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“Guess I’m still dreaming.”
Ashley starts at his voice, watching in helpless dismay as the emptied vanilla pod she was saving for the genoise slips from her fingers and disappears amongst its seeds in the scalding cream.
For the nth time since they— finally— got together a year ago, Ashley wonders if she will ever get used to his non-existent tread. The man was quieter than a cat skulking on a carpet.
Ashley turns from the stove, ready to level an accusatory glare at the owner of the kitchen she was currently commandeering. Instead, her breath catches for the second time that minute at the vision of him in all his sleep-rumpled glory—mussed tow-coloured hair, stubbled jaw, limpid blue eyes sparking like ice chips. No doubt in amusement at her surprise.
Yeah, seven weeks of radio silence and two thousand and nine hundred miles of separation can do that to you, Ashley muses idly as her breath quickens, something warm and ineffable effusing in her chest, clenching her heart and making her ache . Ashley stares, transfixed, as he pads around the countertop and sweeps her into an enveloping hug. The familiar squeeze of his arms, his scent, and the measured cadence of his heartbeat calms her instantly, a salve to her frayed nerves in the wake of his departure for yet another assignment.
Ashley hadn’t even noticed she had been so on edge, the anxiety a creeping, crescendoing white noise ingratiating itself into her life until it gripped her in its throes. The facade she invariably donned outside of this apartment had probably been steadily slipping too, she realises belatedly, recalling how Hunnigan had taken pity on her and stopped her from pacing a hole into the carpeted hallways of the White House with a hushed assurance that he would be landing that night.
Now, here in his sunlit kitchen, with her head safely tucked beneath the strong stroke of his jaw, every intake of her breath suffused with his clean brutish scent, and her own heartbeat slowing to almost match his, Ashley was struck by the stark contrast his presence made in her life. The murky static of the long, empty days banished and everything drawing into full focus now.
Codependence, emotional dysregulation, unhealthy fixation. A few choice terms from her roster of shrinks come to Ashley’s mind. But none of their neat clinical jargon captures just how right she feels when the two of them are back in each others’ orbit.
“What were you dreaming about?” she asks, taking one last shuddering inhale of his scent before pulling back to meet his eyes.
“Easier to show you.” His voice, husky from sleep and muffled as he presses hot laving kisses against the pale column of her neck, intent on rebranding her where the marks he had left on their last night before his mission had faded.
Ashley pushes ineffectually against his chest, desperately clinging on to her rapidly waning presence of mind before he throws a wrench—more like his dick—into her plans for the day.
The tendrils of a plan had been taking shape in her mind in the months leading up to this day. But it was Hunnigan’s tip-off that he would be back in time that sent Ashley into a late-night frenzy cobbling together all the necessary provisions, including wheedling the Executive Chef into giving up their last Pompona bean.
“Wait.” Ashley exhales in a gust, squirming like some woodland creature caught in a predator’s grasp.
“The cream—” She gasps as his rough-hewn arms tighten further round her waist. His vise-like grip, the demanding open-mouthed kisses travailing the delta nestled behind her clavicle, and his member—insistent and very much awake—prodding against her navel, all sapping her breath in equal measure.
“What are you making anyway?” He moves on to nibbling on the delicate lobe of her ear, as if he could figure out the recipe by attempting to lick every exposed inch of her skin.
“... let you have a taste if you let me go,” Ashley ekes out.
“Yeah?” He relents, pulling away and resting his forehead against hers. A corner of his lips quirks up in an indolent smirk, his half-lidded gaze soft.
Like the cat that got the cream .
Ashley chuckles at the comparison, slipping out of his grip and hurrying to tend to the stove pan.
She tosses a wide easy grin over her shoulder at him, chin tilting towards the coffee pot perched on a corner of the countertop.
“Caffeine’s over there if you need help waking up.”
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He could get used to this.
Waking up to the melodious, blissfully prosaic symphony of Ashley Graham puttering around in his kitchen: the clink and clatter of metal against glass; the tick, pop and hiss of the gas stove; and the absent-minded humming of his favourite person on earth.
He laid on his sheets, unblinking, wondering if he had finally succumbed to sleep after crashing in bed at the ass crack of dawn, and these auditory hallucinations were the beginnings of a dream. One last merciful sweet reprieve before the horrors started.
