I stepped closer.
Trembling fingers hovered over hair I knew was soft.
You can’t have him.
I pulled away before touching, my hand restless at my side. I didn’t know how to fight this pull between us. Like a magnet. Like gravity. A longing to touch and be touched.
I can’t.
A step backward. He chewed his lip again. My silence was making him uncertain. Insecure. My brow furrowed. I didn’t want that. Not ever.
Slowly, carefully, I sank to his level, kneeling in front of him. My kneesalmosttouching his.
Don’t do it.
My hand hovered over where his was placed on his thigh. Because that’s where I told him to put them. Because he’d listened. He always listened.
What if he rejects me?
What if he doesn’t?
Benny had taken a chance on me. He’d let himself be vulnerable and trusted me to care for him. I was struggling to let myself do the same.
Breathe.
My hand lowered onto his. He twitched at the unexpected contact, his chest expanding with a heavy inhale, blown out through pursed lips.
I swallowed, giving myself a moment to exist here before my palm smoothed up his forearm. Slow, just like I’d touched him last time. His bicep. Over his shoulder and collarbones. He remained perfectly still.
My hand moved over his bear paw tattoo and stayed there, feeling the rapid beating of his heart. Its rhythm matched mine.
An inch forward and our knees were touching. His heart beat faster, his breathing quicker. Matching mine.
“Ask me.” My voice was quiet, fearful of disturbing this fragile connection.
His brow twitched. “A-ask you?”
“Yes. Ask me. What you always ask me.”
He inhaled fast. Exhaled slow. Lips moved as he searched for his voice, searched for what I meant. I saw the moment he found it, even before he said the words out loud.
“Can I touch you?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
His head twitched in a nod. After a moment of building himself up to it, his hand lifted from his thigh, moving slow enough that I could stop him, until it rested over mine on his chest. Our fingers laced together.
His hand was sowarm.
Then his other hand lifted, finding my wrist, his touch so light as it explored the exposed skin where my smartwatch normally resided. He took his time there, as if that one spot was worth knowing intimately.
Only once he’d explored it completely did he move up to my forearm, over my shirt, his fingers wrapping almost entirely around my arm, even as he moved higher, to my elbow… higher.
I watched his face carefully, looking for hesitation, for disappointment. I couldn’t find it.
His hand reached my shoulder, then moved along the collar of my shirt until his fingertips touched the skin at my neck. They smoothed over my jawline slowly, gently, until his palm pressed against my skin and his thumb smoothed over my cheek.
He held me there, one hand laced together with mine on his chest, and the other cupping my neck and jaw.
