“I want you,” I say.
He releases one wrist to reach for the lube and condom. The small practical motions should break the spell, but they make this feel suddenly, unmistakably real. He knows I still want them. Somehow, he even knows how to make the pause feel like part of it instead of an interruption.
When his slick fingers slide between my legs, he starts like he remembers. One slow circle, then pressure right where I need it, and my knees fall wider before I decide to let them.
His fingers press inside, and my head drops back. He takes his time, but there’s nothing hesitant about it now. His free hand braces on my thigh, holding me open while he works me with steady, confident strokes that make my whole body go loose and hungry.
“Jesus, Ash.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth. “You always say that when you want more.”
He pulls his fingers free, rolls on the condom, and pushes my thigh higher against his side. He presses in with one firm, careful thrust.
My vision blurs.
He stops only long enough for my breath to come back, forehead pressed to mine, jaw tight with the effort of holding himself in check. I feel every inch of that restraint. All that strength, all that want, aimed at me and still somehow careful enough to make my chest ache.
“You okay?” he asks, voice rough.
“Yeah.” I hook my heel against his lower back and pull. “God, yeah. Move.”
The first stroke is slow enough to make me feel every inch leaving and returning. The next is harder. The one after that knocks a sound out of me I couldn’t recreate with a script.
Ash hears it, and shifts his angle until colors burst behind my eyelids.
I grab at his shoulders, nails dragging down his back as he finds the rhythm I didn’t know I’d taught him. Harder than before. More certain. Still Ash beneath it all, watching me closely enough to know when my breath catches from pleasure and when it catches because I’m overwhelmed.
I can’t believe he knows the difference.
“Say my name.” The words escape before I can cage them.
“Kael.” His voice cracks, and he drives into me again. “Kael.”
The way he says it snaps my hand to my cock between us, stroking in time with him. He doesn’t let me hide there for long. His hand covers mine, taking over, matching the rhythm of his hips until there’s no separate part of me left to manage. There’s only our heat, friction, and my name breaking out of him like he can’t keep it in.
“Tell me what you want,” I murmur.
His rhythm falters, like he knows what I’m really asking, and it might be too much. Then his forehead drops to mine, and his answer comes out rough enough to ruin me.
“I just want… you.”
My own question turns on me, and I realize I have exactly what I want. That’s never happened.
“You have me,” I say, or try to.
He understands. His rhythm picks back up, his hand tightening around me as his mouth finds mine again, messier and more desperate now.
My body locks around his. I come with his name in my mouth, clinging to him while pleasure burns through all my careful, frightened parts. He follows with a broken groan,burying himself deep and going still above me, his face pressed to my neck.
For a while, neither of us moves. When his weight finally eases down beside me, he doesn’t go far. We end up tangled together, skin damp, breathing uneven, his hand settling over my heart like he’s checking that I’m still here.
I cover it with mine, as if I can hold him there through what I’m about to do.
“You’re really moving in?” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I am.”
The words are truth and terror in equal measure, and I’m positive the universe is to blame for both. Maybe it won’t know where to leave the bill once I move.