The mission had been rough—even for him. And as he had taken down the last of those creatures , he knew, deep in his marrow, that it wouldn’t be the last he would see of them. They would always be there, in the folds of the night, in the fringes of his consciousness, ready to invade any time he let his guard down, grasping at any instant of vulnerability.
But there would always be one person to make it better, he thought, the decadent aroma of vanilla spurring him out of bed. He followed it like a hound scenting its game to the open kitchen in an attempt to verify the state of his consciousness.
And there she was, her back to him.
Limned in the golden light of the day, she was positively incandescent. Sunlight picking out the burnished golds of her wheat blonde locks, petite frame poured into a ludicrously short white summer dress, the green ribbon of the apron ties adorning her waist like fucking fondant icing.
He watched her bend in concentration over the stove, unaware of company, that flouncy fucking skirt riding higher to reveal the curve of her delectable ass. His tongue darted out unconsciously from his lips, wondering which of her drivers was the lucky bastard treated to an eyeful of her legs today as she alighted the car. He had caught Gerald—the greasy thirty-something who always looks like his dick’s still wet and he’s ready to recommend a good fucking pinot—ogling her behind his dickwad shades. The look he had shot Gerald in return was enough to wither his dick and have him unconsciously cupping his balls.
At least Gerald would never know what Ashley’s bare legs actually looked like. Miles of buttery skin, shapely thighs and coltish calves tapering into china-fine ankles of a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Wrapped around his waist, hanging on for dear life while he rutted into her on her bathroom counter against the wall-length mirror when things had gotten out of hand during one of their showers many nights ago.
This was definitely a dream, he thought, greedily drinking in the sight of her hovering ever lower over whatever was simmering on the stovetop, trying to paint the image on the back of his eyelids like some kind of palinoptic balm against the fucked-up freakshow of the past seven weeks.
And he had remarked out loud as such, abruptly announcing his presence, earning an adorable gasp and heated look from her for the ensuing mishap.
Now, with her in his arms, soft and pliant as freshly whipped cream and fucking redolent of vanilla, he thinks again how easy it would be to get used to this. Not for the first time, he toys with the idea of putting in a request for a transfer, retreating away from the tip of the spear and doing whatever it was that would allow him to keep Ashley barefoot and pregnant, with him beside her in all her weekly escapades of whipping up some new variation of pancakes.
He is banished to the other side of the kitchen island, content to nurse a cup of coffee—black as tar, just how he always takes it—while Ashley, still flushed and tremulous from his ministrations, begins to aerate the flour. The inevitable mini snowstorm coats her with a smattering of powder, settling in her hair and dusting the wide expanse of her exposed bosom.
He tracks, eyes darkening in rapt fascination, the flour trapped in the plush valley of her cleavage, visible through the keyhole detailing in the bodice. The cut of her dress is low enough that it’s a toss-up whether she bothered with any underwear.
He almost leans over to tug at the ribbon holding her neckline to check. The whim is tamped down just as quickly as it had formed. He had never been one for instant gratification—years of self-mastery as a battle-hardened agent had seen to it. He knew just when staving off would make the payoff that much sweeter, that much more intoxicating, that much more earth-shattering.
His girl wasn’t the only one with plans, his thoughts drifting to the velvet box in his nightstand drawer.
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Ashley breathes a sigh of relief as she slides the cake batter into the oven and carefully sets the timer, shooting an accomplished beam at the man helping her up.
He had traipsed back from a quick freshening-up in between the convoluted steps of batter prep and had promptly attached himself to her at the hip. Nuzzling and nipping and suckling at her like a touch-starved dog.
It takes her a while to register that he is murmuring. Sofuckingsweet,missedyousomuch,sofuckingsoft,sohungryforyou,fuckingstarving. Words falling from his mouth like benediction.
“Mmmm,” Ashley affords him chaste pecks on the cheek— one, two, three— valiantly refusing to break rank. The cake had to be frosted and ready by noon, and then she will put some proper food in him to make up for weeks of field rations. “Help me with the strawberries?”
He doesn’t listen—he never does—calloused thumbs reaching round to rub her clothed nipples, his mouth following after, teasing them into dusky peaks till they are straining heavily and visible against the translucence of her damp bodice.
No bra , he smiles winningly.
