“Patience.” I murmur. “You begged me for control. This is what it looks like.”
She doesn’t argue. She can’t. She’s caught between ache and awareness.
I watch frustration bloom, and something in me softens—not pity, possession. I keep her suspended, using words more than motion.
“You want more?” I ask, tracing a calloused hand along the inside of her thigh. “You don’t.”
She hisses—not out of fear, but need.
I lower my head, close enough that she can feel my breath trace her skin, just shy of where she’s silently begging me to explore. Tonight, nothing is hurried. Nothing careless.
“Only this,” I say, and the restraint burns hotter than any roughness ever could.
I press a kiss to her thigh, nostrils flaring at the intoxicating scent of her arousal. When my fingers begin to explore, her head tilts back, a sound caught between a sigh and surrender.
I edge her deliberately, controlling the rise and fall until she’s shaking with the effort not to fall apart.
“You’re doing so well,” I murmur. “Stay right there. Stay with me.”
Her sounds undo me—those soft hums and broken moans, the way she squirms against each flick of my tongue as I taste her heat. I take my time. Again—nothing hurried. Nothing careless.
It’s a reminderI keep repeating to myself while what’s raging in my pants begs to be inside her.
When I finally think I’ve taken her far enough—needy, soaked, trembling on the edge—I stop. Because I want her to remember this night when I do claim her. I want the next time to be explosive, unforgettable.
Silence drops like a blanket as I rest on my elbow beside her, searching her eyes as she searches mine.
I steady her, my palm cupping her jaw, forehead pressed against hers. “Breathe,” I whisper.
She exhales a shaky breath of relief. “That’s it. You’re safe.”
She collapses into me—not defeated, just emptied of everything but pulse and warmth.
I kiss her temple, lazy and reverent. “Only this tonight,” I repeat, quieter now. “Next time, you won’t have to ask.”
Afterward, the world returns in pieces—the hum of the vent, the thin seam of light under the blackout curtains, the soft, human sound the mattress makes when we both laugh at ourselves at the same time.
I roll onto my back, breathing like I just finished a backcheck I didn’t think I had in me. She drapes an arm across my chest, and I cover her fingers with mine. Her pulse beats steady against my ribs.
It’s a good address.
We don’t rush to dress the scene up with talk. We let breath do what speech can’t. When words finally arrive, they’re simple.
“I’m not sorry,” she says.
“I wouldn’t believe you if you were,” I answer.
She shifts, chin on my sternum, eyes searching my face like she’s looking for the cracks she can memorize while they’re still hairline. “You kept your promise,” she says.
“I’ll keep it again tomorrow,” I say. “And the day after, when you decide you need space, and the day after that if you don’t.”
She huffs, amused and a little pained. “You think you know me.”
“I know the you who stops running,” I say. “The rest I’m going to keep learning without pretending I’m owed it.”
Her mouth softens into something that isn’t a smile but is close kin. She rolls onto her side and I turn with her, our knees fitting like we practiced more than once. The room has that post-storm clarity—pressure gone, air washed clean. It won’t last forever. Nothing good does without work. But for now, it’s enough.
“Wayne is going to try to kill you,” she says quietly.
