“Look at me,” he said, and when I did, everything else, the rain, the hunt, the cave that wasn’t a room, fell away. His pupils were blown wide; his mouth was wrecked with want. “You stop when you want. You take what you need.”
“I’m taking,” I said, and he smiled like it killed him.
I pushed up off his lap, legs unsteady, breath shaking. The wet denim clung as I shoved my jeans down, shirt next, every layer hitting the floor heavy with rain. He watched me the whole time, jaw tight, eyes dark. Then his hands went to his belt, slow, deliberate, the rasp of the zipper cutting through the sound of our breathing. Pants hit the floor. The air between us went molten.
I climbed back over him, knees bracketing his hips, and his palms caught at my waist like he couldn’t believe I was real.
I lowered my hips as he dragged his mouth down my throat, a slow, reverent path that made my breath stutter, then lower, teeth just there, a promise of pressure. My hands slid into his hair, wet. Soft, and I held him where I wanted him, hips moving helplessly now, greedy for friction, for the flood of relief that sat just beyond it.
“Say it,” he rasped, voice wrecked. “Tell me.”
“I want,” Words broke apart and came back together honest. “I want to come.”
His hands tightened, one on my hip, one circling to lift and pull, giving me more of him, giving me everything. “Then come for me.”
The way he said for me like I was doing him a favor pushed me right to the edge. I chased it, chased him, chased the feeling like a heatwave moving under my skin. He angled up, found the place that made me gasp, and stayed there, relentless, patient, the kind of patience that ruins you. My pulse jumped into my mouth.
“Cap,” I warned, dizzy with it.
“I know,” he said, and kissed me through it, slow and deep as the first kiss, like he could catch the shake in his hands and hold it for me while I fell apart.
I went, tightening, climbing. Then burning out into something bright and helpless, the sob caught in my throat not from fear, not anymore, from relief so intense it hurt. He held me all the way, braced me with his body while mine forgot how to be a person, murmuring yes. There you go and that’s it, sweetheart against my ear until the aftershocks softened and I could breathe without shaking.
When I opened my eyes, he was watching me like I’d just done a magic trick he intended to applaud forever.
“My turn,” I said, voice hoarse.
“You don’t,” He swallowed. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“I want to,” I said simply, and slid my palm down, found him hot and hard, the sound he made hitting me like a second, smaller climax. I worked him slowly at first, savoring the weight, the slick heat, the way his head tipped back against the stone when I twisted my wrist just so. He tried to be quiet and failed, a ragged baby breaking loose when I tightened my fingers and stroked harder.
“Eyes,” I said, echoing him, and when he dragged them back to mine, when he stayed there, the power of it went molten in my belly.
He reached for my hips again, not to stop me, never that, but to guide, to help, to show me the angle that undid him. I changedrhythm, teased and denied the way I wanted to be teased, and he laughed once, helpless, low.
“You’re going to kill me,” he said.
“Later,” I said, and kissed him messy while I took him apart in my hand, while he whispered my name like he was learning it for the first time.
He warned me like I had warned him. I didn’t stop. I wanted to watch it happen; I wanted to feel it in the tendons of his neck and under my palm. When he broke, it was with a curse bitten off against my mouth. A shudder I rode out with him, holding him down, holding him here, his hands flexing hard at my hips to anchor himself to something that wasn’t the cave or the rain or the night or the blood we’d left behind.
We stayed tangled, breathing hard, the fire a small, stubborn heart near our feet. Outside, the rain slackened to a hush.
He stroked my hair back, thumb slow against my temple, touch shy. “You warm enough?”
“Now I'm,” I said, and tucked myself under his chin. The world could wait ten minutes. Maybe twelve. We’d earned that much.
He kissed the top of my head. “We still go back.”
“Together,” I said.
“Together,” he agreed, and pulled the shirt tighter around my shoulders like a vow.