“Leon, c’mon—”
One blue eye opens lazily up at her, those accursed lips still wrapped around one nipple. Ashley would have laughed at his boyish sulk if she weren’t so terribly aroused.
She marvels at him, this absolute god of a man, tamed and yielding at her feet. A simpler version of himself, away from the carnage and bloodbath of his reality, stripped bare from the accoutrements of his profession. Face scrubbed clean of fatigue, eyes feverish with want, jaw—perpetually clenched from years of self-surveillance—finally slackened and peppered with bristly stubble that she just knows would feel divine rubbing against the insides of her thighs.
She is the first to relent. Those imploring husky eyes and the petulant set of his pout doing her in. “We’ve got twenty minutes,” she sighs, warily eyeing the oven timer.
He has her bent over the countertop before she even registers what is happening, trapped between his muscled thighs like a pinned butterfly.
His breath is hot and ragged, moistening the shell of her ear, “Plenty of time to spare.”
A quick whip of his wrist and her skirt is flipped around her waist, the flesh of her bottom pebbling from the exposure—and anticipation.
Ashley wonders how she could have been this mistaken. That this man of hers, this simpler version of himself—unarmed, intimate, in fucking sweatpants—was closer to a ravening wolf than some mutt in heat.
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He was a man of efficiency.
Serving had a way of drilling that into you, amongst other things. Make every ammo count, calculated blows and all that jazz.
So, he had meant what he said, silently vowing to have Ashley glazed in his cum and three punnets of strawberries washed, trimmed and sliced before the timer went off. He had more than proven his prowess in both the sex and knifework departments, thank you very much.
But the instant his eyes land on her pert little ass, he knows he will have to eat his words.
“What the fuck is this?” he grits out, harsher than intended.
Ashley flinches as his finger hooks and snaps the waistband of her panties—if they could even be called that—against her ticklish flesh.
He was no stranger to lingerie; Ashley had seen to that with almost dogged determination, flashing him with peeks of silk and lace beneath pressed preppy skirts whenever she had him over. But this was new ground. A diaphanous buttermilk confection designed for no other purpose than to titillate. The thing was made almost entirely of tulle, the silk gusset considerably lacking in fabric down the middle, sweet little frills decorating the waistband, and embroidered with— Christ, were those cupcakes? The most arresting feature was the back—or lack thereof. A large keyhole cut-out framed the lush cleft of her cheeks perfectly and it was not lost to him how his cock could definitely fit.right.the.fuck.there.
Only Ashley Graham would think of choosing lace and cupcakes and ribbons as the setting to his dick sliding into her pussy.
He strokes the neat little bow keeping the keyhole fastened together at the waist. “These for me, baby girl?”
Ashley, cheek pressed to the cold granite, can only manage a shaky nod. “T-they’re called ouvert ,” she offers helpfully like a fucking girl scout explaining cookie flavours in her private-school-perfect French accent.
He decides to let her keep them on for longer.
Fingers trail languidly over naked flesh, as if he can’t decide where to start. A blush begins to suffuse her body, unfurling in a sfumato of creams and pinks and ivory. The bruises he had left on her during their last desperate night of fucking—trying to make up for all the lost time between his assignments—had healed, unblemished skin presented to him like some perverse palimpsest for him to mark anew. It was a debauched cycle: just when they had begun to fade, it would be time for him to depart and he would mark her once more, as if renewing his vows to return whole and safe by her side. My very own treasure map , she had whispered in his ear one night, as he traced his index from one bruise to another like he was solving a connect-the-dot puzzle.
Sex and violence were two sides of the same coin, some neuroscientist had posited. It was just how brains were wired. And he was walking empiric proof.
Days like these were dangerous. When he was still riding high from the adrenaline of his missions, when he had not fully compartmentalised the savagery, tucked his bloodlust back in its designated case, another weapon to be deployed in an operation for another day. It was so easy for him to lose control with her, to segue from fucking her to using her. And she always let him.
He thinks of those early days of their relationship, when he was absolutely insatiable for her and had yet to learn to temper his hunger. When he would head straight from the airfield to Ashley’s apartment and fuck her against every possible surface of her sunlit studio. And she was so good for him, trying her hardest to keep up, letting him stretch her to the limits of her endurance, giving him whatever he wanted, however he wanted.
