His arm slides under my neck. My hand finds his chest.
The scar there—just left of center—is raised and uneven. It used to scare me. Not anymore.
I trace it with the tip of my finger.
He shudders slightly but doesn’t stop me.
“I hated this one,” he says quietly. “For a long time.”
“Why?”
“Because it meant I wasn’t fast enough.”
I lean in and press a kiss to the center of it. Slow. Deliberate.
“You’re here,” I whisper against his skin. “That’s fast enough.”
His hand curls in my hair.
He tilts his face toward mine, and when our foreheads touch, I feel something unspoken settle between us. Not a vow. Not a promise. Just presence.
The kiss we share is not urgent.
It’s not the kind of kiss that starts something wild and loud. It’s quiet. Warm. Like exhaling into someone else’s gravity. His lips are dry, and mine taste like salt from everything I didn’t cry out loud.
He kisses me again, slower this time. His hand finds the curve of my waist and stays there. Not pulling. Not claiming. Just holding.
My palm slides along his shoulder, the edge of another scar peeking just beneath his collar. I kiss that one too. Then the one across his bicep.
Each one feels like a conversation we never got to have.
When I look up, his eyes are closed. His mouth parts just enough to breathe my name.
“Rynn…”
Soft. Like he’s not sure he deserves to say it. Like he’s been carrying it in silence for too long.
I kiss him again before he can stop himself.
It deepens.
Not fast. Not desperate. Just… full.
When his hand moves under my shirt, it’s slow, cautious, like he’s memorizing the shape of something that’s always been temporary.
But this moment doesn’t feel temporary.
It feels like the first real thing in weeks.
Our clothes fall away in pieces. Quietly. No rush. Like we’re undressing grief. Like every buckle undone is another fear we don’t need to carry anymore.
There’s nothing frantic in the way we touch. No hunger, no chasing fire. It’s all breath and skin and stillness.
The way his fingers move down my back—slow enough to remember. The way I press my hand to his chest, over his heartbeat, grounding us.
It’s not the kind of sex you write into a report or recount to a friend.
It’s the kind where the world outside doesn’t matter.
