His laugh is rough, frayed, gone almost immediately when I bite his lower lip.
After that, the world shrinks to hands and breath.
Shirts come off. His skin is hot under my palms, all muscle and scar tissue and a heartbeat nowhere near as steady as the rest of him pretends to be. He strips me with less patience than precision, and I like that too much.
His hands on my thighs. His mouth on my ribs. The way he watches my face like learning me matters more than winning.
“This what you want?” he asks, voice rough.
One question.
The only one that matters.
“Yes.”
He reaches for his wallet.
Then he stops.
His hand stays at my hip, not moving, his forehead dropping to mine. For a long moment he just breathes, close enough that I feel the war going on inside him.
“Ryan.”
“I know.”
“Then why…”
“Because if we do this tonight, I will not know which part was you and which part was the worst day of my life.” His voice is wrecked, careful, hating itself. “And you deserve to know I came here for you. Not for the wreckage.”
I should be relieved. I am not. I am furious at him for being right, and furious at myself for the part of me that wanted the wreckage too.
He gets to stop.
Even now — my yes still in the room, his hand still on my hip — he is the one who calls it.
“That,” I manage, “is a deeply inconvenient amount of integrity.”
“I know.”
“I hate it.”
His mouth presses to my temple. “I know that too.”
“One question,” I say. “The quiet kind.”
His mouth stills against my temple.
“Peyton.”
For a second, I think he will say no.
He should say no.
Instead, his fingers flex against my hip. “Ask.”
I swallow, because naked is one thing. This is worse.
“If today had been ordinary,” I ask, “would you have stopped?”