Three orgasms would become five, then seven, then ten. Then Ashley, pushing, pinching, scratching, scrambling like a cornered animal— nonono,nomore,Ican’t,Ineed— and he would drag her back like an unrelenting hellhound by whatever he could use for leverage: an ankle, a wrist, her hair. Nights stretched into days, concluding, only if he were so inclined, when she passed out.
He could be good for her too, once the vestiges of government-issue trauma had been fucked out of his system. Starting with post-coital bubble baths (his fingers mining her poor abused pussy, devoting an inordinate amount of time helping her expel all the cum he unfailingly floods her womb with); warm hearty dinners-turn-breakfasts (courtesy of Ashley, all he did was heat the neglected meals and feed her—too loose-limbed to hold a spoon—morsel by morsel); then, when she could walk, clandestine strolls in the park, her security detail trailing further behind than protocol permitted (they seemed to have unwavering faith in him to keep her unscathed and he fully embraced that trust, well, at least outside of the bedroom); and then, even more clandestine rides on his Ducati Monster 821, a mechanical beast screaming down the Capital Beltway in the dead of the night (no security detail, seeing as he wasn’t above making detours into the thick woods and fucking her right there on the two-piece leather seat— his girl loved thrill rides after all ).
He wants to be good— better —for her. Which is why he holds back from plotting a straight course to Ashley’s house and descending upon her like some sex-starved degenerate. Why he makes it a point to give it a day before he allows himself anywhere near her. A cooling off period, so to speak, for him to recalibrate and exorcise whatever demons have followed him home. A point he made since six months ago. Since that night.
The image strobes unbidden in his mind’s eye, sharpened by guilt and something darker—the baser satisfaction of possessing her so wholly. Ashley, cum-smeared and insensate, sprawled across her pastel duvet, head lolling just off the edge of the bed. Moondew eyes glassy and unfocused, dark blooms around breasts empurpled in the shape of his fingertips, nipples sucked raw and rosy, hips mottled in dizzying speckles of blues and reds, scratches littering her back from when they had gone at it against less-than-forgiving tiles. A corner of her bow-shaped lips was torn from when he had straightpiped her, and, between ragdoll-limp limbs, rivulets of his seed tinged pink with her blood spilled like his very own macabre alcohol ink art piece. It would be another month before he let himself lay a hand on her again.
Yet here she was, seeking him out before his self-imposed quarantine was up. But it will be different this time , he assures himself. He has gotten better, sharper, more in control of his demons. Not to mention he will have to ease her into it, he reminds himself, the velvet box from the nightstand drawer now resting heavily in his pocket like a bated breath.
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“Poor baby,” his voice sounds far away, as if he were speaking through a paper phone, drowned out by the whooshing of blood in her eardrums.
A whimper, breathy and needy, escapes from her as his fingers make another pass in her pussy. He had been working her over at a maddeningly slow pace, the oven timer ticking past three minutes by the time he got a second digit in. She was too goddamned tight, having seen no action save her own ineffectual fingers during their time apart. The prospect of raising some rank-and-file package scanner’s eyebrows was daunting enough to dissuade her from seeking help of the motorised variety. And he would sooner eat a bullet than hurt her in his haste again.
“You’re a starving lil’ thing huh?” he remarks in the detached tone one would use to comment on the weather, as opposed to their lover’s sopping-wet cunt. Ashley bucks in his firm grasp, pleading whines deepening into indignant grunts at his rock-ribbed restraint. She wants him, now . Over her, in her, reckless and desperate.
She knows it was foolish of her to goad him like this. Showing up unannounced in spite of his ultimatum. And just when she thought she had him right where she wanted with her new lingerie, he had to go and be such a tease. But she is wearing him down, slowly but surely, if his progressively heavier pants and fat plops of sweat upon her back are any indication.
“Let’s get you fed shall we?” A frisson of want undercuts his voice, betraying the exertion it demands of him to not sink his cock raw inside her. He adds a third finger without breaking rhythm, his right hand reaching for the bowl of frosting that really should be in the fridge by now.
The timer marches towards eight minutes just as two fingers daubed in cream are shoved between her lips. Ashley dutifully wraps her tongue around them as he plugs her from both ends. She hums, equal parts satisfied by how the salt of his skin complements the Pompona and the wicked angle of his fingers as he unerringly finds the spot in her cunt that makes her weep.
