Now I’m here.
In his bed.
Under his covers.
Marked in ways that have nothing to do with bruises and everything to do with choice.
It was fast.
Too fast, by any reasonable standard.
I lost my virginity on a kitchen table, in a cabin with a man fifteen years older than me. A man with scars and ghosts and a voice that sounds like gravel and smoke.
But when I search myself for regret, I don’t find it.
I find certainty.
It didn’t feel reckless.
It felt inevitable.
Like something that had been building the second our eyes locked across that club.
He didn’t force me.
He didn’t manipulate me.
He warned me.
Twice.
And I still leaned in.
I shift slightly, turning in his arms so I can look at him.
His eyes are already closed.
The hard lines of his face have softened in sleep. The tension is looser now.
I trace the scar near his temple gently, the one that tightened earlier tonight when he was angry.
His brow twitches faintly, but he doesn’t wake.
His arm tightens around me in response, even asleep.
Possessive.
Protective.
Mine.
The word feels different now.
Not ownership.
Belonging.
I close my eyes and let sleep take me.
