Oscar propped a shoulder against the door frame and smiled indulgently. "What have you lost?" 

The room looked like a tornado had hit it. Though, to be fair, it took a trained eye to notice it was any different from how it usually looked. 

He'd always liked the way she Calliefied her bedroom.

It was filled with splashes of bright silk, satin and lace, topped off with an eclectic collection of unique hats, costume jewelry, finely woven scarves and dozens of the small, sparkly things which caught her eye over the years. There were hints of the varying lotions she used and her favorite perfume in the air, too. Scents he would always associate with her and the time they spent in her, currently unmade, bed.

Chaotic and colorful. That was his girl. 

"My locket and the ring Beth gave me last Christmas," she replied as her head disappeared into the bottom of the closet. "The opal one you said you liked a couple of days ago. And my red shoes. No, scratch that, I just found the shoes..."

Nudging off the door frame, Oscar stepped over to the dresser. 

"The ring is in the jewelry box your mom gave you for your eighteenth." He glanced up, reached out and hooked his finger under the gold chain hidden beneath a scarf on a corner of her mirror. "And your locket is here, too."

He narrowed his eyes at it as Callie wriggled back out of the closet, sat on the edge of the bed and put on her shoes. We meet again, nemesis. 

One of these days he vowed he would make it into the hallowed ground Callie had reserved for special relationships. Then he opened it and blinked in surprise. 

"You put pictures in it."

"You were the one who complained about the lack of them," Callie countered as she appeared at his side, looked in her jewelry box and sighed. "I swear that ring wasn't in there a minute ago."

"They're pictures of us." 

Not recent ones, the faces looking back at him belonged to the kids they'd been not long after they met, but that wasn't the point.

"So?" She lifted a brush off the dresser and dragged it through her hair.

"When did you put them in here?"

"After you rescued it from the fountain in Central Park."

Oscar raised his chin and looked at her reflection. "You mean the time you dropped it while dancing in the fountain and I almost got arrested by a cop who thought I was stealing the coins that folks toss in there when they make a wish?"

She shot him a small smile. "Yeah."

Good times.

He watched as she twisted her hair up, clipped it in place and studied the result from side-to-side in the mirror. "And these pictures have been in there since then?"

It had to have been three, maybe four years ago?

"Yup."

How she could be so nonchalant about something that meant so much to him was a source of amazement to Oscar. But then, if he'd never mentioned how badly he wanted to have his picture in there, how was she supposed to know? 

It wasn't like she could read his mind.

He shook his head when, dissatisfied with the result, she took her hair down and started over. "Leave it down."

"You like it up. You said that way you can kiss my neck when I least expect it." She set the brush aside. "Is there a word for people with a neck fetish?"

"Probably. We'll look it up."

"Useless trivia. You'd think someone would invent an app for that..."

"You would." He looked at the pictures again, then closed the locket, stepped up behind her, put it around her neck and fastened the fiddly clasp. "And for the record, your hair being down won't stop me kissing your neck."

To prove his point, he brushed her hair aside, dipped his head and kissed the sensitive skin below her ear, smiling as she leaned back against him and closed her eyes.

"You keep doing that, we won't leave this apartment anytime soon."

"I'm okay with that," he mumbled, moving his hands under her arms and cupping her breasts.

"We're late for everything, these days," she complained.

"Not everything," he said as she turned around in his arms and tilted her face up for a kiss. "And the only person who has ever mentioned it, is you."

Which was a tad ironic, considering she'd been late for pretty much everything for as long as he'd known her.

"It's rude. And inconsiderate," she protested against his lips. "And going out was your idea. But if you want to stay in..."

"No, we're still going out. But you're stressed after the search for all that lost property and I can help you with that."

Reaching around her, he cleared a space on the dresser with his elbow. But when Callie heard things hit the floor, she broke a heated kiss to look over her shoulder. 

"Hey! I knew where to find everything on there."

"Sherlock Holmes couldn't find everything on there." He hoisted her onto the dresser and nudged her knees apart. "I've been saying for a while more shelves and drawers would make it easier to organize –"

"Less talking, more stress relieving."

Kissing him more forcibly, she went to work on his belt buckle and unzipped his pants. In return, he pushed her skirt up, hooked his fingers under the lace of her panties, removed them and ran his forefinger through her damp curls.

"Have I mentioned how much I appreciate that you're always wet for me?" he said roughly.

"A time or two." She pushed his pants and boxers out of the way, circled his cock with her fingers and caressed him in long, smooth glides. "Have I mentioned I'm a big fan of your Whac-A-Mole problem?"