Yet just as the her walls begin pulsing with the tell-tale flutter of her impending orgasm, her breathy please s and more s subliming into wordless keening, he rips his fingers out, the denial so abrupt, so violent, that Ashley screams in frustration, hips bucking, hands searching, desperately seeking something, anything , to anchor herself with.
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He knew just when staving off would make the payoff sweeter, and fuck if his baby girl wasn’t about to learn it too.
He keeps her pinned down with a heavy hand on the back of her neck, catching her flailing arms and pinioning them crossed at the wrists between their bodies. His legs are scissored with hers and Ashley is quick to avail herself of the delicious friction his thighs provide, rocking her hips and shaking her ass, straining to get close. The cream of her arousal soaks his pants through the lewd cut of her panties and he mutters an expletive at how sensitive and fucking ripe she is.
“Shit, baby girl. Look at the mess you’re making all over your pretty dress.”
He helpfully peels the apron and milkmaid dress off of her, ruined clothes flung across the kitchen like crinkled candy wrappers, his shirt joining the pile. The frosting is appropriated as he paints extravagant strokes of it across her body, down her bared back, in the crease of her elbows, the hollows of her armpits, and an extra-generous helping all over her exposed pussy. And now for the cherry on top, he proclaims, deftly sliding a strawberry deep in right where she aches the most.
He licks every inch of it off her. Ashley loses track of the dwindling minutes, the ticking a long-forgotten accompaniment to her every gasp and moan, punctuated by shrieks whenever he hits a particularly sensitive spot. Her eyes scrunch shut tight in pleasure too searing, too big for her fine-boned body as his tongue swirls languidly around each of the dimples above her ass.
He travels lower, tugging that goddamned ribbon holding her panties together loose with his mouth, then even lower, teeth scraping over taut globes, and then up up up the deep seam, his tongue tracing a firm bracing drag across the tight little rosette nestled in there.
A shudder rips through her petite frame, her shocked squeal music to his ears.
“Fucking peaches and cream. That’s what you taste like, sweetheart,” he chuckles, the low rumble reverberating in the small of her back, doubling down his hold on her hips as she tries and fails to squirm out of his grasp, aghast yet impossibly aroused.
“What– no–”, her feeble protests rapidly devolve into wordless mewling as he parts her legs further, his mouth dipping lower in search of the ruby red prize he had buried in her sex minutes ago.
He rolls the cum-glazed strawberry around in his mouth, the heady mix of her nectar and piquant fruit going straight to his cock. Making short work of the rest of the punnet, he uses her pussy like his personal honey dipping pot until she is a sobbing, spasming, strung-out mess, her engorged clit denied the stimulation she needs to climax.
So lovely like this , he thinks, admiring the nacreous pink glow of her sweat-slicked body like a fisherman in awe of a pearl in a freshly-prised shell. Straddling the knife edge between heaven and hell, her body in a place where her mind cannot follow, Ashley Graham was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid his eyes on.
His cock throbs painfully, the unforgiving ache reminding him to claim the spoils of this war of attrition. One hand snakes between her breasts, palming the spot over her heart and lifting her torso off the countertop, the other draws his cock between her silken folds, coating his head with her moist heat. Rational thought gives way to bestial instinct and he drives into her in a single swift stroke, a blade kniving through melted butter, barely giving her time to breathe before pistoning at a punishing pace in time with the relentless ticking of the timer.
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Somewhere between her second and third orgasm, the oven finally goes off, the tinny chime drifting above the wet slap of skin against skin, his guttural groans and her exultant moans.
He pulls out mid-thrust, soothing and shushing her— you’ll feel bad later for leaving it in there —before striding over to pop the genoise out its pan onto the cooling rack and stripping off the parchment with practised ease. He grabs the water pitcher on his way back and spins her around, lifting her legs and kissing each dainty, cotton-candy-pink-painted toe reverently before planting them on the counter edge.
Her toes curl at the unexpected contact like a startled mimosa before unfurling like newly budded leaves in search of the sun. It was always like this with him—everything was too much until it wasn’t enough.
He takes his goddamned time admiring the view from above, this fucking luscious nymph—this dichotomy of sin and purity all rolled into one—baring her pretty pussy and blushing like a freshly-fucked virgin, the imprint of her body on the flour-dusted counter framing her like a snow angel.
