“Stay with me.”
The way she was looking at him now, all soft and vulnerable, he would’ve given her anything she asked for. “Okay.”
He walked around to the other side of the bed, sat on the edge, pulled off his shoes, and stretched out on top of the blanket beside her. He held out his arm so she could tuck herself against his chest if she wanted to.
She did. She turned into him and pressed her face to his shoulder, one hand curling loosely in the fabric of his shirt. He wrapped his arm around her and felt some tight, knotted thing in his chest ease a fraction.
“Twelve hours,” he said.
“I know.”
He felt her breathing slow, felt the tension in her body begin to loosen by degrees. He thought she was almost under when she shifted against him, and then shifted again, more deliberately, and he understood that she was not, in fact, going to sleep.
“Vivi.” He said it carefully.
“I know.” She pressed her mouth to the side of his throat, a slow, open kiss that sent heat straight down his spine.
He kept very still. “You’re exhausted, baby.”
She lifted her head and looked at him in the dim light—her eyes dark, her hair loose around her face. “I need to not think for a while.” She stroked a hand down his chest. “I need to be somewhere else. Just for a little while.”
He swallowed. “This isn’t—I don’t want you to regret it again?—”
“I won’t.” She pressed her palm flat against his stomach, and he stopped breathing. “Let me, Dom. Just let me.”
He reached up and touched her face, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. Everything in him that was trying to be careful, trying to be good, trying not to take something she might not mean to give—all of it went quiet when she turned her face into his palm and closed her eyes.
“Okay,” he said.
She kissed him again, slower this time, less about force and more about wanting—about need that wasn’t just sex-deep. Her hand slid up under his shirt, warm against his skin, fingers splaying as if to memorize the lines of his ribs, the flat of his stomach. He let her, let her take, let her use him for as much or as little comfort as she needed.
She pushed herself up, straddling his hips, the skirt of her dress pooling around her thighs. In the glow from the bathroom light, he could see her pupils blown wide, her lips parted. Her breathing was ragged, but her hands were steady as she unbuttoned his shirt, palms splaying over his chest, nails grazing just enough to make him shiver.
She leaned down and kissed his throat, jaw, mouth. He let her set the pace, let her take whatever she needed. He barely moved, except to trace his hands up the backs of her thighs, then higher—finding the edge of her underwear and slipping his fingers beneath the elastic. He didn’t push. Just rested his hands there, waiting for her to want more.
She wanted more. She worked his pants open. The zipper was loud in the quiet room. She tugged the waistband down and freed his cock, wrapping her hand around it with a sureness that made his head drop back against the mattress.
“Fuck, Viv?—”
She pressed her palm over his mouth, shutting him up. “Don’t talk,” she said. “Not right now.”
He smiled against her hand and kissed the center of her palm, then let her go.
She pushed her panties to the side, not bothering to take them off, and guided him inside her in one long, slow slide. She was dripping, wet enough that he slid in to the hilt with almost no resistance. She sank down on him, her knees braced against his hips, her hands on his chest. Her head fell forward, haircurtaining her face as she started to move—slow at first, then faster, her breath catching with each thrust.
He’d never seen her like this—so raw, so stripped down, no performance left in it. She fucked him like she was starving for it, or maybe like she was trying to drown out every awful thing that had happened in the last seventy-two hours. He let her use him, meeting her rhythm, holding her thighs when she started to shake.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” he murmured, and this time she didn’t shush him, just moved harder, chasing her own pleasure. He could feel her getting close—the way her nails dug into his shoulders, the way her walls clenched around him. He reached up to tangle his fingers in her hair and pulled her down to kiss him, hard and deep, and that was the thing that did it. She broke apart on him, shuddering, her mouth open and silent, her whole body tensed and shaking.
He held it, wanting to keep her there as long as she wanted to be, but she didn’t let up. She moved again, fucking him through her own orgasm, riding him until he spilled inside her, hips bucking, hands tight on her ass.
She collapsed on top of him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her there, his lips against her forehead, her damp hair in his mouth.
They didn’t talk. There was nothing left to say.
Eventually, she rolled off him, kicking the dress off her hips and onto the floor. She lay on her back, staring at the water-stained ceiling, chest rising and falling as she caught her breath. He watched her, watched the slow return of color to her cheeks, the way the tension eased out of her jaw.
He reached out and took her hand, lacing their fingers together on the sheet between them. She squeezed once, then turned her head to look at him. In the shadows, her eyes were unreadable.