“No,” I manage.
He stops.
“I mean… not yet. Let me—I want to finish like this. Just this.”
“Okay.”
His hand moves to my hip. He holds still, letting me ride him until my thighs shake and my breath breaks and my orgasm hits me like a wave I wasn’t ready for.
I come with my hands on his chest and my eyes open and his name falling out of my mouth.
He watches. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t chase his own release. He watches me like it’s a privilege.
When I can breathe again, I lean down and kiss him hard. “Your turn.”
“Jen, you don't need to?—”
I start moving again, and his control breaks within a minute. I feel it shatter. His hips lift, his breath stutters. He grips my hips tighter than he ever has, and his eyes stay fixed on mine.
“Go,” I whisper. “I love you. I’ve got you.”
He comes with his forehead pressed to my shoulder and his arms locked around me and a sound in his throat that’s barely a sound at all—the smallest, most honest noise I’ve ever heard from a man who speaks in tactical precision.
I hold him through it. Just hold him.
His body is sated beneath me, and I love it. I stay sprawled over him until his breathing slows, and then he rolls us onto our sides without letting me go, and we’re face to face in the low light.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Hi.” His voice is a rasp. His eyes are wet. I don’t think he knows.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“Jen—”
I press my fingers to his lips. “Hush.”
I climb out of bed on wobbly legs. The flannel is somewhere on the floor, but I leave it. Ethan has never hidden from me, and I’m not hiding tonight. I walk naked to the bathroom, wet a washcloth with warm water, and bring it back to him.
He lifts his head and frowns as he sees the cloth in my hand. Then understanding dawns.
I take care of him the way he took care of me last night, my hand resting on his hip to steady him, the cloth warm and gentle. He watches me with the same expression he had when I put his glasses back on last night and said,there you are. The look of a man being cared for who has never allowed anyone to care for him.
When I’m done, I rinse the cloth and climb into bed. I pull the covers up over us and press the full length of my body against his, skin to skin, my face finding the hollow at his throat.
“You don’t have to do everything,” I say against his skin. “You don’t have to be the one holding everyone all the time. Some nights, I’m holding you.”
His breathing slows, and his body loosens. His hand cradles the nape of my neck, heavy and warm. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting me breathe. Giving me peace.”
I kiss the underside of his jaw. “Sleep, Sutton.”
He sleeps.
I stay awake a little longer, feeling his heartbeat slow against my chest. Somewhere not far from here, a man in expensive bootsis regrouping in a hotel under a name he thinks nobody knows. Outside, a goat is sleeping off his moment as a federal witness.
And here, in this bed, the man who holds the world is finally letting someone hold him.
