#i will reread this at a godly hour and be like “sparkles wtf were you DOING omg”

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

the taste of your lips is my idea of luxury

On the night of Callum’s eighteenth birthday, the first one he's had with Rayla, she has some birthday kisses to make up for (sixty-six, to be exact).

Surprise! I didn't know this was gonna happen lol, it just did. Only a LITTLE bit late, like an hour past midnight, so... happy late birthday, Callum? It's fine, you get to make out with Rayla. Enjoy!

Rayla pressed her back against the door as she closed it, smiling at Callum now that they were finally alone. “Well. Happy eighteenth, Mister Mage. All grown up.”

“Yeah, now us being together isn't considered pedophilia,” Callum laughed, pulling her into him by the waist and kissing her sound. He was only partly joking about that; other human nobles still biased against Xadia raised a fuss about anything they could, and the fact that Rayla was eighteen and Callum only seventeen had been a prime weapon, going so far as to claim she was preying on him. (And if their pillows were always warm and socks always soggy, then, well, Callum and his Aunt Janai knew absolutely nothing about that)

Rayla gladly reciprocated, holding his upper arms as she melted into him. A beat later, just as Callum was about to dare to slip his tongue into her mouth, she whispered, “Hold on. Go to the bed.”

Flushing bright red at the words, at what was left unsaid, Callum brought a giggling Rayla with him by both her hips and lips, stumbling over his own feet in his excitement to plop them down on the bed.

Rayla grinned, gripping his forearm and leaning in close. “Calm down! I haven't even told you what your present is.”

She'd been elusive about it all night, tossing him overexaggerated winks, blowing kisses he always caught and returned, dipping her gaze into a wine glass as she smirked. “Tell me?” he whined.

Rayla settled herself between his legs, pushing his hair back as he looked down at her adoringly. She was his whole world, and now that she was sure of it, she could use it to get anything she wanted out of him.

She was merciful now, though, granting him a press of her lips to his forehead even as her eyes went half-lidded and sparkly. “Well, I have birthday kisses to make up for…”

Rayla ghosted her lips over his cheek, marking a trail from just below his ear to his jaw, nose tracing his jawline as Callum gasped and clutched at her waist. It wasn't like this was new; they'd had sex before, after all, but every moment with Rayla, intimate or not, sent him spiraling back to a fumbly fourteen-year-old, awestruck and enamored and caught up in wanting to do everything right by her because she was everything.

So of course Callum gulped even as the prospect admittedly thrilled him. Kisses were kisses, and kisses reigned supreme. Especially Rayla kisses.

He knew, of course, that she was teasing him about the “making up for” bit, but the way she said it wasn't exactly spectacular.

So Callum gripped her wrist as it drifted to cup his face, making eye contact with her startled, hazy ones. “Rayla, you don't owe me anything. Especially- especially not kisses, or anything like that. I- I just really love you, and you don't have to kiss me for me to know, and-”

Rayla sighed, pulling closer to his lap. Her eyes dropped to his lips, likely thinking of shutting him up that way, but restrained herself to tell him, “Callum, I love you, too. And I want to kiss you. Really bad. Okay? I wouldn't do something like that just because I thought I owed you.”

Callum let himself nod, knowing there were boundaries Rayla had set for herself that she'd never cross, no matter how frustrated with herself or how self-destructive she was. “Okay.”

“Do you believe me?” Rayla asked gently, cupping his face in her palm this time and finally, finally shifting onto his lap.

Despite the fog quickly swarming his consciousness, rational thought, Callum smiled through it and squeezed her thighs. “I believe you. And love you and trust you.”

Rayla's fingers splayed across his face, his ears between her index and middle finger, pushing him back against the headboard. “Good. Now, let’s see… Fifteen plus sixteen plus seventeen plus eighteen… What's that? Like, seventy?”

Callum ran the numbers through his head even as his mouth got dry. “Sixty-six.”

Sixty-six Rayla kisses. By the gods, he was going to explode.

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