His hand came up, brushing my hair back from my face. “I don’t want the old rules.”
My heart stumbled.
He saw it and kept his voice steady. “I’m not saying no rules. I’m saying I don’t want rules built out of fear and silence while we pretend they’re enough. I want words. I want you telling me what you want, what you don’t, what changes, what stays. I want you to trust me enough to stop me, and I want you to trust me enough to tell me yes without punishing yourself for it.”
My eyes burned again.
“I don’t know how to do that perfectly.”
“I don’t need perfect.” His thumb brushed my lower lip. “I need honest.”
I nodded slowly. “Then honest is I want you.”
His chest moved against mine.
“I want you too.”
“I want this to be different than your apartment.”
His jaw flexed. “It already is.”
“I don’t want rage tonight.”
“No.”
“I don’t want punishment.”
His eyes softened with something fierce. “Never.”
“I don’t want you to be careful like I’m glass either.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Demanding.”
“Specific.”
“I can work with specific. I’ve fucked you enough to know your kink.”
I slid my hands behind him again, dragging my nails lightly up his back. His eyes went darker, and his hips pressed into mine on instinct before he caught himself.
I smiled a little. “You’re struggling.”
“I am heroically suffering.”
“That sounds dramatic.”
“You like dramatic.”
“I like you.”
His face changed.
Every playful thing between us dissolved into heat and ache.
“I love you,” he said, and this time it didn’t sound like a confession ripped out of him by pain. It sounded like a promise he had walked through rain to deliver. “I am so fucking in love with you it makes me sick every time I walk away from you.”
My lips parted.
He kissed the corner of my mouth, then my cheek, then the damp place beneath my eye where the last tear had fallen. “I’m done walking away if you are.”
