“Don’t stop,” he commands.
“I’m not stopping.”
I keep moving and kiss his jaw, throat, and that spot below his ear I’ve cataloged carefully. He tilts his head back, throat exposed, every line of him surrendered, and I feel the exact moment his body stops holding back.
He comes with my name on his breath and both arms wrapped around me, pulling me flush against his chest, and I feel every second of it, the tension, the release, the shudder that moves all the way through him and into me. I press my lips to his shoulder and hold on, and he buries his face in my hair. We stay like that, tangled and breathing hard, until the room stops spinning.
The string lights are warm above us.
The city hums somewhere outside the window.
And neither of us speaks for a long time.
His hand strokes up my spine slowly, thoughtlessly, and tenderly, the way you touch something you want to keep.
“You still waiting for the other shoe?” he murmurs into my hair.
I press my hand flat to his chest and feel his heartbeat slowing, steadying underneath the tattoo I haven’t put on him yet. I’m going to ink underneath his ribs in a week and a half. Underneath whatever this is that I haven’t named because naming things makes them real, and real things can break.
But then, with his heartbeat steady under my palm, I say, “Less than I was.”
He pulls me closer, and I let him.
Much later, we’re tangled together in my sheets. My head is on his chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder. Thestring lights cast everything in a soft glow, and I’ve never felt more content.
“I’m tattooing you,” I say into the silence.
His hand pauses. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I know what I want to design.” I prop myself up on an elbow, looking down at him. “It’s going to hurt. Ribs are sensitive.”
“I can handle it.”
“And it’s going to take multiple sessions. This isn’t something I can finish in an hour.”
“I’ve got time.”
“And you can’t complain if you don’t like the design. Once I start, I’m finishing it my way.”
“I wouldn’t dream of complaining.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “When do we start?”
“Next week. I’ll need time to refine the design and get the stencil ready.”
“Whatever you need.”
I settle back against his chest, and his arms wrap around me. This should terrify me. The intimacy, the commitment, and the fact that I’m agreeing to permanently mark his body with my art, but all I feel is certainty.
“Reece?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for driving over, even with the inside-out shirt and the disaster hair.”
He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Thank you for texting, even though you deleted the message fifteen times before sending it.”
“How did you—”
“I know you, Ava. You overthink everything.”
