He lays me down like I’m breakable.
Like I’m worth not breaking.
He stays above me for a beat, forearms braced on either side of my head, eyes combing my face like he’s asking a question without words.
“No shadows tonight,” he murmurs.
My throat tightens.
“No lies,” he adds. “Nothing between us.”
My hands slide into his hair, pulling him down until our foreheads touch.
“And if I’m still scared?” I whisper.
My voice barely makes it past my heartbeat.
“Then I’ll hold you through it,” he says.
And I believe him.
Not because he promises.
Because I’m already in his arms and he hasn’t let go.
He kisses me again, slow and deep, and it stops being about heat—even though heat is there, low and relentless. It’s about claiming. It’s about anchoring. It’s about choosing.
His hands move—not greedy, not rushed—but sure. He takes his time like he’s afraid the world might crack if he moves too fast.
My breath stutters when his mouth leaves mine, trailing down my throat, across my collarbone, lower. Being seen like this—wanted like this—without a price tag attached to it splits something inside me wide open.
My fingers twist in his hair.
His name falls out of me like a prayer I never learned in church.
He strips off his shirt without ceremony, tossing it aside like it stopped mattering the second we walked into this room. I push myself up just enough to run my hands over his chest, over scars he never talks about, over the heart hammering under my palm like it forgot how to be careful.
He watches me touch him like I’m the one doing something sacred.
The weight of that makes my lungs ache.
He peels my shirt off next, slower, his gaze never leaving mine. He watches every breath, every flinch, every hesitation, like he’s reading a litany written under my skin.
I don’t bolt.
I open.
When his mouth finds me again, it’s worship, not hunger. Every kiss says the same thing in a hundred different ways:
You’re here.You’re safe.You’re wanted.
Tears sting my eyes and spill over before I can stop them.
He stills instantly, pulling back just enough to see my face.
“Hey,” he murmurs, thumb brushing beneath my eye. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know how to take this,” I admit, voice shaking. “Being touched lovingly. That’s foreign to me.”