"Once or twice."

It amazed him how often he could have her and still want more. They could make slow, sweet love for hours on end or come together in a fast, hard coupling which left them both gasping for air, and it was never enough to satisfy either one of them.

She wrenched her mouth from his. "Condom, gopher guy."

Oscar fetched one from the drawer. "Thought we agreed you weren't gonna call me that in bed."

"We're not in bed." She ripped open the foil packet and rewarded him with an open-mouthed kiss as she rolled the condom onto his erection.

"Done," she muttered. "Now do me."

"And they say romance is dead."

"We don't have time for romance," she countered as she hooked her legs around his hips.

Lately, with time in short supply, they'd been indulging in more of the fast and frantic variety of sex than lovemaking. And it wasn't that Oscar had a problem with that - that she had to have him right there and right now boosted his ego to gargantuan proportions - but there were times, like now, when it grated on the twitching nerve which kept insisting something was off. 

He tried to slow things down by kissing her deeply and tenderly, drawing out the moment before their bodies joined. But Callie was restless and demanding, her hands grasping at his shoulders and back. When she reached down between them and fitted them together, he pushed inside, then stilled and reined in his control, hell bent on ensuring she came before he did. 

When he slid almost all the way out, she moaned. As he thrust home, she gasped. But when the pace picked up and Oscar tried to move a hand between them to touch her clit and send her over the edge, she stopped him.

"No," she muttered against his mouth. "Take me."

Oscar gritted his teeth. "I am."

"Harder."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You're not." She moved her lips along the tense line of his jaw and whispered, "I want you to fuck me. Fuck me hard and fast. You know you want to."

He gripped her hips so hard he was afraid he would bruise her. But when he tried to control the primal urge to do as she asked, she placed her lips on his neck, laved the skin with her tongue and sucked hard enough to leave a mark. The move was so unexpected, so erotic, it loosened what little grip he had left on his self-restraint. He drove into her harder and faster, rocking the dresser against the wall. Every muscle in his body strained towards release, creating a roaring rush of adrenaline in his veins, blinding him to everything but his own need. He couldn't hold out any longer, saw stars behind his eyelids, heard her cry out and came so hard his knees almost buckled. 

Wrapping his arms tightly around her for support as he hauled in several ragged breaths, fear overwhelmed him. What if the cry he'd heard had been one of pain rather than pleasure? He jerked his head up from its resting place on her shoulder and looked in her eyes.

"Did you -?"

"Yes."

"Are you -"

"I swear if the next word out of your mouth is 'okay', I will slap you."

"I just -"

"Don't want to hurt me. I get it. You didn't. So, shut up."

Oscar frowned. "Are you mad at me?"

The question earned an eye roll. "No."

What they'd just done had felt like angry sex to him. So, if she wasn't mad at him, then what -?

"Stop it." She reached up and framed his face with her hands. "I'm not made of glass and I happen to like it when you lose control. What just happened could happen more often and I'd be fine with that. I came, Oscar. I came hard. And so did you. That's all that matters."

The ripple of residual pleasure he felt inside her as his cock softened proved her point but the thought he hadn't been giving her what she needed didn't remove his frown. "You want me to be rougher with you?"

"Not rougher," she clarified. "Just, less concerned about putting my needs first."

"You want me to use you."

"Not use... you're not using me when we both get something out of it..." She sighed heavily. "We really don't have time for this. We'll talk later."

Oscar knew they wouldn't. They didn't seem to talk about anything, anymore. Not the way they used to. It was the first knock his ego had taken since they became a couple. He knew his reaction was disproportionate, told himself if she hadn't enjoyed what they'd been doing up 'til now, he'd have known. But it didn't stop the question leaving his mouth. 

"Is that what you got from your bouncer boyfriends, rough and hard? Guys who only thought about themselves and didn't give a shit about how you felt?"

Her spine stiffened. "Don't go there."

A ball of silence the size of Harlem dropped between them as their bodies separated and Oscar turned his back on her to dispose of the condom. She was right, he shouldn't have gone there. Their past relationships didn't have anything to do with the here and now and if she needed him to be rougher with her every now and again, he could do that, so long as there were boundaries they both understood.

Problem was, she'd made it feel like what they'd just done was a chore she had to tick off a list before she moved on to the next thing, leaving him feeling like the one who had been used. As a result, while he straightened his clothes and turned to watch her retrieve her panties from the floor, the nagging sensation something was very wrong between them sounded like a claxon in his head.

