Her hands moved up, then down, fingers exploring my arms, my chest, like she was running a diagnostic. She stopped at the buttons on my shirt, hesitated, then started to undo them, one by one, her hands shaking. I let her.
When she reached the last button, her hands hovered over my skin, as if afraid of what she might find. I caught her wrists, gentle, and brought them to my chest.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not a bomb.”
She laughed, and the tension drained. She laid her palm flat, fingers splaying over my heart, and left it there.
My own hand drifted to her side, then up, tracing the curve of her ribs. She arched into me, her breath catching. I remembered the directions from the last scene—her pulse, her breath, the way her body betrayed every uncertainty. I loved it. It was honest.
I took her face in my hands and kissed her slow and deliberate, lips, then jaw, then the hollow beneath her ear. She moaned, soft but desperate, and her nails dug into my shoulders.
I let myself want, just for a second.
She pulled back, eyes wide, searching my face for something.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
I nodded, because words weren’t enough.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me in, and this time, there was nothing tentative about it.
Her body pressed to mine, all warmth and nerves and hunger. I let my hands roam, careful, but greedy. She clung to me, as if letting go would send her out into orbit.
When we finally broke for air, she laughed—a real one, bright and jagged and alive.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said, and I believed her.
“Neither do I,” I said, though it wasn’t true.
We sat in the dark, kissing, touching, learning the shape of each other’s uncertainty.
Outside, the wind battered the house, but inside, the danger was entirely of our own making.
For the first time, I wanted to let my guard down.
The way she looked at me after the second or third kiss was enough to make me forget, for a half-breath, that there was a world outside the window. Her lips were red and raw, her pupils huge, swallowing the brown. She clung to me like a woman afraid of the drop, but not of the landing.
She wanted more, but didn’t know how to ask. I knew the look, had worn it myself, once. I reached for her hand, the left, and brought it to my chest, holding it there with both of mine. Her skin was so thin I could feel the tremor in her pulse.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she said
I smiled, a real one, and kissed her palm, then her wrist, then the inside of her elbow, where the scar lived. She shivered, not from cold. “You’re doing fine,” I said, and slid my hand up the back of her neck, threading fingers through her hair.
She let out a sound—a broken syllable, equal parts relief and surprise.
I wanted to take it slow, but the need was a chemical thing, older than either of us. I unzipped her hoodie, careful not to catch the fabric, and watched her tense, then let the air out of her lungs. Her T-shirt was black, faded, one of the band logos I’d seen in her file. I pulled it up just enough to find her ribs, my hand spanning the space between.
She gasped, like it was an experiment gone wrong, but didn’t stop me. I watched her face the whole time—every flicker, every recalibration. When my fingers brushed the undercurve of her breast, she caught my hand, held it there.
“I’ve always been too focused on work,” she said, words leaking out in a rush. “Never made time for this. I’m not… I’m not practiced.”
I almost laughed, not at her but at the idea that the world had tried so hard to crush the softness out of both of us and failed. “I’ve got you,” I said.
She smiled, nervous but wanting. “You’ll help me figure it out?”
I nodded. “That’s the plan.”
I leaned in, let my mouth find hers again, slow and deliberate. She moaned, and the sound went straight to the core of me. I slid my hand up, palmed her breast through the thin cotton, thumb circling until she arched into me. Her hands moved to my shoulders, nails scraping, then digging in when I traced her nipple with the pad of my thumb.
