"If you want."
"I want."
"Then tomorrow night it is. If you still feel up to it tomorrow."
The next day passes in a haze of work and want.
We spend the morning on the east wall trim with Tex cutting, me holding, both of us measuring twice because we can't afford to waste lumber at the rate the hardware store is charging. The vendor calls have become my domain because Tex negotiates like a man buying a friend a beer and I negotiate like a man who knows exactly what the markup is and isn't paying it.
The whole day, the electric tension hums between us. Tex brushes past me in the kitchen and his hand trails across my lower back. The touch lasts half a second but the heat of it lasts an hour. I reach past him for a box on a high shelf and my body presses against his and he goes completely still.
We don't talk about it. We don't need to. The conversation happened last night. The opening act happened last night. What's left is the anticipation, and the anticipation is its own kind of pleasure. A slow, warm current running beneath the surface of a normal day, making everything sharper, brighter, more alive.
The bar closes early at nine. Sheila leaves with her forehead kiss and then it's us.
"Shower," Tex says. Not a question. A shared understanding. We've been working all day in sawdust and the grime of a bar that's still under construction. Tonight requires the respect of showing up to each other fresh and clean.
We shower together. He washes my hair the way he always does. His big hands working the shampoo through theblond, his fingers against my scalp. And I wash his chest and his shoulders and the broad plane of his back and we don't rush. The water is warm. The steam fills the bathroom. We wash each other like a ritual it's become for us.
We dry off and go to the bedroom. The bed is already made because order is one of the ways I reassure myself that I live here now and this is my home. I like being able to take pride in our home.
Tex sits on the edge of the bed and looks at me. His grin is gone. In its place is the serious face, the focused face of a man who desperately wants to get this right.
"How exactly do you want to do this?" he asks. "Do you want to ride me? You'd be on top, in control. You lower yourself down at your own pace, set the depth, the speed. Everything. You'd be driving."
I've been thinking about it all day. Turning the various positions over in my head the way I turn everything over, examining the angles. On top gives me control. On top is the safest choice.
But on top also means I'm looking down at him while my body does the work, and what I want most—what I realized sometime between the trim work and the vendor calls—is to see his face above me. I want Tex's eyes on me. I want to look up into his face and know that the face above me is the one I love.
Ron never did it face to face. Always from behind. His hand on the back of my neck, pushing my face into the pillow. Four years of a weight on my back and a face I couldn't see. That's why the position matters to me. It has to be this way.
"On my back," I tell him. "I want to be on my back. With you above me. I want to see your face the whole time."
Tex doesn't need to hear the specific details of why I want it this way. He's carried enough of my pain and I'm not adding anymore to it.
He reads my face and he sees my trust. That I trust him enough to lie beneath him. That his weight on me is something I want.
"Are you sure?" he asks.
"I want to be looking at you, Tex. I'm completely sure."
He nods slowly. The understanding settling into him.
"Okay," he says. "I want you to talk to me the whole time. Tell me everything you feel. The word stop is the end of everything. And Stormy—"
"Yeah?"
"I love you. I need to say that before we start because I might not be able to form words once we do. I'll probably be babbling like a lunatic."
"I love you too, Tex."
I lie back on the bed. He doesn't go straight for it. This is Tex. He starts slow, crawling over me, arms braced on either side of my head, and lowers his mouth to mine first. The kiss is deep but unhurried. His lips parting mine gently, tongue stroking in lazy, exploratory sweeps that taste like mint from his toothpaste. His beard scratches softly against my chin, a familiar rasp that makes my skin tingle. I arch up into him, hands sliding into his hair, pulling him closer. He groans softly into my mouth, low, vibrating, and kisses me longer, deeper, like we have all night just for this.
"God, I love kissing you," he murmurs against my lips. "Your mouth is so soft. So perfect. The way you open for me like this. Makes me feel like the luckiest man alive. And I am."
He kisses me again, even slower this time, tongue tracing the seam of my lips before dipping inside, tangling with mine in a rhythm that builds heat low. His body presses closer, chest to chest, the weight of him grounding me without overwhelming.
I wrap my legs around his hips instinctively, pulling him nearer, feeling the hard length of his cock brush against my thigh.
