Finally, his fingers lower, brushing lightly over my hair. The touch is tentative. Barely there. Yet it still feels like a claim.
My eyes flutter for half a second.
He can claim me completely.
He strokes my hair again, a little more certain this time, and my throat tightens around something I refuse to name.
This is what people don’t understand about wanting.
Sometimes it isn’t loud.
Sometimes it doesn’t need teeth.
Sometimes it’s a hand in your hair while a terrible movie plays in the background and the man you’ve been waiting for forgets to be afraid of you.
I stare up at him while he watches the screen.
The light flickers over the underside of his jaw. His lashes cast faint shadows beneath his eyes. There’s a tiny line betweenhis brows, like even half-relaxed, some part of him is still trying to solve a problem.
I want to smooth it away.
I want to be the one who makes that line disappear.
The movie keeps going.
I stop pretending to care.
My world narrows to the steady rise and fall of his chest. The warmth of his leg beneath my cheek. The slow, absent movement of his fingers through my hair.
I know the rhythm of his breathing when he’s nervous.
When he’s amused.
When he’s trying not to want something.
This is different.
Slower and heavier.
His hand stills.
I keep my eyes on him.
His chin dips once.
Then lifts.
Then dips again.
A smile curves my lips.
He’s trying to stay awake. For me.
Something tender and possessive opens inside my chest. “You can sleep,” I whisper.
His eyes blink open slowly, unfocused for a second before finding mine. “I’m not sleeping.”
“No?”
