ONLY YOU » STEVE ROGERS [EDITING]

38 /| the past, the present

thirty-eight

3 Weeks Later

*•.*

AT FIRST, Geneva is unable to sleep. It eludes her in a way that she has not known since she was nineteen and freshly free of Louis Adley. Back then, she refused to fall asleep in the small bedroom of the house her mother had left her, lest she be taken in her sleep once more. So instead, she spent her nights clutching her knives and simply sitting next to her childhood bed.

It was unreasonable and just plain ridiculous, but she'd been alone for the first time in a long time and she didn't know how to do it anymore. Sometimes she had half a mind to break her abductor out of prison if it only meant she could forgo her loneliness for a moment, but then she was reminded that he was the reason for her sleepless nights and empty life.

She'd gone to therapy.

Eventually, anyway.

And two years later, Natasha Romanoff had shown up on her doorstep telling her it would be best if she came to work for SHIELD. She'd had a choice, but choices didn't much matter when her other options had very little appeal.

That, however, was a long time ago.

Recently, sleep was a stranger for the sole reason that she was afraid of never waking again. The possibility had always been real, but she'd teetered too closely on the edge of the precipice known as her end, and—for once—she had enough sense to be fearful.

Her days were spent with one of Wakanda's best physical therapists, Amara. She was a little younger than Geneva with deep brown skin and a pretty face. Her passion for her craft was admirable, and it made Geneva wish she'd had a passion that wouldn't make a grab for a her life the second it was given the slightest of chances.

Her luck had long since run out and pretending otherwise had cost her too much.

Steve Rogers would just have to understand that.

She wasn't going back. Not to Avenging, not to SHIELD, not to the compound, and not to New York. New York was a dream she was not intent on living in anymore. She and Steve had made plans, but that was before they'd been shoved onto the World's Most Wanted list.

She loved him, and if he loved her like he said he did, he would be willing to make new plans.

She thought about the last night they'd spent together often. She clung to it with unrelenting hands and a yearning heart. Their last moments together had been filled with desperation and promises that didn't mean anything now.

The way his lips had run over every inch of her skin, mapping out a path for his own memory and for their shared pleasure, convinced her to make promises that they both knew neither of them could keep. He'd kneeled before her with reverence glinting in his eyes—as if he was a man who'd been saved from a life of devastation and emptiness just because she'd agreed to love him—to be with him. He'd ravaged her like a man starved, and when he whispered that he loved her, she believed him.

His mouth had slid over her with the sole purpose of bringing her to a place just beyond pleasure, and she'd panted his name when he'd succeeded. He'd led her right to that familiar destination with a precision that she'd only ever known from him. She'd needed him so badly, then. Dizzy, she'd pulled him to his feet and kissed the satisfied grin right off of his lips. She'd continued kissing him even when he'd pushed into her with an ease that he himself had elicited. She'd kissed him even as he groaned into her mouth. And she'd kissed him even though it felt oddly like an ending to everything they'd ever known.

She missed kissing him. She wished he would just pick up the damn phone. She wished he wouldn't insist on working when he felt like he was losing control over things.