Every instruction I gave him in bed arrived one at a time. Each one stayed clear with no ambiguity and no options. Hold still. Arms up. Look at me. Do not move until I say. Each command met immediate compliance and visible relief.
Sai’s not freezing when someone tells him what to do. He freezes when someone asks him to choose.
“Sai, baby, we’re having pasta. I already started it. It will be ready in twenty minutes.” My voice stays calm and warm with zero question marks. “Sit at the counter. I’ll pour you wine.”
Sai exhales, his eyes slowly refocusing. He drops into the seat with a heavy sigh, his entire body relaxing. I pour one glass ofred wine from the open bottle already on the counter and set it in front of him before returning to the stove.
The next several minutes hold a tense silence because I have no idea what to say after that. Even after I plate the pasta and douse it in a homemade sauce I put together two days ago, I’m still unsure what to do.
I set the plates down without asking what he wants. Sai stares at the food for a long second while the freeze from earlier keeps hovering just under his skin. I slide onto the stool beside him and pick up my own fork.
“Eat,” I say, keeping my voice easy. “First bite is yours. No decisions needed after that.”
He exhales like the words unlock something inside him. His shoulders drop a fraction and he lifts the fork. The first bite goes in, then another, the tension easing out of his jaw with every chew.
I spear a piece of pasta and hold it up between us. “So tell me about the editorial you shot today.” He frowns as a smile takes over my face. “You’re not the only one who watches, Sai Hollis. The whole world talks about your photography and I managed to find something online.”
Sai’s eyes flick to mine. For a moment I think he might stay quiet, but then the words start coming, slow at first and then steadier. “The model today kept dropping her chin every time the light shifted,” he pushes out. “I had to talk her through it for twenty minutes. Told her to imagine the light was pulling her upward instead of pressing down. After that she held it.”
I nod and take another bite. “That’s the difference, isn’t it? Photography steals the moment exactly as it is. Painting gets to invent what the moment should have been.”
He turns the idea over, fork paused above his plate. “I never thought of it that way. I take what the light gives me. You decide what the light should give.”
“Exactly.” I grin around a mouthful of pasta. “I get to cheat. You have to be honest.”
Sai huffs a quiet laugh, the sound small but real. “Honest. That’s one word for it. I spent forty minutes adjusting a single shadow on her cheekbone because it kept falling wrong.”
We keep eating while the conversation moves between us. He asks about the canvas I was fighting with yesterday. I tell him how the blue kept fighting the ochre and how I finally gave up and let the colors argue on their own. He listens more than he speaks, but every answer he gives is careful and considered, like he is testing the words before he lets them out. By the time our plates are empty he is leaning forward slightly, elbows on the counter, eyes brighter than they were when he first sat down.
After dinner the movement to the couch happens without discussion. I sit first. He follows and settles beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. The six inches between us feel alive with the memory of last night, but neither of us reaches to close the gap yet.
I feel him list toward me, the lean slow and driven more by gravity than choice. His shoulder brushes mine. Then his head tips and finds the curve between my neck and shoulder. I lift my hand and slide my fingers into his hair, starting a slow, steady rhythm enjoying the way a low hum in his chest turns into a full purr.
The sound slowly dies out, replaced with a deep rumble, Sai falling asleep on me. His breathing deepens and evens out. His head slides from my shoulder down to my lap and I adjust so he lies across the couch with his head on my thigh and one arm tucked against his chest, face turned toward my stomach like he is seeking a warmth source even in sleep.
The most controlled man I have ever met just fell asleep on me.
I look down at him. His face in sleep looks younger than it does when he is awake. The tension has left. His jaw unclenches and the faint line between his eyebrows smooths out. He looks like the person he might become if someone cleared the noise from his head long enough for him to hear his own breathing.
My fingers never stop moving through his hair.
I see you, Sai Hollis.
Some part of me understands just a little bit more about the man who has taken over my mind. It’s not just that he craves control but that it becomes the very thing he needs to survive.
And if I can be what he needs, I’m going to give him everything. I lean back against the cushions, content to stay just like this, with this beautiful, broken-brilliant man asleep in my lap.
