I sit up. Everything hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt, and also kind of embarrassing. The blanket drops to my waist, and the air is cold on my chest. I’m covered in marks—a bite on my shoulder, red scratches on my thighs I don’t even remember making, his handprints on my hips in purple bruises. I look like a walking reminder of last night.
He sits up next to me. He’s marked up too—half-moons from my nails on his arms, a scratch across his chest, a bite mark on his shoulder that matches mine. He’s still wearing his mask. So am I. We’re just two strangers in a bed, covered in each other’s marks, and suddenly it feels kind of dumb.
“This is ridiculous,” I say. “I’ve had you inside me four times, and I don’t know what your face looks like.”
“Five, technically. If you count the fingers.”
“I’m not counting the fingers.”
“I’m counting the fingers.” He turns toward me, one leg folded on the bed, and he’s close enough that I can see his eyes clearly through the mask for the first time in decent light. Brown. Warm. Crinkled at the corners like he smiles a lot. “Hi.”
“Hi.” My heart is hammering.
I reach for him.
It surprises both of us. My hand moves before my brain signs off on it, but it’s not heat this time; it’s not biology making choices for me, it’s just want. Clear, lucid, unmedicated want. My fingers find his chest, spread flat over his sternum, and I feel his heartbeat under my palm. Fast. Faster than his composure suggests, the discovery that he’s as scared as I am does something to the knot in my chest.
I slide my hand down, over his ribs, his stomach, the line of hair below his belly button. He goes still. His breathing gets shallow, and I can feel his abs tense under my fingers. I’m touching him because I want to, not because of heat or anything else. Just me, my hand on his body, in this room that smells like sex and us.
“You don’t have to—” he starts.
“I know.” I look at my hand on his skin. My fingers are shaking slightly, and I don’t try to hide it. “That’s the point.”
I wrap my hand around his cock. He’s half-hard, getting harder in my grip, and it feels different now that I’m not out of my mind with heat. I notice things I missed before—the weight of him, how his skin feels, the way his breath catches and his hips push into my hand without him meaning to. I stroke him once, slow, from base to tip, and his hand comes up and grabs my wrist. He just holds on, doesn’t try to stop me.
“Baby.” He doesn’t know my name yet, but the word he uses instead is soft and rough, and it makes my chest hurt. “You don’t owe me—”
“I’m not paying a debt.” I stroke him again, and his cock hardens fully in my hand, and his fingers tighten on my wrist. “I’m choosing. This is me choosing you without heat. Without my body making the decision. Just me.”
He drops his head forward, pressing his forehead against mine. His breathing is rough, and I can feel him shaking, little tremors running through him. Realizing I can make him shake like this—not because of scent or heat, just because I want to—hits me harder than anything else tonight.
I keep stroking him, slow and steady, and he lets me. He just rocks his hips into my hand, breathing hard against my mask. His hand stays on my wrist, just holding on. When he comes, it’s quiet—a low groan, his cock pulsing in my grip, his body curling toward me. No drama, just letting go, and trusting me enough to let me see it.
I wipe my hand on the sheet. He huffs a laugh that’s mostly breath.
“That was—”
“That was me,” I say. “Without the heat. That’s what I’m like when biology isn’t driving.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. His hand is still on my wrist. Then he lifts it and presses his clothed mouth to my pulse point, a kiss filtered through fabric, and the gentleness of it compared to everything else we’ve done tonight makes my throat close up.
“I’ll go first,” he says. He reaches up and pulls the elastic over the back of his head, and the mask comes off.
He’s younger than I thought. Maybe mid-twenties, about my age. Dark hair, pushed back, the kind that falls in his face if he doesn’t keep it there. Strong jaw, a few days of stubble, and a nose that’s been broken at least once—crooked, but it suits him. His mouth is what gets me. It’s curved, not quite a smile, just relaxed, like he’s always about to laugh. There’s a dimple on the left. He looks like someone who laughs for real.
He told me he works with animals. Rescues. Scared ones. Looking at his face, I believe it.
He looks nothing like the mask. The mask is aggressive, angular, and dark. His face is open and warm, and thedissonance between who he is in the dark and who he is in the light is the exact same dissonance I’ve been torturing myself about for five months, except on him it doesn’t look like a contradiction. It just looks like a person.
“Nico,” he says. Holds out his hand.
I stare at his hand. The same hand that was inside me an hour ago, the same fingers that held my jaw in the entryway, that stroked my hair while I cried, that gripped my hips hard enough to bruise. He’s offering me his hand like we’re meeting at a coffee shop.
I take it.
“Finch,” I say.
He squeezes my hand and his almost-smile turns into a real one. The dimple shows up, and his eyes crinkle a little bit.
