“Hi.” He says.
It’s become a ritual of sorts. His way of checking in, before the are you good’s and the how are you feeling’s and the was that too much’s. The brown of his eyes is content but searching, gliding over her jaw and cheekbones with gentle pressure that makes her shift impossibly closer, press a small kiss to his mouth.
“Hi.” She murmurs, moving to a dimple.
The first couple of times Emily had hid. From his eyes, his questions. Nobody had ever paid such close attention before—and she never wanted them to. One night stands were common; this…less so. It was too much, the weight of Aaron’s attention almost too heavy on her shoulders.
But she’s learned to get used to it. Accept it, crave it. “Hey,” she says again, wanting him to respond, to hear the gravel in his voice that she’d put there herself.
“Okay?” He cups the back of her head, the tips of his fingers a gentle weight between the threads of her hair. Emily nods, her lips traveling up to kiss the high point of his cheekbone.
“Mm, fucking—”
Her stomach growls. Loudly. The rumble of it breaks through their warm, post coital haze, loud and thunder-like in the silence.
Emily freezes. Her mouth falls open, her kiss lost as a searing blush travels through her cheeks. She leans back on Aaron’s thighs, her eyes wide and his amused.
“You didn’t—”
It happens again. This one is louder, an engine rumbling from behind the plane of her stomach. Emily buries her face in her hands. “Oh, Jesus.” She mumbles.
It gurgles.
She both feels and hears it when Aaron laughs, that high pitched one that still catches her off guard. It’s breathy and high and a reluctant smile itches at the corners of her lips but Emily doesn’t let it spread. In seconds his fingers wrap around her wrists and gently tug, until her hands are in his grasp and away from her face; he pulls harder to try and bring her back closer, but Emily resists.
Aaron ducks his head in an attempt to catch her eyes. “What was that?” He asks, the laugh still clear in his voice.
Emily huffs, an embarrassed heat still tinting her cheeks pink. She had been too distracted to linger on it, but now she feels the bottomless depth of her hunger, the twinge along her stomach. Her last meal consisted of one of Morgan’s granola bars and a bottle of orange juice she’d split with JJ. And that was…hours ago.
Her eyes travel to the clock on her nightstand, more as an effort to escape Aaron’s eyes than anything. It’s 10:56.
“You’ve had me in here for two hours,” she tugs her hands from his grip, crossing them over her talkative stomach. “And according to our esteemed doctor Reid, sex burns calories.”
Aaron groans lightly, slumping back against the headboard. “Please don’t say his name while you’re naked.”
Emily cracks a smile. Her stomach rumbles again and she hides a wince, staring right into Aaron’s amused eyes as it growls like an agitated cat. “Only if you’ll make me something to eat,” she bargains. As if they both don’t know he’d get up and make her something without anything in return.
“Fine.”
____
He can’t make her anything. She hasn’t got anything even remotely useful for him to make a meal from.
“Jesus, Em,” he mumbles, raking a hand through his mussed hair. It sticks up for a split second before falling back in his face, soft from the lack of gel. “How are you surviving?”
“Takeout is a wonderful thing.” She says as she shoulders her way between him and the fridge door. The warmth of his bare chest presses into her back, but she ignores it as she squints at the sparse selection in front of her.
Emily knew the meager contents of her fridge, but still she frowns. She has half a block of cheese and an empty tray of eggs. Condiment bottles line the side shelves, along with two spare beer bottles and a jug of milk that sloshes pathetically when she shakes it, nothing but dregs left. Emily puts it back.
“Huh. I could’ve sworn I had some bread.”
She physically feels it when Aaron shakes his head behind her, exasperated. It doesn’t help that her cupboards are equally empty except for instant coffee and a box of cereal.
“We’re gonna have to go to the grocery store.” He murmurs into her hair.
“Grocery store?” Emily frowns as she looks up at him. “Whatever happened to takeout?”
“Honey, we just had takeout four days in a row.” Aaron frowns back. He’s right, he is—they don’t exactly have time to whip up home meals in the middle of nowhere—but damn him, she can’t help it when he pulls out the pet name. It’s so sincere, too, so achingly tender that it takes all of her willpower not to melt into a puddle on the floor. “We’re going to the grocery store, I’ll get some stuff and I’ll make you some real food.”
