“Knew what?”
She leans her forehead against mine. "That I love you too."
The words land in the center of my chest and stay there.
She kisses me. Her mouth on mine is soft and warm. I kiss her back with everything I have.
When we break apart, her eyes are on mine. Then she stands.
She pulls her shirt over her head. The morning light on her bare skin, the bruising faded to yellow at her ribs, the brace still on her right arm. She looks at me with something quiet and challenging in her expression.
"No mask," she says. "No chase. Just us."
I stand.
I reach for my ruined shirt and drop it. She reaches for her brace next, working the closure one-handed. I watch her do it. She catches me watching and raises an eyebrow.
“Sexy,” I say, and she laughs.
I reach for my belt. It refuses. Her left hand comes up to help mine, and between us we manage the buckle, both of us slightly ridiculous at the edge of this pool with the city forty floors below. The laughter that comes out of both of us is wet at the edges, still raw, but it's real.
When we're both bare, I stop.
I look at her in the full morning light. No dark. No adrenaline. No game between us. Just her.
"You're so fucking beautiful," I say. Just truth.
She touches my face. Then her palm moves down over my chest, slow, following the old marks — the ridge along my ribs, the thin lines on my forearms, the puckered mark on my shoulder she's pressed her lips to. She traces all of it. Not sad. Just knowing.
"So are you," she says. "All of it. Especially the parts you hate."
Her hand continues lower. Over my stomach, the muscle tensing beneath her palm. Then lower still, her fingers wrapping around my cock, and I exhale hard through my nose.
She strokes me slowly, deliberately, her grip firm. I'm already hard, and my cock goes thick and full in her hand while she watches my face with those gray eyes that give me everything now.
"Wren." Her name comes out rough.
"I know," she says. She does.
Then she pushes me into the pool, following right behind.
The warmth takes us immediately — silkier than the ocean, nothing like the cold Atlantic I drove into hours ago. She wrapsaround me as she surfaces, legs around my waist, arms around my neck, her face close to mine. I hold her there first. Her breasts against my chest, the soft press of them, her nipples hard.
"What?" she asks, reading something in my face.
"Nothing." I look at her. The full light, no dark between us. "I want to see you."
"You've seen me before."
"Not like this."
Her eyes soften.
I reach between us. Find her already slick, warm even in the warm water, her pussy soft and swollen. She exhales against my mouth when my fingers find her. I work her slowly — two fingers sliding inside her while my thumb circles her clit — watching every shift in her face. The flush spreading up her throat. The way her lips part. The small involuntary sounds she's trying to contain and failing.
No fear in her face. Just pleasure, moving through her the same way fear does — the same widening of her eyes, the same parted lips — but different. Better. I know the difference now. I've made both happen and I know what I'm looking at. This is her wanting more.
I curl my fingers forward, finding the spot that makes her gasp, and she clenches around me immediately, her left hand digging into my shoulder, her hips pressing into my hand seeking more friction. I give it to her. I watch her face and I give her exactly what she needs — more pressure, a better angle — because I know her body and I'm paying attention.
