"Everything's in reach for me, Sean."
His eyes are the dark gray they get when he has decided to stop pretending. I have seen that color twice. Once in my kitchen. Once in the warehouse.
This is the third.
"Tell me to stop," he says.
"You first."
I kiss him.
His hand comes up into my hair. His other hand finds my waist under the jacket and pulls me into him. The pull presses my hip into his wound, which makes him make a sound I will think about for the rest of my career.
I do not stop.
He does not stop.
His mouth comes down the column of my throat. Mine finds his jaw. I push his coat open. Find the dressing on his side and do not touch it. Find every other part of him through fabric.
He turns me.
My back goes to the brick.
His hand goes inside my jeans before I have finished registering that he has gotten them open.
I am already wet.
He makes a low sound when he feels it.
"Cazzo — fuck," I breathe into his mouth.
"Yeah."
His fingers work me open. Two, then three. The way a man does when he has been thinking about this. The way a man does when he is going to use the answer.
"Stay with me, Nadia."
"I'm here."
"Not the consigliera. Here."
"Here."
He gets his belt open with one hand. The other does not stop what it is doing. He gets one of my legs up around his hip.
He pushes inside me on the first try.
Deep. Stays there for a second that nearly undoes me. He is bigger than the registry of him I have been keeping in my body since the cabin. He is filling it now. Overflowing it.
"Tell me you want this."
"I want this."
"Like you mean it."
"I want this,stronzo — asshole."
He laughs into my throat. The first laugh he has given me like this. The laugh of a man who has been holding still the entire time we have known each other and has been given permission to stop.
