Truer.
He kisses my forehead.
My eyelids.
The corner of my mouth he branded days ago in the gym.
The line of my throat that has haunted him so long I think touching it now is almost a prayer.
I feel that in the way he lingers.
In the way he seems to savor every sigh he draws from me like he’s waited years to hear them.
In the way his restraint never breaks so much as deepens—like all that longing is being poured into care instead of chaos.
“Tell me what feels good,” he murmurs.
So I do.
Not in polished words.
In breath.
In little nods.
In the way my hands cling to him when something inside me goes sweet and liquid from the sheer tenderness of it all.
He listens to all of it.
Every sound.
Every tremble.
Every whispered yes.
And when the moment comes where the heat sharpens into something bigger, something that makes me catch my breath and tense for one scared second because this is real now, truly real, he stops immediately.
His hand cups my cheek.
“Look at me.”
I do.
His eyes are dark and wrecked and gentler than I know what to do with.
“We go slow,” he says. “As slow as you need.”
The tears come then.
Not because I’m frightened.
Because I’m overwhelmed by how safe he makes this feel.
I nod.
“Okay.”
His mouth touches mine in the softest kiss of the night.
