“No you weren’t.”
No. I wasn’t.
He kisses me again. Unhurried. Deeper. I stand from the chair and we’re body to body and he’s hard against my stomach.
He breaks the kiss. I make a noise of protest that would embarrass me if I had any dignity left.
He reaches for me. Not my wrist. Not my waist. He laces his fingers through mine and holds tight.
His hand. Scarred knuckles and warm skin and the weight of the same hand that traced birds in margins and held a rosary in silver light. I don’t finish the thought. I just follow.
He pulls. Along the corridor. Past the kitchen where Rosa’s humming. Up the stairs I’ve only seen him climb alone.
His bedroom.
He opens the door. I’ve never been in here. The room is spare. Clean. Glock on the nightstand. A single window. Everything squared away with military precision.
He brought me here.
I stop in the doorway and look at the room. At the stripped-down spareness of it. At the single pillow on a bed that’s never held anyone but him. Then at him. Standing in the center of it. Waiting.
“I’ve thought about this.” The words scrape out rough. Like they left him more exposed than the kiss did.
“This?”
“You. In my bed.”
The sentence lands and the air leaves the room.
He walks me backward. My calves hit the mattress. Not a desk. His bed. The sheets carry sandalwood and soap and the clean sweat of a man who runs hot.
He kisses me again and it’s different now. Measured. Deliberate. Like he’s memorizing. My shirt goes over my head. The calluses on his palms scraping across my ribs. The bra clasp. Precise. Trained for a different kind of undoing.
“You’re annoyingly good at that.”
Down my collarbone. My shoulder. The curve of my breast. He strips the bra away and his lips close over my nipple and Iarch into him. The sound I make is not dignified. Not controlled. Not anything I can take back.
He eases me back onto the mattress. Shirt still on, unbuttoned to the sternum. Ink and scars and the edge of the rib wound I traced three days ago.
“Your turn.” I tug at the fabric.
He pulls the shirt off. Both arms. Something he hasn’t done by choice, and he does it here, in front of me, without being asked twice.
“That’s new.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not. I’m just—” Looking at him.
His belt. The sound of leather. I help with the zipper. The fabric drops.
My breath catches. My thighs press together on instinct. He watches me look. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t rush. Just lets me take him in with the patience of a man who already knows what’s next.
“Still nervous?” Low. The corner of his mouth barely lifting. I swallow.
“I wasn’t?—“
“You were.”
