This was the part I always hid from. The part where you let someone see you without armor, without performance, without the careful masks we all wear to survive. Every instinct told me to look away, to retreat somewhere safe inside myself. But he was asking me to stay. To be here. To let him in.
So I did.
And it was terrifying and freeing in equal measure—this surrender that didn't feel like losing.
"Okay?" His voice was strained.
"Perfect. You're perfect."
"You're the perfect one." He kissed me deeply. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? How incredible?"
Beautiful. Incredible. The words washed over me and I wanted to argue, wanted to list all the reasons he was wrong. But the way he looked at me made it impossible to believe he was lying. And maybe that was the most frightening thing of all—that he saw something in me I'd never been able to see in myself.
I couldn't answer, just pulled him closer and held on.
"There," I breathed.
"Yeah? Like that?"
"Don't stop."
"Never." His free hand traced down my side, his touch gentle even as his movements became less controlled. "I could do this forever. Stay here with you forever."
Forever. People said that word so carelessly. But he didn't. I could hear it in his voice—the weight of it, the wanting of it. And instead of making me want to run, it made me want to believe. In him. In this. In the terrifying possibility that maybe some things could last.
The pleasure built gradually, intensely, his name becoming the only word I could remember. He watched me the entire time, his eyes dark and full of something I was afraid to name, something that looked like it might break me and put me back together all at once.
Love. That's what it looked like. That's what I was afraid to call it.
Because love meant vulnerability. Love meant handing someone your whole heart and trusting them not to drop it. I'd built so many walls, so many carefully constructed defenses, and here he was—not tearing them down, but making mewantto open the gates myself.
"Gianna," he groaned against my neck. "God, you feel incredible. So perfect."
When was the last time I'd felt truly safe with someone? When was the last time I'd let myself be this unguarded, this open, this nakedly myself? I couldn't remember. Maybe never. Maybe I'd been waiting my whole life for exactly this moment, for exactly this person, and hadn't known it until now.
We lay there in the aftermath, neither of us moving or speaking. His hand stayed tangled with mine, his face buried in my neck, his breath warm against my skin.
I waited for the panic to set in. For the familiar urge to flee, to protect myself, to rebuild the walls before he could see too much. But it never came. Instead, there was only this: the weightof him, the rhythm of his breathing, the feeling of his fingers intertwined with mine.
I felt raw. Exposed. Like he'd reached inside me and touched something no one else had ever found.
And I wasn't afraid.
That was the revelation. That was the thing that made the tears threaten again. I wasn't afraid. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I'd let someone all the way in—and I wasn't afraid of what they'd found there.
Whatever this was between us, whatever it was becoming, I didn't want to run from it anymore.
I wanted to stay. Right here. With him.
“That was—” He stopped, apparently unable to find the words.
“Yeah,” I agreed, my voice shaky.
He lifted his head to look at me, and something in his expression made my chest ache. Soft and vulnerable and completely open.
“You’re crying,” he said, his thumb brushing away tears I hadn’t realized had fallen.
“Happy tears.”
