The tux jacket goes first.
Then the tie.
Then his shirt, opened slowly under my hands because I need to touch him too, need to feel the heat and strength of him without silk and cotton in the way.
He shudders when my fingertips find bare skin, like he can’t quite believe this is happening either.
I press my palms to his chest and feel the hammering of his heart.
The hard flex of muscle.
The way his body seems built for force and somehow still gentles itself for me.
“You’re beautiful too,” I say before I can stop myself. “All man,” I whisper, and watch heat storm his face so fast it makes me feel suddenly powerful and terribly soft all at once.
His forehead drops to mine again. “Don’t say things like that unless you want me to forget how to behave.”
I smile against his mouth.
“Maybe I do.”
“Brave girl.”
Then the rest of the room falls away.
Not because time stops.
Because he makes it.
Slow kisses.
Whispered questions.
The drag of his hands over my skin as if he is memorizing every inch, not claiming it too fast.
The soft sound he makes when I touch him back with equal wonder.
The way we keep pausing to look at each other like neither of us can believe the other one is really here.
He lays me down like something precious.
Not fragile.
Precious.
There’s a difference.
The fresh white sheets cool against my skin.
The firelight moves gold across his shoulders.
The ocean sounds faint beyond the glass doors.
Late fall glows outside, all twinkling lights and dark sea and the kind of decadence that belongs to places like this.
Inside the bed, everything becomes smaller.
Warmer.
