“Move, please.” Emotion I tried to contain filled my voice.
Tyler rocked gently. A slight drag over everywhere good.
My breathing caught, and he brought his lips to my temple. “If it’s too much…”
“It isn’t. It’s perfect.”
He kissed my cheek. Kissed away the tears he found there.
Tyler kept up the steady action, letting me just feel. He stayed slow, and my body needed that so much. The tender care with no demand other than chasing desire.
My fear left me.
Only he remained.
I tightened around him with the first warning that I could make it to the finish line. A muscle in Tyler’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t flinch. He just kept moving. Filling me. Giving me what I’d asked. He fisted the sheets at my next spasm, and I rocked my hips to hunt it down. The thread he was pulling. The line that led me to the discovery I’d needed.
Oh God, this was everything I’d always wanted. New, and wonderful, and strange. It choked me up, how everything he did drove me to a precipice.
The grind of our bodies together. The trust and the twin souls needing each other.
I came with a wordless cry, shuddering and shaking beneath him. Every other thought fled my mind. Nothing but how good it felt. How happy I was to know that pleasure.
Relaxation swamped my body, and I collapsed. Tyler withdrew and grabbed a pillow, shoving it between us before sinking back into the tight hold.
“You’re incredible.” He kissed my hair. My temple.
I couldn’t ignore how tense he remained. I couldn’t imagine what it had taken him to hold back at that trigger moment. But he had. He’d done it for me.
Fresh tears sprang into my eyes. I pressed my hand to my mouth to stop a sob.
No,no. I didn’t want this. I wanted to be normal about sex.
That was a fantasy. The sobbing started.
Tyler hushed me. Held me tight. Kissed away my tears. He wrapped us both in the blanket so all I knew was the safety of his arms.
Neither of us spoke for a long while.
I processed today’s emotional breakdown, and he kept me warm.
Eventually, I came out the other side and remembered the other piece of trust I wanted to give him. “You asked about all the people who hurt me. Do you still want to know?”
“I do. Can I take the blindfold off?”
I reached to slide it from his face. Calm, intelligent eyes settled on me.
I loved being the centre of his gaze.
“When I was talking to Mila earlier, I nearly told her about the first one. But I stopped myself. I wanted to do that with you.”
Tyler’s pupils dilated, a faint flicker in the reflected light from the city coming through the big arched windows. He liked that I’d put him first. I’d remember that.
I held my gaze on him. “The last was Sullivan, which you know, but he had two men with him.”
“Henry Davies and Justin Skinner. Sullivan gave up their names.”
I blinked. “They weren’t the ringleaders, but they were almost as bad.”
