Because sleeping here made me feel less alone. Because I was afraid and because missing you felt worse in the dark.
I can’t say any of that, so I do the stupidest possible thing.
I kiss him.
He goes still for half a heartbeat, like he’s surprised I made the first move. Then his hand slides to the back of my neck and he kisses me back with a low, rough sound that sends heat through me so fast it almost aches. The kiss is slower than theones before. Not less intense. Worse, somehow. Like he’s relearning me after being gone and resenting how much he still likes the lesson.
I tug him closer.
He breaks the kiss just enough to look at me. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He searches my face for a long second, then nods once, like he’s making a decision he already knows is a bad one.
“Come here,” he says.
I’m already there.
He gets under the blankets with me, and the world narrows immediately to warmth and clean sheets and the shape of him beside me. He kisses me again, slower, deeper, and I melt into him with a softness I wish I had the strength to resist. His hand glides over my side, then settles at my waist, careful even now. That carefulness lights me up more than anything rough ever could.
“You were gone too long,” I murmur against his mouth.
His hand stills. “Were you counting?”
“Maybe.”
A dark, pleased look flickers through his eyes. “Dangerous answer.”
“You asked.”
“And you answered honestly. I should mark the date.”
I laugh softly, and he kisses the sound out of me.
The city glows beyond the curtains. His room smells like him and me now, like heat and relief and a mistake neither of us intends to stop making tonight. He touches me like he missed me too, even if he’d rather choke than say it. I hold him like I’m angry about needing this and too tired to lie about it anymore.
When his hand finds the curve of my stomach again, he pauses. Just for a second. Long enough for his thumb to sweep over me with such reverence that something inside my chestthreatens to split open. The tenderness of it is dangerous. Worse than his mouth. Worse than his hands. Worse than the way he looks at me like I’m something he wants to ruin and worship in the same breath.
So I pull him back down before I can start thinking.
His mouth crashes into mine. He doesn’t make me ask. Doesn’t make me wait. He gives me exactly what I’m reaching for, all heat and hunger and his body pressing mine deeper into the mattress. His hand slips under my thigh, hitching my leg higher, opening me for him while his breath comes rough against my lips.
“Tell me to slow down,” he murmurs.
I drag my nails down his back. “Don’t you dare.”
We’re too desperate for grace. Too far gone for patience. He drags my panties aside, the lace biting into my hip, and fumbles with his pants just enough to free himself. The blunt, hard pressure of him finds me, and for one suspended second, we both go still.
“God,” he breathes.
Then he pushes into me.
Slow enough to make me feel every inch but deep enough to steal the sound out of my throat. My back arches off the bed, my hands flying to his shoulders as he fills me completely, stretching me around him until all I know is the weight of him, the heat of him, the unbearable intimacy of being taken apart by someone who knows exactly how to break me.
He groans into my neck, one hand still splayed over my stomach like he can’t stop touching me there, like it undoes him.
I clench around him, and his hips jerk.
