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A tremor moves through him anyway.

He hates it. I know he does. I feel the fight in him, the instinct to lock it down, to turn every broken thing into discipline before anyone can witness it.

I don’t look away when Malek leans forward and presses his forehead hard into my stomach, not asking for anything, not taking anything, just putting himself there like the weight of me is the only thing keeping him from slipping under again.

His breath spills hot and uneven against my skin, and something in my chest twists because this is not worship. It is not surrender. It is a man trying to stay inside his own body and choosing me as the place he comes back to.

My hand lifts before I can overthink it, fingers sliding into his wet hair, holding him there without trapping him.

Steam curls around us again, thick and patient, while the night presses against the cabin walls like it’s waiting to see who breaks first.

I don’t pull his hands away when I move. I let them stay on my thighs as I bend my knees and lower myself carefully into the tub, the porcelain slick beneath my feet, water shifting around both of us as I settle onto his lap.

His breath catches.

Not sharp this time. Deeper. Like proximity has startled something in him that want alone couldn’t reach.

I feel the tension move through him anyway, feel the way his body answers before his mind knows what to do with it. My thighs bracket his hips, solid and warm against him, and his hands tighten by instinct before they go still.

The waiting is what guts me.

Not the heat of him. Not the way his breath changes against my skin. The waiting. The part of him still expecting correction, still waiting for someone to decide whether his hands are allowed to want without becoming wrong.

I lean close enough that my forehead almost touches his, close enough that when I speak, the words don’t belong to the room.

They belong to him.

“You’re allowed,” I whisper. “Not because I gave you permission. Because you get to choose what your hands become.”

I shift my weight just enough that he has to adjust with me, just enough that his body has to answer instead of disappear. His fingers flex against my thighs, rough and uncertain, and I feel the moment he comes back into himself by force of sensation—my weight, his breath, the slick heat of the water between us.

“The part of you they trained to wait for orders?” My voice drops lower. “Leave it there. With them.”

His jaw tightens. His breath goes shallow before he drags it steady again.

I lift one hand and press it flat against his chest, right over the scars, feeling his heart hammer beneath my palm—fast, real, undeniable.

“They don’t get to answer this for you anymore,” I whisper, palm pressed over his heart. “So tell me, Malek. What’s left?”

His breath catches under my hand.

His hands slide carefully up my thighs, reverent despite himself, bracing me there with him. His thumbs press in like he needs proof that this is happening, that I am warm and real and choosing to stay where he can feel me.

“What are you asking?” His voice is rough, scraped nearly raw.

I lower my forehead until it touches his.

“Not worship,” I murmur. “Not surrender.”

His heart kicks hard beneath my palm.

“Presence.”

The silence that follows is thick and charged, waiting for one of us to turn it into something easier.

Malek exhales, long and unguarded, like something old has finally loosened its grip. His forehead presses lightly to mine, and this time it doesn’t feel like submission or surrender. It feels like acknowledgment.

“I can do that.” His voice comes rough, but steady.