So I take that from him too.
I hook my thumbs in my underwear and slide it down, slow, eyes on his the whole way. His jaw works once. Holding still is costing him, and I want it to cost him.
Then I get my hand on him before he can decide how this goes. He is hard, and his breath breaks on the first stroke, and the sound he makes is nothing he would let a room hear. He has spent weeks learning me. My turn to file something away.
“Peyton.” A warning. An ask. I cannot tell, and I like that I cannot tell.
“Stop checking.”
I take his hand off my hip and put it where I want it. Show him. His fingers go careful, reading, and I press them deeper until careful is not the word for any of it. He watches my face while his hand learns what I just taught it, and I let him see all of it, because hiding now would mean I was still pretending this was a story.
“There,” I manage. “There.”
He does not ask if it is right. He can feel that it is.
I come on his hand with my forehead against his and the broken front half of his name in my mouth. It is not loud. It is not a win for anyone. It is just true, and he does not look away from any of it.
He stays close while I shake, his breath uneven against my mouth.
“Hi,” I say, because I have nothing dignified left.
“Hi.” One side of his mouth tips up. He does not ask if I am all right. He can see the state of me, and he looks unforgivably pleased about it.
I reach for him and he helps, both of us less smooth than either of us would be alone, which is the point. The condom passes from his hand into mine, and he watches my face the whole time.
“Still sure?” he asks.
“I do not know how to do this halfway,” I say, handing him the fear because it is mine too.
His breath catches.
“Then don’t.”
He pushes inside me slowly, eyes open, one hand braced beside my shoulder. No grief to blame it on. No bad timing to hide behind. Just the two of us, certain and careful in the same breath, learning the last unfamiliar thing about each other.
I watch his face when he fills me.
I cannot protect myself from the seeing. Not the heat.
Ryan with his control stripped down to effort. Ryan holding still because my body needs a second. Not asking. Just giving it to me.
Ryan’s eyes going almost helpless when I wrap one leg around his hip and pull him closer.
“Move,” I whisper.
He does.
It is slow and certain. He learns me as he goes, the breath I pull when he changes the angle, the way I say his name softly instead of sharply, and he uses all of it. Nobody is performing. He is not running the room and I am not guarding the door. We just let each other watch.
He fits himself closer when I get close again, his eyes on mine.
“Let me see,” he says. Not a command. A request.
I do not look away.
The second one moves through me slower, deeper, leaving me open under him in a way that has nothing to do with skin. Ryan follows with a broken sound against my mouth, and I hold him through it without deciding to.
After, he does not roll away.
