Memorizing what made me moan and what made me grip the sheets. What made my thighs tighten around his hand, and he used every piece of information with ruthless control.
“You’re sure?” he asked one more time, his voice rough, his hand still.
I answered by pulling him back down to me and kissing him until neither of us could think.
He undressed me the rest of the way with hands that were steady but not calm. I reached for his waistband because I was done being the only one exposed and he let me, lifting his hips so I could push the fabric down. The feeling of him against me with nothing between us made both of us go still.
Just breathing. Just feeling.
Every barrier was gone. Skin to skin, nothing between us.
“Miley.” My name in his mouth like something sacred, like a form of devotion.
“I’m here,” I whispered, my fingers in his hair and my lips against his temple. “I’m right here.”
He moved into me slowly. So slowly. The breath I drew was sharp and full. The feeling was so complete, so overwhelming, that my eyes closed and my fingers dug into his shoulders and for a long moment neither of us moved. We just breathed. Together. Forehead to forehead. His body inside mine. His heartbeat against my chest. The rain against the windows. The world reduced to two people in a bed, becoming something neither of us had planned.
Then he moved, and I moved with him. And whatever had been holding us apart for weeks dissolved like sugar in warm water.
His rhythm was slow at first, his eyes on mine, watching every expression that crossed my face. He read me as carefully as he read everything else, except this time what he was reading was my pleasure, and his response to it was immediate and undisguised.
When I gasped, his pace shifted. When I arched into him, his grip on my hip tightened and his breath stuttered. When I whispered his name, he groaned against my neck and the sound vibrated through my entire body. It made me wanna hear it again and again.
His mouth found my breast again while he moved inside me and the double sensation made me cry out. My hand flew to the back of his head, and held him there while my fingers twisted in his hair. He groaned against my skin, low and broken, and his hips drove deeper in response to the noise I made. We fell into a rhythm that was less choreography and more conversation, his body asking questions mine answered without thinking.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer.
He gave me more. One hand gripped the headboard above me. The other was on my thigh, pulling me closer, adjusting the angle, and when he found it, the right angle, the perfect one, I made a sound that would have been humiliating in any other context but here was exactly right.
“There?” he asked breathlessly, his eyes on mine.
“There. Don’t you dare move.”
He didn’t move. Not away. He moved deeper, harder, with a rhythm that was building toward something I could feel in every nerve ending. My nails dragged down his back and he hissed. His pace faltered for one beat before quickening. The tension coiled in both of us, tighter with every movement, every breath, every whispered word that was half my name and half something wordless and desperate.
His mouth found the spot below my ear, his teeth grazing the skin there, his hot breath vibrating against me. I turned my head and caught his mouth, kissing him hard and messy. He kissed me back with the same desperation, his tongue against mine, his groan swallowed by my mouth.
His hand found mine on the pillow above my head. His fingers laced through mine, pinning my hand there. The gesture was possessive and tender at once, and I curled my fingers around his and held on.
“Look at me,” he said, his forehead against mine, his eyes open and dark, more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him. “I want to see you.”
The release hit me first. It built and built, crested and broke through me in a wave that started in my core and radiated outward until my whole body was shaking, his name leaving my mouth half cry, half breath, entirely without composure. My fingers tightened in his. My back arched off the mattress. My vision went white at the edges, and I came apart in his arms witha completeness that was terrifying and beautiful and nothing I’d ever experienced before.
He watched me through it. Every second. His eyes never left mine. And when I came back to myself, trembling and gasping, he kissed me once, deep and tender, and then he let go.
He followed me over the edge with a groan that was low and broken and muffled against my neck. His body shuddered against mine, his hips pressing deep one final time, his arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me flush against him like he wanted to erase the space between us entirely.
I felt him come undone as I just had, completely and without reservation, and I held him through it as he’d held me, my hands in his hair, my lips against his temple, my heart beating so hard it felt like it might break free.
We stayed like that. Tangled and trembling and breathing each other’s air. His weight on me was heavy and warm and grounding and I didn’t want him to move. Not yet. Not for a long time. I wanted to stay exactly here, in this bed, with this man who had never let anyone this close. I wanted the rest of the world to wait outside the door until we were ready to let it back in.
His lips found my shoulder and pressed there, lingering. His breath was warm and uneven against my skin.
“Stay,” he said. One word. Rough and quiet, carrying everything he hadn’t been able to say during the argument or any of the weeks before it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. And this time, I meant it in a way that went far beyond the contract.
He rolled to the side eventually, pulling me with him, my back against his chest, his arms wrapped around me, his face pressed into my hair. Neither of us spoke for a long time. There weren’t words for what had just happened. There were sounds. The rain easing against the windows. Our breathing found thesame rhythm. His heartbeat under my ear, fast and gradually slowing. The wind was dying down. The storm was passing.
