“Nora—”
The sound of it hits me low, deep, undoing something in my chest.My hands dig into his back, feeling the tension there, the way his muscles lock like he’s holding too much inside himself.Like if he loosens his grip for even a second, everything will spill out.
“Look at me,” he says, breath wrecked, forehead dropping to mine.“Please.”
I do.
And the look in his eyes almost breaks me—dark, desperate, aching with the kind of wanting that knows it doesn’t get to keep what it loves.
The world narrows to heat and motion and the sound of our breathing, uneven and sharp.The bed creaks beneath us, a steady reminder that this is real, that this is happening, that this moment is burning itself into us whether we’re ready or not.
He moves like he’s trying to say everything he never learned how to put into words.Every shift of his body feels deliberate, controlled, like restraint is the only thing keeping him from falling apart.I feel it in the way he holds me—too tight, almost desperate—as if this is the last place he’s ever felt safe.
“Fuck,” he mutters, voice breaking.“You feel?—”
He doesn’t finish.He can’t.
I pull him closer, my mouth at his ear.
“I’m here,” I say, because it’s the only thing I know how to give him.
Something in him snaps—not violently, but completely.
His breath stutters, his forehead drops to my shoulder, and he says my name again, this time like it costs him something.Like he’s giving away a piece of himself he doesn’t know how to get back.
It’s not gentle but it isn’t careless.
It’s contained intensity.
Controlled collapse.
Two people holding each other at the edge of something they can’t stop, can’t save, can’t survive untouched.
And for this moment—just this one—we let it be enough.
Afterward, neither of us moves.He stays close, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard, like he’s still bracing for the fallout.Like if he looks at me too long, he’ll change his mind about leaving.
Then he rolls to the side and pulls me with him, tight and instinctive, arm locked around my waist.His grip is almost possessive, almost panicked.Like he’s holding onto the only thing keeping him upright.
And I let him.
Silence wraps around us.
His heart beats beneath my ear, steady but fragile, like it’s holding itself together out of sheer will.
“I wish time would stop,” he says quietly.
“It did,” I whisper, tracing lazy circles over his chest.“Just for a little while.”
He kisses the top of my head, his lips lingering there.
“Then I hope I never wake up from it.”
I close my eyes, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“You have to,” I whisper.“You promised me you’d keep going.”
He presses a final kiss to my temple.
