“I won’t let you be for me what I can’t be for you.”
“I don’t understand,” I admit, because I don’t. Not fully.
He exhales and then searches my eyes like he’s choosing each word with care. “Let me be what you need, too.”
I shake my head slightly, still lost. “I still don’t get it.”
He kisses me again. “Exactly,” he whispers against my mouth, his tongue lingering where his lips just were. “A woman who gives herself the way you do. Who offers herself without hesitation.”
His thumb sweeps my cheek, unexpectedly gentle. “Something tells me no one’s taken care of you like that in a long time.”
The words are too…accurate.
Who told him?
How does he know?
My therapist says I’ve developed a nasty habit of people-pleasing. Growing up, I saw how much my mother sacrificed for us, and I became the child who refused to add to her burden. I trained myself to absorb everything—to be the silent, steady one who never had a need of her own.
It’s a skin I’ve been desperately trying to shed, but I’ve never quite mastered the art of putting myself first. I've never fully tried.
Maybe this is the sign I’ve been waiting for. Maybe Eli isn’t just an escape. Maybe he’s the conduit I need to finally break the silence. I want to learn how to ask for what I want. To finally demand more for myself without the crushing guilt of having nothing left to give in return.
There’s a sting in the corner of my eye. A tear I didn’t authorize. Didn’t invite. I don’t even recognize it as mine.
What the fuck is happening right now?
I’m a thug.
I don’t cry.
He kisses my cheek, gently, then licks the tear away before it can fall.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry, Max,” he whispers.
And I’m abruptly, painfully, blissfully reminded that this man is still inside me. Still there. Still pressing in. Still trying to consume me. He’s so patient.
“Trust me,” I say through a sarcastic laugh. “This was not in my plans either. I don’t do this.”
His head dips, his mouth finding my neck. He bites down just enough to pull a gasp from me, a perfect mix of pressure and restraint. His hands slide to my thighs, firm and possessive as he pulls me open, stretching me slowly, easing deeper. Unrelenting, but careful. Like he knows exactly how far to push without breaking me.
The firm table top presses into my ass as Eli holds me in place, connecting us.
The greenhouse hums softly around us—plants shifting, glass ticking as it cools, the air thick and alive. And somehow, the world keeps going while mine quietly comes undone.
“You don’t do what, Mama?” he grunts through gritted teeth “Tell me what else you don’t do?”
The question shouldn’t matter. It’s a simple thing. But it lands like a crack in the foundation I’ve spent ten years reinforcing.
Because I built myself this way on purpose. I became the mouthy, crass nerd with sharp edges and thicker skin so no one could get in. The girl who learned how to sort things neatly. Sex over here. Feelings over there. No overlap. No mess.
And here Eli is, standing right in the middle of it, dismantling the system like he understands exactly how it was built. Like I’m a firewall hardened by a decade of bad data, and he’s the one vulnerability I didn’t account for. Quietly cracking open the black box I locked my heart inside.
His hands move with slow, grounding certainty, guiding me along his length and opening me up, refusing to let me retreat into the safety of my own head. He keeps me anchored right here. He stays—deep in my body, locked in this moment.
“I can’t hear you, Mama,” he grunts again. “Tell me what it is that you don’t do.”
The emphasis hits deep enough that I lose the fight for composure entirely.
