Toma

Toma rolled over onto his back, groaning and laughing at Aida’s comment.

 “Woman, you are going to be the death of me. How much of this do you think I can take before I explode? I mean, just one kiss from you and I’m gonna be pretty uncomfortable for a while.” She sat up on her elbows and looked from his smiling face, down to his pants and then back up again. She was blushing when her gaze met his again.

“Oh…” she said, with an unreadable look on her face that made Toma instantly worried.

“I wasn’t complaining!” he said quickly. “I just like teasing you, that’s all. It’s fun to make you blush like that. You look so sexy when you blush.”

She glared at him and poked him in the ribs. “You’re really irritating, do you know that? First you say some of the sweetest stuff I’ve ever heard, then you make me want to punch you about 30 seconds later. I don’t know what to do with you.”

Toma grinned at her and tucked an arm under his head. “Would you believe that you aren’t the first woman to say that to me? I guess that at least means I’m consistent.”

Aida snorted “’Consistently irritating.’ There’s a character trait to be proud of.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Seems to be working out pretty well for me so far. Anyway, I am a thief. I’ve got to work with what I’ve got in the ‘Things to be proud of’ arena.”

She gave him that same mystifying look again. 

 “I find that hard to believe, Toma." she said matter-of-factly  "I’ve seen plenty of things about you that you should be very proud of, and I haven’t even known you that long. Not the least of which is...well... your treatment of me in the last several minutes."  She stared down at her hands and picked at her cuticles "You know you could very easily have had your way with me just now.  I don't think I would have stopped you. But at the first indication that I might even maybe be less than totally okay with it, and you stopped immediately.”

Her eyes drifted down to his pants again.

“And now you are trying to help me feel better because I was scared, even though you're still visibly shaking. You are irritating as hell, but you are also incredibly noble.”

Toma was about to protest that it wasn’t anything noteworthy, just being a decent human being. But anything he would have said was lost when she kissed him again. All he could do was groan as her tongue flicked between his lips again. “Sorry,” she murmured as she pulled away a moment later  “I just really needed to do that one more time.”

She stood up quickly and almost bolted to the door. “I’m going to go… make some lunch. You should rest. You’ve been overdoing it, hero boy. I’ll call you when it’s time to eat.”

Toma watched her leave, then flopped back down on the bed again and sighed.

Sure. Like “rest” was really an option right now.

He closed his eyes, remembering the warm feeling of her mouth and her magic.

When Aida returned ten minutes later with a cup of water for him, he was asleep.