For starters, he owed her an apology.

"I'm sorry," he said flatly.

She shook her head. "It's okay."

"No, it's not." He stepped in front of her, placed his hands on her arms and ran them down to her hands. "You were trying to tell me what you needed. I should have listened."

"That's not what I was doing." She tangled her fingers with his. "I was trying to say it's okay to be selfish from time to time and take what you need without worrying about me. I want you to be happy."

"You think I'm not?"

She shook her head again. "Just forget it."

Not likely.

She freed her hands and smoothed them down his chest, her gaze lowering to watch the movement, hiding her eyes beneath a veil of long lashes. "We should go."

Oscar continued frowning as she let go of his hands, stepped around him and left the room. Going out to dinner was supposed to be the first step towards finding some balance in their lives but if she didn't want to go, why hadn't she just said so? He followed her down the hall and when she lifted a jacket from the rack, it irritated the crap out of him. To make matters worse, the smile she tossed his way was half-hearted, at best. 

It would have been simpler if she'd yelled at him and they'd argued it out. At least that way they could have cleared the air.

"You ready?"

"Yeah." He nodded. But when she opened the door, he placed his hand on the frame to block her escape. "Are you happy?"

Her gaze shot to his. "Of course, I am. What a silly question. Where did that come from?"

It was a bare-faced lie. He could see it and it made the foundation he thought they were building on shudder beneath his feet. He searched her face for any other clues he might have missed. 

On the surface she seemed fine, as beautiful as she'd always been, but some of her brightness had dimmed. She'd worn make-up more often of late, so he could use that as an excuse for over-looking the dark circles under her eyes. But the shadows in them were more obvious. 

Had he put them there?

She wavered under his scrutiny, her gaze flickering to the hallway and back to his face, almost as if she was uncertain what to do next or felt trapped. "Look, I'm a little tired, that's all." Her palm settled on his stomach. "It's been a busy few weeks, for both of us."

Yes, it had. But there was more to it than that. He could feel it.

"If you want to skip dinner -"

"No. I want to meet Harry's new boyfriend." She smiled a smile which didn't remove the shadows from her eyes. "How else are we supposed to give him our stamp of approval?"

"We can do that some other time. Have an early night."

"Oscar," she leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. "I'm fine. And we told them we would be there. Let's go."

Outside the apartment, he continued studying her as she closed the door, locked it and slipped the key in her purse. Along with the addition of a jacket, her make-up and the care she'd taken with her elegant dress and high heels, it made him realize how much she'd changed since they became a couple. Was she changing because she wanted to or because she thought she had to? 

Surely, she wasn't doing it for him?

The elevator came quickly and once they'd stepped inside, he tried to bridge the gap which had developed between them by lifting her hand and pressing a kiss to the knuckle above the opal on her finger.

"When we get back, we should both get some sleep." He looked into her shadowed eyes. "We have kinda been burning the candle at both ends."

She nodded. "And we're not getting any younger."

"No," he forced a smile for her. "We're not."

As they stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor and walked through the lobby, he felt as old as Methuselah. 

Callie's mood always had a direct effect on him and now he could see the cloud hanging over her, it made his heart heavy and created an ache in his bones. His fingers flexed around hers as they left the building, the movement an indication of how unwilling he was to let her go. It drew her gaze to his face, garnered another half-hearted smile and made Oscar grind his molars together so hard he was surprised she couldn't hear it.

Frankly, he was a little pissed at her.

Where had his Callie gone, the one who jumped in with both feet and never let anything get in her way? He never had to question how that Callie felt or what she wanted. She was a force of nature, wild and free. The thought he might have tamed her was repugnant to him. That she'd let it happen, added to his ire. He wanted her to live life with the volume turned up full, just like she always had. But now it felt like he was with someone who'd hit the mute button. 

She just better not be doing what he thought she might be doing.

The notion created a wave of anger it was hard to suppress. No, she wouldn't. Not to him. They had too much history. There had to be something else going on. Maybe it was sleep deprivation. If it was, he could fix that. A few evenings of snuggling followed by early nights wouldn't kill them. Every heated kiss didn't have to result in an orgasm. There was a lot to be said for anticipation. And having proven they were compatible in the mutually beneficial sense, dialing things back a little so they could focus on the other, equally important things, that made a relationship work, would be good for them. It would strengthen their bond, make it easier for them to talk about the things that were bothering them.

He just had to keep reminding himself they had time to work things out.