The cold air wafting from the open fridge makes her shiver. Goosebumps break out across her skin and she kicks the door shut, wrinkling her nose at Aaron as she rests her back against it. “It’s 40 degrees outside,” she protests weakly. “We smell and look like sex.”
Her stomach is twisting itself in ravenous knots, but she can’t ignore the obvious. Aaron’s hair is messy, his mouth still freshly pink from her kisses. There are red imprints of her nails on his shoulder and blushing bruises along the line of his jaw.
She doesn’t even want to think about what she looks like right now.
But—
Aaron gently pokes her stomach, coincidentally in time with it as it screeches.
“I think we’ve got more pressing problems right now,” he laughs teasingly. “Come on.” His voice softens further, turns saccharine. “I’ll make you something. Let me make you something.”
Emily closes her eyes, groaning softly as her head falls back against the fridge. There’s a shift in the air as Aaron follows, his presence heavy and tangible though she doesn’t see him. His lips gently touch her temple. She feels the nausea start to stir, rising up from the empty pit of her stomach and making the insides of her cheeks pucker like she’d just swallowed something sour. One more kiss goes to her forehead. Another to her hairline; nudging, coaxing. Emily’s stomach gives yet another weak, pathetic grumble and she blows out a resigned sigh.
“What constitutes real food?”
____
Pancakes. Apparently.
“They’re my specialty,” Aaron murmurs as he takes a box off the shelf, “or so Jack says.” He also grabs a bottle of maple syrup.
Breakfast at midnight had never sounded particularly intriguing. But then again neither had stoic single fathers with perpetual frowns and deep dimples.
Tastes can change, she’s found. Enough to make her leave the comfort of her apartment to weather the deserted supermarket and the tangible cold hanging in the air. Her fingertips are chilly where they peek out from the cuffs of his sweater; she bunches the material between her fingers, though she knows his hand is much warmer.
“I trust Jack’s judgment with my life.” Emily says. She grabs another box. She doesn’t really know why she does that.
Aaron grins at her.
Emily’s heart skips.
Ridiculously, the only word she can use to describe him right now is boyish. Boyish even though she can see gray steaks among the shiny black of his hair, illuminated under the fluorescent lights; boyish even as smile lines and crow’s feet dig deep into his skin. In a gray hoodie and sweatpants more suited for home than the grocery store, he makes her feel special. Different. Nobody sees him like this, she knows; this isn’t Hotch in his perfectly tailored, pressed suits. This is Aaron, soft-eyed and dimple-cheeked and hers.
“I don’t think we’ll finish all of that tonight, sweetheart.” He raises a brow.
Emily shrugs. “I have a big appetite. Besides,” she takes a few steps closer, glad the aisle is empty as she leans in and lowers her voice, “I’m not done with you yet. We’ve still got the rest of tonight and all of tomorrow morning and the afternoon and—”
Aaron cuts her off with a kiss, his soft laugh spilling from its edges. The sound pours warmth down her veins; Emily kisses it off, swallows it up, traps it inside.
“One track mind.” He whispers, punctuating each word with a small kiss to her lips. The words are so tender, she heats up like it’s a compliment.
She hasn’t been a teenager in decades, but he brings back the same giddy jump in her pulse she used to feel when boys smiled at her, before broken trust and sterile clinics and an empty feeling in her gut. It’s the same, but also stronger, something else she can’t really describe sweeping her off her feet. Emily just knows that it’s dangerous, and she’s too far gone. Because why else would she leave her apartment instead of order in, why would she pile his sweater on top of the dried sweat on her skin instead of taking a shower, slip her feet into shoes and tie her hair up in a greasy mess that shouldn’t see the light of day? It’s cold, she’s sure she looks vaguely terrifying, so why?
The answer is two paces in front of her and tucked right under her teeth.
Emily had already known it. But right here, in the middle of a deserted supermarket where it’s almost just him and her, it fuses with her lungs, her cells, the fibers of her being.
“Emily?” Aaron’s frowning again, but not the usual frown she always sees. The edges of it are softened, concerned. She’d gone silent. “What’s wrong?”
She’s standing there, swallowed up in his sweatshirt, with berries and pancake mix in her hands. An extra box, though they don’t need one, to haunt her empty cupboard until his hand is there to reach for it.
It’s 11:32. 40 degrees outside. And Emily looks at him, and she can’t lie.
“I’m in love.”