The room is quiet except for the hum of our breath.
She's still on top of me, soft now, slow in her movements.
My hand slides up her back.
I press my lips to her temple.
Her breath comes shallow and warm against my throat, the edges of her body softening as the last waves of release ebb through her.
She stays curled against me, her thigh still hooked over my hip, her hair damp against my collarbone, her cheek nestled in the hollow just above my heart.
I rub slow circles between her shoulder blades with the flat of my palm, feeling the flutter of her ribs start to calm.
Her skin is flushed, scraped in places, bitten in others, and I kiss each mark with a kind of reverence that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with her.
I ease her onto her back, drape the sheet low across her hips, then fetch a warm cloth from the basin.
She watches with half-lidded eyes, unmoving as I kneel beside the bed and clean her gently, murmuring quiet apologies every time she flinches.
She doesn't say a word until I crawl back in beside her and pull her against my chest.
Then her fingers find my jaw and hold me there, grounding herself in the curve of my mouth.
"I feel like I disappeared," she whispers.
I stroke her hair back and press a kiss to her temple.
"You're here. I've got you."
She murmurs something soft in the back of her throat, not quite a word, but enough.
I reach down and pull the quilt up over us both.
Her body fits against mine like she was carved from the same grain of wood, rough in the same places, hollowed in others.
I stay awake long after her breathing evens, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest,counting the beats of her pulse against my arm.
My hand stays on her hip, thumb brushing the curve of her waist, slow and steady until she is fully asleep.
I do not sleep easily, but when I do, it is full of the warmth of her skin and the scent of her on my hands.
When the morning light begins to spill through the window, she stirs.
She shifts against me, stretches long and catlike, then turns to face me with the kind of clarity that only comes after a night like that.
Her voice is hoarse but sure.
"We need to end this," she says.
I nod once, already there with her.
"Tell me."
She sits up, clutching the sheet to her chest more out of habit than modesty.
I prop myself on one elbow and wait while she gathers her thoughts.
Her eyes are sharp, clear, stripped of the softness they had last night.
