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To make sure he stays above the surface.

XLV

You Chose What Remains

“This isn’t over.”

My voice comes out quiet, but it doesn’t shake.

I hook my fingers into the hem of my dress and drag it up my thighs. The fabric is damp at the edges, clinging where steam has softened it, and it bunches heavy in my fists as I pull it clear of my knees. I’m not careful about it. I’m not coy. The room is too hot, the porcelain too cold, my pulse too loud in my ears for pretending.

Malek watches every movement.

His throat works once.

I step into the tub.

The water closes around my ankle first, then my calf, hot enough to sting after the cold floorboards. It sways hard against his ribs when I shift my weight, sloshing up the porcelain and over the edge in a thin spill that hits the floor behind me. Malek’s hands clamp tighter against the tub, tendons standing sharp beneath wet skin.

I move between his knees.

Close enough that my calves brush his shins.

Close enough that I feel the heat coming off his body through the water.

Close enough that his breath catches before he can lock it down.

I let him feel me there. Let him feel the weight of my choice, the press of my body in the space he still thinks he has to survive alone.

“Look at me.”

He does.

“Your hands are yours,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. “Not the Gospel’s. Not the Choir’s. Not whatever they carved into you and called holy.”

His hands are still clenched on the side of the tub like porcelain is the only thing keeping him together. I take them firmly, without asking him to pretend this is easy, and pull them free. Then I place his palms against my thighs, where the heat of me is undeniable.

He freezes.

His hands are rough. Callused. Too hot. They hesitate there, like he’s afraid touch might become permission or punishment if he chooses wrong.

“Feel this,” I murmur, pressing his hands more firmly against my thighs. “Your hands aren’t holy because they obey. They’re yours because they can choose what not to destroy.”

Malek swallows.

His fingers tighten, not greedy and not taking, but like he needs something solid beneath his hands before the rest of him can believe he is still here. His thumbs press in slowly, deliberate enough to make my breath catch, grounding himself in muscle and warmth and the simple, undeniable fact that I don’t pull away.

His breath stutters, sharp and ugly.

He isn’t claiming me.

He’s proving to himself that touch can answer without becoming violence.

“I don’t need you to kneel,” I continue. “I don’t need you to worship me. I need you here. Not beneath me. Not bleeding for me. Here.”

His grip changes.

Not tighter. Not softer. Just steadier, like the words have given his hands something to hold besides fear. The tension in his shoulder’s eases by a fraction, small enough that anyone else might miss it, but I feel it through his palms, through the careful weight of his thumbs against my thighs, through the way his body stops waiting for impact and starts remembering the room.