I’ve never let go like this. Never let someone see me like this. Laid bare and complying, for him to use me however he sees fit.
His thrusts grow frenetic, and I feel him hover over me, one hand cupping my cheek, his thumb brushing across my jaw.
“You’re mine,” he whispers. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I gasp, breath catching.
“Again,” he commands with a ragged breath.
“I’m yours, Tyler. I love you and I’ll always be yours.” And it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said. I’ve been his for longer than I realized, and he is mine. A tear leaks from the corner of my eye right as my release slams into me like a tidal wave, raw and violent. I cry his name, utterly wrecked and unashamed. Tyler’srelease comes quickly moments later as he chants my name over and over like a prayer.
Still buried deep inside me, he rolls his forehead against mine, the only sound our ragged breathing.
I feel his fingers untie the knot at my wrists, then the blindfold. I have to blink several times to adjust my vision, and then Tyler comes into view.
I blink up at him, dazed and he brushes sweaty strands of hair from my forehead. “You okay, love?”
I nod, or at least I think I do. I’m merely a heap of nothingness right now, my body utterly spent.
“You’re mine and I’m yours,” he says, voice rough-hewn with emotion. “You can keep me, love.”
It’s dark out, and after shower sex, we’ve migrated to his kitchen. I’m perched on a stool, dressed in nothing but one of his button-downs. He’s shirtless, hair still adorably mussed from earlier, wearing sweatpants hung low on his hips. I’m mesmerized, or perhaps still sex drunk, watching the muscles of his back flex as he pulls take-out containers from a paper bag.
Peering around, a smile pulls at my lips.
“Tyler?”
“Yes, love?”
“Do I see Chili’s?”
A rumbling laugh rolls from him, and my smile widens.
“But Chili’s is, like, thirty minutes away. We aren’t in their delivery area.”
He looks over his shoulder at me, a wildly handsome smile lighting up his face. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to looking at him.
“I paid the delivery guy more than you wanna know to getthis here.” Tyler shrugs like this is no big deal, but I see the way his jaw works. “I wanted to make you happy.”
Something warm and golden flares to life inside me, like a cozy fire on a winter night. There’s nothing extravagant about the take-out containers spread out on the counter, but my heart swells until I know it shows on my face, that effervescent happiness when you’re cared for in the small, quiet ways.
“Consider me the happiest,” I say, smiling up at him.
We eat and laugh, giving each other play-by-plays of our day. I giggle like a teenager when he feeds me bites, and every few minutes, for no reason at all, he leans down and kisses me. When he’s not feeding me or kissing me, he’s tapping his thumb on the counter, and after studying the rhythm of his thumb for a beat, I realize Tyler is nervous.
“You’re being weird,” I say, while casually dipping a chip in the salsa.
“I’m not being weird.” His response comes a little too fast, and the drumming on the countertop says otherwise.
“No, you are one hundred percent being weird. What’s going on?”
He rakes a hand through his already messy hair, takes a step back and looks at me with aching tenderness.
“I love you, Jo.”
“And I love you. We’ve said this a lot, remember?”
He nods swiftly, then hurriedly disappears from the room.