He isn’t alone in his perusal. Ashley’s gaze roves hungrily over him, his Herculean frame stretched out over her blocking all the light slivering in through the Venetian blind slats. Sunlight illuminates the fine hairs all over his body, casting him in a golden halo: the brutal craggy silhouette of his shoulders, the whipcord fierce muscles of his arms, the nearly obscene dip of his Adonis belt. He was lean, economically so, built for the singular purpose of survival, as opposed to the inflated preening gym-bro types Ashley was accustomed to seeing around campus.
He’s mine he’s mine he’s mine , a feverish chant thrums in the base of her skull as he tosses his head back with a swig of water. He grins down at her, as if reading her lust-fogged thoughts, then latches his mouth to hers, the liquid passing into her parched throat. He feeds her five more mouthfuls before guzzling down the pitcher of water. The bobbing of his Adam’s apple is hypnotising, and she wonders if this is what he looks like when he eats her out. She strains upwards, catching a stray stream of water trickling between his pecs, smacking her kiss-swollen lips at the saltiness.
“Water break’s over,” he grounds out. His voice—all gravel and rust—belies his impatience, and her answering smile is positively cherubic.
The velvet box lies on a corner of the island, knocked every which way by the velocity of his thrusts. Ashley is face down again, their discarded clothes wadded between her and the countertop, a feeble attempt at a cushion. Somewhere along the way, he had decided she needed a snack break too, making her sup on strawberries and swallow down her mounting little cries of protest.
He staggers back after his second release, the force of his orgasm knocking the wind out of him, barely managing to keep upright. Ashley is all the worse for wear, draped over the counter, half in and out of consciousness, screamed out and quivering in exquisite rapture, hair sticking to her face in a mix of his, her and berry juices.
His seed drips down her thighs, viscous like pastry filling leaking out an overfilled choux. He leans down to kiss her flaxen head—a tender juxtaposition to the seismic climaxes that had torn though her, one on the tail of another—trailing fingers down the bumps of her spine and tucking them in that deep split of her ass.
Ashley is too far gone to register the item he pulls out from the box, teardropped-shaped and topped with platinum fumed glass blown in the shape of a tea rose. Delicate and decadent, just like her.
He sucks the teardrop—small, to start off with—the action not borne of any need for lubrication, just his caveman desire to baptise anything that enters her. The notion of christening her ass had blindsided him, taking him by his cock on the day she had shown up at his door after a grocery run, a lollipop hanging from her lips. She had blown him shortly after, misconstruing the repeated darkened gazes he had passed at her mouth, when what he had really envisaged was the sight of the cherry red candy clenched in her tight little ass, that other mouth sucking greedily on the hard treat. There would be nothing denied to him, nothing too beyond the pale, for he would be the one to bring her pleasure she has never dared dream of.
And so when he had passed by the adult shop—right next to a mom and pop store in that wacky small-town urban planning sort of way—out in the boondocks of Colombia, he had promptly made his selection, the toy a small consolation as he spent night after night hunkering in mutant-infested forests.
Ashley barely registers the swelling pressure as he slides it in inch by inch, too disoriented to protest the taboo invasion, compunction thrown to the wind and drowned out in her stupor. A wet gurgle escapes her throat and he cups her face lovingly, kissing away tears webbed in the lashes of her red-rimmed eyes, lapping up the sticky mix of saliva and strawberry sousing her lips and chin.
All she sees is his smile, radiant and glorious as the sun.
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He is put on frosting duty, dutifully remaking the batch he had so profligately exhausted. Ashley, reanimated after a shower and nap, directs him from her perch on a bar stool, dressed only in an apron and nibbling primly on the cut ends of the sponge cake like she hadn’t just swallowed his load in the shower.
“Hey uhm…” she trails off, a question half-formed.
He hums distractedly, eyes trained on the cream he is whipping, watching for the right glossiness and hardness. Even through his concentration, Ashley’s subtle shifting and thigh-rubbing were not lost on him.
“How long do I have to wear that for?”
He looks up then, eyes soft, a slow smirk widening across his chiselled features.
“Until we cut the cake, sweetheart.” And after we get another few rounds in.
“Okay,” she breathes, uncertain yet trusting, just like that first night in Spain, squirming under the weight of his stare.
He waits, watching her gaze bounce between her lap, his hands, before finally meeting his face.
“Happy birthday, Leon.”