"Yeah," I say. "I am."
Something about saying it out loud breaks something loose in him. He pulls back and strips his shirt over his head and I take a breath to appreciate what four months of Stone's outdoor programming has done, which is extensive, and then his hands are at the hem of my shirt and his eyes are on mine.
He pulls my shirt off and his mouth goes to my collarbone, my shoulder, the top of my chest, working down while his hands work up — his mouth is on my breast and I make a sound I wasn't planning to make and his hands tighten on my hips.
"Gray—"
"I've got you," he says against my skin. "I've got you."
He works his way down my stomach, untying my pants, pulling them off with my underwear in one smooth move anddropping them somewhere behind him. Then he’s back over me, looking at me the way he looks at things he’s already decided are his — quiet, absolute, not negotiating — and I reach up and drag him back down because I have been holding myself together and I am done holding.
His hand slides between my thighs and I'm already wet and he makes a sound like I've just given him something, low and rough, and strokes me slowly while his mouth finds mine again. I'm not quiet about it. I've stopped performing composure somewhere between the east yard fence and right now and Gray doesn't seem to mind. His fingers work me open while I pull at his pants with both hands and he laughs against my mouth — actually laughs, low and warm — and helps me.
When he pushes inside me it's slow. Deliberate. His eyes on mine the whole time. He bottoms out and stops and breathes and I feel the bond between us like a circuit — complete, running, both arcs lit — and it's not like anything else.
"Okay?" he says again. Rougher this time.
"Move," I say.
He does.
It builds fast — the bond amplifying everything, his hands on my hips lifting me into each thrust, my nails in his shoulders, his mouth at my throat growling my name against the pulse point. He's not gentle and I don't want him to be.
I come with his hand between us and his mouth at my ear and his name in my mouth and he follows me over the edge a minute later with his face buried in my neck and both arms wrapped around me like I'm something he's not letting go of.
Afterward he doesn't move.
His weight is on me and I let it be. His breathing slows. His hands, which have been gripping me hard enough to leave marks, finally relax — not releasing, softening. One thumb traces a slow line along my hip.
"I'm sorry," he says. Still low. Still against my neck.
"You said that already."
"I'll keep saying it."
"Gray." I put my hand in his hair. "I heard you the first time."
He lifts his head. The blue of his eyes in the low light of my room. The walls are gone and he's not rebuilding them and I don't think he's going to.
"The bond," he says. "When you shifted. I felt it across the compound."
"I know."
"The third arc." He reaches down and takes my left wrist, turns it up, looks at the three marks the way RJ looked at them through chain link this morning. Different. His jaw tightens slightly. "Who."
"Dalton," I say. "The security consultant."
He looks at the arc. His thumb moves over it once.
I pull him back down.
He comes without argument, settles beside me, one arm across my stomach. His breathing evens out. Mine does too.
In this space, it's warm and quiet and I am not alone, which is the thing I didn't know I needed until I had it.
I press my palm flat against his chest and feel his heartbeat under my hand and think:this is what the bond is for.
Not the institution. Not the protocol.
