The words land heavy between us.
I have to tell him to stop.
Ihaveto.
But the resolve I need to do it isn’t there. I reach and reach and reach for it and come up empty, even as my conscience screams at me to kick the doors wide open andtell himwe’ve done this before. That whatever he’s feeling right now, it isn’t new, and maybe, just maybe, his body remembers, even if his mind doesn’t, that he asked me that questionyearsago. Asked me to teach him, and I did, and it changed everything.
Teach me, Sol. I want to learn.
Heat and sadness collide inside me. It hurts and I flinch away from it. On the inside, at least. Outside myself, I stop fighting forthe will to shatter this moment, and I list towards Jack before I know what I’m doing. Because it hurts and I’m tired.
Because I love him and I’m weak.
“Jack.” His name is a prayer I’m not sure I even say aloud.
But he hears me, and his thumb shifts to stroke my cheek, slow and soothing, and that simple tenderness, it fractures something else—something so unseen and unspoken I can’t even name it.
Jack leans closer, and before I can scrabble to rebuild the wall around my stupid heart, he kisses me again.
And again, and again, and again.
I wind up pressed against the front door, Jack caging me with one arm braced on the old wood above my head, and that hand still gripping my face as if he’s made a vow to himself to never let go.
Sometimes I think I have blank spots in my brain too. I thought I remembered how it felt to kiss Jack—that those hazy recollections were all I’d ever have. But as he kisses and kisses and kisses me I realise the memories I’ve clung to all this time barely scratch the surface. Like maybe how this feels, and how it felt back then, is too big and sprawling for one heart to carry.
And yet, I try. I kiss Jack back and wind my arms around his muscular waist. I breathe him in and fuse my mouth to his like a drowning man who doesn’t want or need the air, and it’s my turn to forget anything and everything until the jarring sensation of Jack biting my bottom lip brings me down to earth.
Kind of.
I like the pain.
I like the low rumble he lets fly as his green eyes glimmer in the dark.
“You need out of these wet clothes, Sol.”
An order he’s given me too many times to count. But it feels different tonight. Everything does.Hefeels different and I have no damn clue what’s happening.
“I need a shower,” I counter.
Jack nods and steps back, giving me room to get my boots off while he watches with an intensity that prickles my skin and heats my blood more than any shower will.
I tug my damp jumper over my head and take a step towards the bathroom. Jack doesn’t move and real fear that he won’t follow joins the latent panic I’ll have to deal with later.
But that fear…it’s short-lived.
He falls in behind me, close enough that I feel him without touching, that I hear his familiar tread on the old floorboards even though he makes no sound at all.
We reach the bathroom and slip inside. Jack cranks the shower, but leaves the light off before he turns to me and grips the hem of my damp t-shirt.
He peels it off, dragging it over my head with a tug that has me stumbling half a step closer to him. His warm fingers graze my ribs, lingering a hot second too long, and my pulse stutters, sharp and hard, before he moves on.
Stripping me down.
Frowning at my clothes like they’ve offended him.
This is the ritual.
Him taking care of me with blunt efficiency when I know this tic in him comes from a childhood of cold and neglect.