I smile. “You’re on the pill?”
He bites my bottom lip and I hiss. “I’m tested. Clean.”
My hands caress the back of his neck and grips his hair as he holds me there. “The biting thing…” I admit softly. “It’s new for me. I think I might like it.”
I feel him shift as he presses into me, teasing just enough to pull a gasp from my chest.
“There’s a lot I’d like to show you while you’re here,” he murmurs.
I nod. “Okay.” Eager.
His voice drops lower, steadier. “But right now, I'm about to do exactly what you just gave me permission to do, Mama.”
He presses in more, deeper. It's enough to make me ache, and I can tell he’s forcing himself to slow down. I lock my legs around his hips, greedy, pulling him closer, silently begging him to go deeper.
“Say it, Bear. Tell me what you’re going to do to me.”
“Do you want a play-by-play,” he says, voice rough, “or do you want me to fuck you?”
I let out a shaky laugh. “I’m a tech nerd. I like knowing how everything works.”
He nudges in deeper, just a fraction more, and I’m so desperate for him. But he doesn’t give in. He keeps teasing, dragging it out. He’s done this before and I can tell he loves doing this to me.
He kisses me again and I feel it all the way down to my feet. “It’ll take much longer than a week to figure out how I work, Lil Mama.”
I wouldn’t mind. As long as it would take. Even if he does use that nickname, Little Mama, or any version of it. I usually despise it, but coming from him, it sounds like warm molasses—slow, dark, and sweet enough to coat my entire soul.
“A week,” I say. Another reminder for us both.
He nods once. “A week. For a week you’ll let me—”
“Burden me, Bear.”
He freezes. Then he shakes his head.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” he says quietly. “I don’t like how easily you give yourself to people. How little you seem to mind being consumed.”
The words land somewhere tender. Somewhere exposed.
I’ve never framed it that way before. We haven’t reached that part of therapy, yet. The place where I let someone close enough to see the pattern, let alone name it. Where they so easily see that I volunteer myself as the solution all too often. The fixer. The offering. The sacrifice.
“You deserve to be taken care of too, Max,” he says softly. “You know that, right?”
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t immediately know how to argue or fight back.
The vulnerability in his voice catches me off guard. It shouldn’t. Not after seeing how gentle this giant really is. How the same hands that swing an axe also tend a garden, choosing to build and grow instead of destroy.
And still…it surprises the hell out of me. It rocks me to my core.
“I know but, what are fake girlfriends for?” I whisper, like it doesn’t matter.
His jaw tightens, eyes darkening, and then he finally pushes into me. Slowly. Inch by inch.
Every nerve in my body lights up as he fills me, stretches me, takes his time with me. And even then, even when he’s buried deep and my breath is coming apart, I know—he’s still not done surprising me. Still not done filling me.
“I won’t let you do that for me,” he says softly, the words pressed into the space between us.
I frown, searching his face as he lets himself settle inside. Deeper with each motion. “Do what?”
