“Look at me,” he said, his voice rough.
I opened my eyes.Met his gaze in the low light.
When he entered me, slow and deep, I didn’t look away.Neither did he.We watched each other, and I saw the vulnerability he usually hid.The desperation.The way his jaw clenched with the effort of holding back, of letting me set the pace even when his body clearly wanted more.
He moved inside me with that same maddening patience, each thrust slow and thorough, hitting a place that made my vision blur.My hands found his back, his shoulders, the muscles that flexed and tensed beneath my palms.
My fingers caught on something.Ridges.Raised lines cutting across his shoulder blade, parallel and deep.Scars I had never registered before, or maybe scars I had touched without really knowing.I traced one with my fingertip, and he went still above me.
“What—” I started.
He kissed me before I could finish the question.Deep and thorough, his tongue sliding against mine, and whatever I had been about to ask dissolved in the heat of his mouth.His hips rolled, hitting that spot that made my thoughts scatter, and by the time I could think again, my hands had moved to his shoulders, gripping instead of exploring.
Later.I would ask later.
I could feel him holding himself in check, feel the restraint coiled in every line of his body.
“You can let go,” I whispered.
His control snapped.Not shattered, but cracked enough that his next thrust was harder, deeper, and I gasped at the intensity of it.His forehead dropped to mine, our breath mingling, and whatever wall I had built between us cracked without warning.
The pleasure built differently this time.Not sharp and frantic like last night, but slow and overwhelming, rolling through me in waves that grew stronger with each breath.His eyes never left mine, and I couldn’t look away, couldn’t hide behind closed lids and pretend this was just physical.
When the orgasm hit, it wasn’t like anything before.It started deep in my core and radiated outward, crashing through me with an intensity that stole my breath and my thoughts and my carefully maintained distance.I heard myself cry out, my body arching against his.
Then came that strange, impossible swelling.The same pressure from last night, locking us together at the peak, making it impossible to separate even if I had wanted to.This time I didn’t fight it.I let myself feel the fullness, the pulsing heat, the way his body seemed designed to hold me exactly where I was.
He followed me over the edge with a groan that vibrated through my chest, every pulse of his release reverberating through me while we stayed locked together, trembling, breathing each other’s air.
But it was the tears that surprised me.Sliding down my temples into my hair while the aftershocks still pulsed through me.Not from sadness.From release.From the terrifying vulnerability of letting someone see me like this, stripped of pretense.
He kissed them away without comment.His lips soft against my temples, my cheeks, the corners of my eyes.No questions.No demands for explanation.Just acceptance.
After, he wrapped himself around me.
His arm heavy across my waist.His chest warm against my back.His breath evening out, slow and steady, stirring the hair at my nape.A sound rumbled from his chest, low and unfamiliar, a vibration I felt more than heard.Almost like a purr.I didn’t know what it meant.
I should leave.That’s what I had done last night.Dressed in the dark and retreated to my own room, keeping the walls intact, maintaining the distance I needed to survive this arrangement.
But the fear was still there, lurking at the edges of my mind.And here, wrapped in his arms, surrounded by his scent, it was smaller.Manageable.Like something I could carry instead of something that was carrying me.
Five more minutes.That’s what I told myself.Five more minutes and then I would go.
His arm tightened around me, pulling me closer against his chest.His heartbeat was slow beneath my ear.Too slow, too steady, inhuman in its calm, but it only made me safer.
The warmth seeped into my bones.The tension I had been carrying for days began to loosen, muscle by muscle, breath by breath.My eyelids grew heavy.
Five more minutes.
I was asleep before I finished the thought.
14
RAPHAEL
She was still here.
The first pale light of dawn crept through the curtains, painting silver lines across the ceiling, and Lena was still in my bed.Still warm against my chest.Still breathing slow and even, her hair spread across my pillow like dark silk, smelling of warmth and sleep and her.