I disappear into the hallway before he can see what his words do to me.
We return from our day out just as the sky starts blushing into dusk, the air still comfortably warm and soft around us. My hands are only half-full. Hex insisted on carrying the heavier bags, leaving me with the jar of wildflower honey, a sagecolored linen sachet I didn’t need but wanted, and a half-melted chocolate bar from a roadside market that we’d already cracked open somewhere between enjoying ourselves and too much laughter.
The sachet smells of cedar and bourbon, something earthy and sweet that reminded me of him the second I picked it up. I didn’t even hesitate to buy it.
“I want my sheets to smell like this,”I’d told him in the little shop, turning the sachet over in my hand and raising it to my nose.“Smells like you.”
He’d leaned close, voice low enough to make the shopkeeper pretend she wasn’t listening.“I’d happily rub myself all over your sheets to make that happen.”
The thought of this beautiful man spread out all over...“I’ll take that too.”
So now, walking back into his house with that scent tucked under my arm, I already feel a little more tethered to him. Like the day threaded something unexpected between us, something I want to keep for an indeterminable amount of time.
I pause in the entryway, reluctant to let the last few hours go.
Hex nudges the door shut behind me with his boot, sets the bags down, and slides his arms around my waist.
“Thank you,” I murmur, resting my hands against his chest. “For today. I can’t remember the last time I let myself just…be.”
He kisses my forehead and doesn’t move. Warmth from his breath brushes against my skin, as if staying there could freeze this moment in time. “You make it easy.”
I lean back to look at him, and he must see a softness return to my face because his expression shifts. It’s the permission he needs, letting him know the stress of the week is coming to an end and I’m ready to relax. His eyes dip past my lips and toward my breasts. His fingers curl into my waist. “Been thinking abouthow I want to give you number three since breakfast,” he says quietly.
I let out a breathy moan as his warm mouth moves just under the lobe of my ear. “You really don’t let things go.”
My feet leave the floor as he lifts me without warning, arms secure beneath my thighs. “Not when it’s something I want this bad.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, letting myself be carried, not just in the literal sense. He is picking up the weight of my body, sure, but also the weight of my stress, the weight of my trauma, and handling it with such care, I cannot help but be stolen away by this man. There’s something grounding about being held like this, about the confidence in his touch. I’ve needed this for so long.
Inside the bedroom, the light is low, a hush as the evening begins to settle. He sets me down gently at the foot of the bed, but when I move to reach for him, he grabs my outstretched hand. He sits instead, pulling me into his lap and guiding my legs around his hips.
Hex’s hands stay grasped onto my body, steadying me. “Before we do this,” voice low as it slithers over my skin, “I’ve got a condom. I got tested a while back. Haven’t been with anyone since.”
I nod, threading my fingers behind his neck and into the short hair I’ve been dying to feel again. “I have an IUD. I got tested after I found out about Andrew. I’m good.”
His brow lifts. “You want to skip the condom?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
But even as I say it, something must flicker across my face, because his hand comes up to brush my hair back behind my shoulder.
“You sure you’re ready?” he asks. “We can take things slow. I noticed your hesitation when I told you to take your leggings off the other day.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, stomach tightening.
Of course hesawme overthinking.
Because even when I swear I’m playing it cool, that nervous static still hums beneath my skin. I want this—God, I wanthim—but my brain? It doesn’t always listen to my body. Not when it comes to sex. Not when it comes to letting go.
“It’s not that I don’t want to.” I try to smile, soft and wry, like I can pass it off as casual. “I’m thirty-nine, for fuck’s sake. I should be past this.”
But the truth rushes in before I can stop it.
“I’ve never fully let go,” I admit, the truth catching in my throat. “Not even with Andrew. Ten years, and I still held a part of myself back every single time. There's always been this voice in my head. A tight grip I can’t unclench.”
A calloused thumb brushes against my cheek. “What does it say?”
“That I’m not enough.” The answer tumbles out of me as if the dam finally broke. “That if I let someone seeallof me—my need, my mess, the way I lose myself in pleasure—they’ll pull away. That I’ll get left.” I pause, a wave of shame threatening to rise, but I ride it out. “I stay in control. I make jokes. I stay sharp. I prove I’m worth keeping around in all the ways that don’t risk breaking my heart.”
