Neither of us says anything for a while. The lamp hums. Outside a car passes on the road below the house and its headlights sweep briefly across the ceiling and disappear.
Then he looks at me.
This isn’t Phoenix-Crawford-reading-a-situation look. Just looking. The way he did on the beach when the cold came back and neither of us moved.
I stand up and hold out my hand.
He takes it.
He doesn't turn on the bedroom light.
The room is dim, just the ambient glow from the city coming through the curtains, and he stops at the foot of the bed and faces me. His shirt is untucked from the hours at the table. His sleeves are still rolled. He looks like a man who came home froma meeting where something ended and sat at a kitchen table and let himself be seen.
He cups my face in both hands. His thumbs trace along my jaw, unhurried, and he tilts my face up and looks at me for a long moment before he does anything else.
"Tell me what you want," he says.
I've been thinking about this for weeks. Not obsessively, just the way you think about things you haven't said out loud yet, turning the idea over and setting it down and picking it back up. I tell him.
His hands go still against my jaw. His eyes don't leave mine.
Then his mouth curves at one corner. He reaches for his belt.
He does it slowly,watching my face the whole time as he pulls the leather free of the loops. I feel my pulse spike — not from fear, from wanting, from the specific feeling of something you've been thinking about finally becoming real. He sees it happen. I've stopped being self-conscious about that.
He holds the belt loosely in one hand. "Come here," he says.
I step closer. He turns me gently, takes my wrists and brings them together behind my back. The leather goes around them — one loop, a tuck, and then the solid weight of it against my skin. Not tight. Just there. He tests the give with two fingers, making sure, and then turns me back to face him.
"Okay?" he asks.
“Uh-huh."
He walks me back to the bed. I sit on the edge and he stays standing, looking down at me. His shirt is still on. His sleeves are still rolled. He looks completely unhurried, like a man who has all night and intends to use it.
He lifts my bound wrists up over my head and leans me back against the pillow and sets them there.
"Keep them there," he says and I do as he says.
He starts at my throat.
His mouth is warm and deliberate, finding the spot below my ear that makes me close my eyes, staying there until I feel it in my shoulders and down my back. His hands move over my collarbone, slow, exploring me fully. He unbuttons my shirt one button at a time without rushing any of them. Pushes it open. His hands are warm against my ribs.
I try to move my wrists. He presses them back to the pillow without looking up.
His mouth moves down my throat, my collarbone, the center of my chest. He presses his lips to my sternum and I feel the warmth of his breath against my skin before he moves lower and I stop trying to move my hands entirely.
He takes his time with everything. His mouth finds every place he's learned over the last several months and he doesn't rush any of them—he knows exactly what each one does to me and he uses that knowledge deliberately, watching my face for the responses, adjusting when I shift or inhale or go still. It's methodical in the best possible way. He is paying attention with his whole body and it shows.
My fingers curl against the pillow above my head. My pulse is loud in my ears.
His hands slide down my stomach and I make a sound I didn't intend and he looks up at me, dark eyes calm, completely unhurried. He's still in his work shirt. He looks entirely in control in the way that's completely about me and I feel the difference from every other time.
"Still okay?" he asks.
"Don't stop," I say.
He doesn't stop.
