"Don’t keep her up too late," he said, without turning around, the tone of it landing somewhere between a joke and not quite a joke.

"Danny," said Makima.

"I’m just saying," said Danny, already opening the door. "Goodnight."

The door closed behind him.

The apartment went quiet.

Not the silence of something ending. The silence of something that had been waiting for the noise to stop.

Makima stood near the table for a moment, looking at the door. Then she walked to it and turned the lock. The small click of it was the only sound in the room.

She stood there for a second with her hand still on the lock, her back to him. Then she let out a long slow breath, the kind that carried something with it when it left.

She turned around.

Sean was still at the table. He hadn’t moved.

She looked at him across the apartment, the two candles still burning low on the table between them, the light doing warm things to the room.

"He means well," she said, about Danny, though they both knew that wasn’t really what the moment was about.

"I know," said Sean.

She came back toward the table slowly. Not directly to it. Toward him.

She reached out and touched his jaw lightly with her fingertips. Just that. Just the lightest contact, like she was verifying something.

Then she leaned down and kissed him.

Sean’s hand found her waist and she made a small sound that wasn’t quite a word and kissed him again, deeper this time, one hand moving to the back of his neck.

She pulled back just enough to look at him from close range. Her eyes in the candlelight. Her hair down around her face.

"I’ve been thinking about this since Tuesday," she said quietly.

"I know," said Sean.

"Is that presumptuous of me," she said.

"No," said Sean.

She smiled at that, small and genuine, and then kissed him again, and this time neither of them pulled back for a while.

Her hands moved to his shoulders, and his to her waist, and the candles burned lower, and the city outside did its indifferent evening things, and the apartment held them in its warm, quiet light like it had been built for exactly this.

When she finally stepped back it was only far enough to take his hand.

She looked at him one more time. No performance. No careful composure. Just her.

"Come on," she said softly.

Sean followed.

Her mouth opened under his and her tongue found his and the kiss deepened into something slower, more deliberate. She tasted like the wine from dinner and something else underneath, something that was just her. Her hand moved from his chest to the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, and she made a sound low in her throat that traveled straight down his spine.

They moved together through the apartment. Not rushing. The candles on the table flickered as they passed, the light shifting across her face, catching the shine on her lips, the way her eyes kept finding his between kisses as if she needed to make sure he was still there.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

Her bedroom door was open. The hallway light from the main room reached only far enough to show the edge of her bed, the dark wood of the frame, the pale sheets turned down neat. She walked backward into the dimness and pulled him after her, and the darkness closed around them like a door shutting on the rest of the world.

Sean’s hands found the hem of her blouse. His fingers slipped underneath and touched the warm skin of her waist and she made that sound again, softer this time, almost surprised by it. He pulled the blouse up and she raised her arms and it came off over her head and dropped somewhere on the floor without either of them looking.

His shirt followed. Her hands were quick and efficient, unbuttoning with the same competence she brought to everything, pushing the fabric off his shoulders, letting it fall.

Then her hands were on his bare chest and she stopped kissing him long enough to look.

The faint light from the hallway caught her face. Her expression was half-shadow but he could see enough. The slight part of her lips. The way she was breathing, shallow and uneven, which was not a thing Makima did. She was always composed. Always steady. Right now she was neither of those things and she didn’t seem to care that he could tell.

"You’re beautiful," Sean said quietly.

Sean pulled her closer. Her bare stomach pressed against his and the contact was electric, skin on skin, her warmth and his warmth meeting. She tilted her head back and he kissed her throat, the hollow where her pulse beat fast against her skin, the line of her collarbone. Her fingers dug into his shoulders.

His hands moved to her back, found the clasp of her bra, worked it open with the same deliberate patience she’d taught him without ever meaning to. The straps slid down her shoulders. She let them fall.

The bra joined the blouse and her clothes on the floor.

Her breasts pressed against his chest and she sighed, a sound that came from somewhere deep, somewhere she’d been holding tension for longer than tonight. He kissed her shoulder, the curve of it, the place where it met her neck. She turned her head and her mouth found his ear and she said his name.

Just that. Just his name.

The way she said it made it sound like something she’d been wanting to say for a while.

They reached the bed. The back of her knees hit the mattress and she sat down and looked up at him. Her eyes dark in the low light. Her hair loosening from where it had been pinned, strands falling around her face. Her breasts rising and falling with breath that was not quite steady.

Sean quickly undress himself faster than flash in the speed force.