He grips the edge of the couch cushion on either side of my knees.
The tendons in his forearms stand out under the dark fur. His knuckles have gone pale. He holds himself still, every muscle locked against movement.
I slide my touch down to the base again. I spread my fingers through the fur where the horn meets his skull. I press, gently.
A sound breaks out of him.
A low raw wounded sound. His forehead drops against my knee and stays there, and his shoulders shake once, andthe purr thickens until I can feel it pulsing where his skull meets my kneecap.
"Garrett."
I cup his face.
I tilt it up. The heat of his jaw fills my palms. His eyes are wet. Not crying, holding the way he holds everything, the tears balanced on his lashes and refusing to fall because fifteen years of silence taught his body how to keep anything in.
"When was the last time," I ask, and my throat closes, and I have to start again. "When was the last time someone touched you like this. Without hurting you."
He shakes his head.
The answer is never. Not once in his life has anyone put a hand to the base of his horns with any intention other than to drag, or leash, or break. I've put my fingers on the most sensitive part of his body and he has no reference for what it's supposed to feel like when it doesn't mean harm.
My chest cracks open. Clean and right down the centre.
This is what I came here to avoid.
This exact thing.
I kiss him.
I don't decide to. My mouth is on his before I know I've moved. His lips are warm and chapped and he freezes against me, not pulling back, not returning it, holding still. His body that learned a long time ago that the safest response to a new sensation is to wait and see whether it turns on you.
Then his grip shifts to my waist.
He lifts me off the couch.
Not carries, not pulls; lifts, like a man picking up something weightless, and sets me down on his lap on the floor with my knees bracketing his hips and my feet barely touching the floorboards on either side of him. His thighs burn hot through the thin cotton of my leggings. His palms span my ribcage, thumb to middle finger, and every one of his fingertips has found skin through the hem of my shirt.
He kisses me back.
Careful. The way he does everything. His mouth soft against mine, his tongue sliding past my lips with a slowness that borders on reverence, his whole body rigid underneath me with the cost of holding back.The purr has not stopped. Pressed this close it doesn't sound like sound anymore; it's warmth, a low steady current moving through his skin into mine, a frequency my system reads as safe even when every other part of me is screaming too far, too close, too much.
I break the kiss. Rest my forehead against his. His horns frame my vision on either side, dark curves against the firelight.
"You won't hurt me," I tell him.
"You don't know that." The voice drags out of him, gravel-and-rust. His hold on my ribs trembles. "You don't know what I was."
"I'm a trauma nurse, Garrett." My palms cradle his face. My thumbs find the scar that runs along his jaw. "I know what damage looks like. I've seen it my whole career. You are by far the gentlest man I have ever met."
His breath leaves him.
I kiss him again. Deeper this time. I take his lower lip between mine, and the sound he makes into my mouth shivers down my spine and lands hot between my legs.
I reach for the hem of my shirt. Pulling it up and over my head, dropping it on the floorboards beside us. The firelight finds my ribs, my bra, the dip of my waist above the leggings. Garrett's gaze tracks down my body but he doesn't move, still locked on my waist. His face cracks open in front of me.
"Touch me." I guide his palm up my ribs. His hand covers half my torso. "It's okay. I want you to."
His thumb brushes the underside of my breast through the cotton of the bra.
