"Shh. My turn."
I kiss the scar on his ribs from a bar fight before I knew him. The soft skin inside his wrist where his pulse jumps under my mouth.
Then I take him in my mouth and his head drops back and his hands fist in the sheets and the sound he makes is my favorite sound in the world — better than the laugh, better than the "I love you," the raw, helpless noise of Vaughn losing control because of something I'm doing.
I work him slowly. Deliberately. Reading him the way he reads me — the shift of his hips, the tightening of his thighs, the moment his hand moves from the sheet to my hair, gentle even when he's desperate.
"Fuck — Robin, that's—"
"I know." I pull off. Kiss his hip. "I want to ride you."
His eyes go dark gold. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I prep myself. His hands try to help but I pin them against the mattress, one scarred palm against one calloused palm. "Stay."
He stays. Watching me with wrecked, wondering eyes as I open myself up on my fingers, kneeling over him, letting him see everything. Not because I'm performing, but because I want him to watch. Because showing him this is trust, not theater.
When I sink down on him, we both groan. His hands fly to my hips and I let them — I've made my point, I don't needcontrol, I need him. I set the rhythm. Rolling, deep, my hands braced on his chest, his eyes locked on mine.
"Robin," he breathes. "God, Robin—"
"Stay with me," I say.
The callback lands. His eyes widen — he hears it, recognizes his own words in my mouth, understands what it means that I'm the one saying them now. Stay with me. I'm not disappearing. I'm right here.
I roll my hips and watch his face. That's the thing I never used to do — watch. Before Vaughn, sex was a performance aimed at someone I wasn't really looking at. Eyes closed, or focused on the wall, or on whatever version of myself I was projecting. But Vaughn's face when he's inside me is something I don't want to miss. The way his jaw goes slack. The crease between his eyebrows like he's concentrating on not losing it. The gold in his eyes going molten at the edges.
He's beautiful. I don't tell him because he'd deflect, but he is. Wrecked and wanting and looking at me like I'm the only real thing in the world.
I ride him hard, then slow, finding the angle that makes his breath catch and staying there. His thumbs press into my hip bones — not bruising, just holding on. Grounding himself. I cover one of his hands with mine, the scarred palm against his knuckles, and he turns his wrist to thread our fingers together without breaking rhythm.
That's what undoes me. Not the sex — the hand-holding during it. The casual intimacy of his fingers laced through mine while he's inside me, like both things are equally natural, equally ours.
I lean down and kiss him and it's messy and imperfect and we're both gasping and it's the best sex I've ever had because neither of us is performing and neither of us is teaching and we're just two people who love each other, moving together in a dark room in a house that's ours.
He comes first — I feel it, the way his whole body tenses, the sound he makes against my throat, his hands pulling me down tight against him. I follow seconds later, his hand between us, his name in my mouth, my forehead pressed to his.
After, I don't pull away. I collapse on top of him — sweaty, breathless, my face in his neck — and he wraps his arms around me and neither of us moves for a long time.
"Vaughn?"
"Yeah?"
"Move in. Officially. Not just clothes in the dresser and a toothbrush by the sink. Move in. Tell Knox you're leaving your apartment above the bar. Bring your crossword books and your reading glasses and your terrible taste in documentaries."
"You like my documentaries."
"I like YOU during your documentaries. You explain things and your voice gets low and it's very—" I gesture vaguely. "Move in."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"You thought I'd say no? I've been sleeping here nearly every night for weeks. My crossword books are already on your nightstand."
"Our nightstand."