“Seeing you,” she says simply.
Her fingertips land on my forehead first, their touch careful as she traces the breadth of it, following my hairline. Gentle pressure, like she’s reading braille, and my scalp tightens, every nerve ending aware of her exploring fingers.
“Ophelia…”
“Shh.” She moves along to my temples with the same circling care, then slides along my cheekbones. Each centimetre of skin soon buzzes under her soft touch, mapping the outline of my eyes, tracing the bunched muscles of my clenched jaw, hands fisted at my sides, so I won’t disturb her exploration.
This feels a hundred times more intimate than sex, more invasive, and my throat constricts as my cock strains at my trousers. But an instinct deeper than arousal holds me in place, barely breathing while she memorises the contours of my face.
“You have a bump on your nose.” Pressure near the bridge. “Right here.”
“Fell off a swing set when I was little.”
Her fingertips pause, then follow the slope to my nostrils, barely grazing the sensitive skin there, each touch more deliberate. When she presses lightly against my lips, I nearly bite them. The impulse surges, hot and violent, wanting to turn this tender moment into something I control.
But then she’d recoil and flee, leaving me with an incomplete memory.
So I force myself still, jaw aching as she traces the bow of my upper lip, the fuller curve of my lower. Her thumb stops in the centre but doesn’t press inside, just rests there with my breath heating her skin.
“You have a beautiful mouth. The way it curves like you’re about to say something cruel.”
“How do you know when I’m about to speak?”
“I can feel it in the muscles.” Her thumb presses into the corner of my mouth where it wants to curl into a smirk. “Right here, it’s tensing.”
She moves to my ears, thumb pad rasping against the lobes, her fingertip resting in the hollow behind where my pulse beats.
“Fast.”
“And hard. You’re sitting on my lap.”
My impulses war between letting her finish and grabbing her, holding her down while I fuck her, anything to return the balance where I take what I want and she endures.
But this tension is a far cry from the usual friction. It has a fullness that makes my eyes sting.
“Finished?” My voice comes out strangled.
“Almost.” Her fingers return to my face, tracing the arch of my eyebrows now, finding the tiny scar above my left eye, barely visible, barely noticeable. “What’s this from?”
“My father.” Her movements still. I should’ve kept quiet, but it’s too late now. “Back when I was five. He pushed me and my head hit the counter.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I was a miserable little shit, always getting into trouble.” I force out a laugh. “Much like now.”
“No child deserves that.” Her thumb brushes over the scar again, so gentle it hurts. “Nobody does.”
I can’t respond and stay silent while she finishes mapping my face and withdraws her hands. Her lips briefly press against mine, soft, chaste almost, nothing like when I’ve devoured hers, full of need.
“Thank you,” she whispers against my mouth. “For today.”
Then she climbs off my lap with far less grace than she mounted it, fumbling with the door.
The touch of her fingers stays with me as she reaches the footpath and walks along to her house. I rub it away, engine still running, staring at nothing.
My face tingles where her fingers mapped it. My lips still feel the ghost of that final, tender kiss. And in my chest, where the emptiness should be, there’s just fullness. Warmth.
My fingers grip the steering wheel hard enough to hurt.
