Right. On her terms.
I take my hand from her, brace her hips, and pull my belt open one-handed. The zipper runs a quick, obscene note in the hush. I free myself and her eyes catch; wary, curious, not afraid as they catch on the metal glint of my piercings. I fist myself once, slow, to knock the edge off and show her what she’s agreeing to. Her gaze tracks the motion like prayer. I guide her palm to me. She wraps her fingers around my shaft, tentative at first, like she’s afraid of it, then tighter when I close my hand over hers and show her the pace. The sight of her, veiled and focused, stroking me in a church—Christ. I breathe through it.
“Tell me when to stop,” I say, because I need to hear her power in it.
She lets go with a shaky exhale and sets her hands on my shoulders. “Now,” she says. “Help me.”
I get one arm firm around her waist and use the other to line us up. The blunt head of me finds her, presses. Heat and promise—then a catch. There. Her breath stutters. Mine stops.
“Sanct—” she starts, barely a word, more the thought of it.
I lock everything down and ease back. “We stop,” I say automatically, already retreating.
“No.” She swallows. “Not stop. Just… give me a second.”
“A second,” I agree, forehead to hers again, breathing with her until the tight clench shifts under my hand on her hip. I feel the last thin barrier of her—the undeniable truth of me being her first—and I don’t move until she plants her palm on my chest like she’s bracing for a wave.
“Now,” she whispers. “Please.”
I push. Slow enough to feel every millimeter. Slow enough to hear the way she shatters and remakes my name on her tongue. The resistance yields; heat closes around me, velvet-tight, and the awareness hits like a bell in my bones: I am inside her, the first. Not a trophy. A trust. I bury my face against her cheek and say “thank you” like it’s a prayer I still remember.
“It’s okay,” she says, shaking and stubborn. “It’s mine to give.”
“It is,” I rasp. “It is.”
We hold there, bodies learning the fit, and she’s everything I don’t deserve in this life. She tenses; I go still. She nods; I try again. Inch by inch until I’m seated deep and her gasp turns—a thin thread of pain pulling through into heat. I shift my hips a fraction and press my thumb back to her clit, stroking gentle circles. Her nails dig into my shoulders through the shirt like she needs proof I’m solid. The next sound she makes—shock cracking into want—is the kind I’ll hear in empty rooms for the rest of my life.
“Good?” I ask, because I need the word.
Her answer is to rock, just once, a small, sure motion that drags a curse out of my chest. “Good,” she breathes. “Do that again.”
I do, slow and careful, letting her set the rhythm, my thumb working her until her breath catches on every second pass. When she tightens around me, the world narrows to wood, wire, skin, and the clean burn of choosing—hers, mine, both—right here where we promised.
“Good girl,” I murmur into her hair, and feel the words go through her like a current.
“Don’t stop,” she pleads, ragged. “Don’t you dare stop.”
I don’t. I keep it deep and controlled, the bench complaining in soft little prayers as we find a rhythm that says ours, ours, ours. The habit is everywhere—on my wrists, in my teeth, under her knees—and the whole booth feels like a heartbeat. Her body learns me fast. She starts to move without thinking about it, chasing what builds, turning that first hurt into wanting so pure it’s almost a weapon.
“You feel—” I break off, because language is too small for it.
“Say it,” she demands, eyes wet and fierce.
“Real,” I manage. “You feel real. And so fucking good. Christ, you feel good.”
“Blasphemy.” Her lips part, and she tips her head and I take her mouth again, because she asked for dirty and I am not a clean man, but I’m going to keep this holy. I angle us, change the pull, and she goes tight all over, a strangled little cry trapped between our teeth.
“Sanctuary?” I check, because I will not get this wrong. I can’t get this wrong. Not for this girl.
“No,” she gasps, half-laugh, half-sob. “Don’t you dare.”
She crashes first—of course she does—every nerve singing, body shaking around me until my own control snaps like an old wire. I hold her on, hold her through, keep my mouth on her shoulder to keep the sound in my chest from breaking the windows. The door stays open. I keep the promise I made to the room and the one I made to her.
Silence after is a cathedral all of its own. The candles hiss. The wood settles. Her breath saws against my neck in hot, stunned pulls. She’s trembling hard enough that I put both hands on her—one on the back of her head, one low at her spine—and breathe with her until she matches me.
“I should go,” she says into my throat, voice torn up but steady underneath.
“I know.”
