I want?—
I don’t finish the thought. I can’t. It’s too big. It has teeth.
His rhythm shifts. Becomes urgent. His control finally cracks, and I’m glad because I want him to be as wrecked as I feel.
“Come for me,” he whispers, his hand sliding between us, wrapping around me, stroking with a rhythm that matches his thrusts. “I’ve got you.”
I’ve got you.
Three words. And they shatter something I’ve been holding together for years.
I break. The orgasm tears through me from the base of my spine outward. It’s not the sharp, blinding peak I’m used to, but something that rolls through me in waves, clenching and releasing, my whole body shuddering against his. My fingers grip his back hard enough to leave marks. My face is pressed against his neck, and I can taste salt on his skin. Every muscle I have contracts and then lets go, and in that letting go, there’s a terrifying openness, like every locked door inside me has simultaneously been blown off its hinges.
For a moment, I’m nothing but sensation and Leo’s name in my mouth and the feeling of being held by someone who isn’t going to let go.
He follows me over the edge, his face buried in my shoulder. My eyes sting.
We breathe together in the aftermath. His weight is on me as he presses a kiss to my temple. My cheekbone. The corner of my mouth.
Each one lands like a small, precise wound.
I turn my head and press my lips against the center of his chest. I hold my lips there, feeling his heartbeat against my mouth.
I should say something. Archie Mansley always has something to say.
But the machinery that produces my quips and deflections seems to have broken down entirely, and what’s left underneath is just…me. Lying in the dark with a man who just touched me like I was something precious, and feeling like I’ve been cracked open and don’t know how to close back up.
“Nine point nine,” I manage eventually. My voice sounds strange and shaky.
“What happened to the other point one?”
“You knocked your elbow on the headboard during the…you know.”
“I did not knock my?—”
“There was a definite clunk. Very distracting.”
“I was focused on other things.”
“Excuses.”
The banter feels like muscle memory. But it’s different tonight, like I’m reaching for the costume and finding it doesn’t quite fit anymore.
He moves out of bed to clean up.
When he climbs back into bed, he pulls me to him, fitting me against his chest. His arm tightens around my waist. My hand finds his, and our fingers interlace.
This is the part where I should say something funny. Something that puts this back in its box and reminds us both that this is just sex with a fake boyfriend and it doesn’t mean anything real.
But Leo presses his mouth against the back of my neck, and I shiver, and the words won’t come.
He falls asleep before me. His breathing evens out, slow and steady against my back. His hand stays intertwined with mine, even as he sleeps.
I lie there in the dark and think about every relationship I’ve ever had. The ones where I was too much. The ones where they wanted the genius or the performer, but not the whole messy package. The ones where I ran rings around them so they never got close enough to be dangerous.
Leo’s gotten closer than anyone ever has, closer than I meant to let him. He did it so gradually, so patiently, that I didn’t even notice until tonight, when he touched me like I was something he couldn’t bear to lose.
I’ve got you.
