“You okay?”
I look up at him, at his green eyes, his jaw, the tattoos, and I feel the strength of him above me, and something so complete moves through me that I can’t speak for a moment.
“More than okay,” I say.
He almost smiles.
His forehead drops to mine and stays there, not moving, just breathing, the two of us in the morning quiet with everything that has just shifted sitting warm and certain between us. I close my eyes and feel the full weight of this moment and let myself have it completely.
Then he moves.
Slowly at first, deep and unhurried, like he is learning the feel of me, like he has all the time in the world and intends to use every second of it. My hands find his back, and I feel the muscles moving beneath my palms with every stroke.
And his heart is still hammering. I can feel it against my chest, where our bodies press together, that rapid, insistent beat that has nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with what this means to him. This man quietly carries everything, never lets anything show, and his heartbeat right now is the most honest thing he has ever said to me.
It undoes me completely.
I exhale his name against his jaw, and he turns his face into my hair.
“God, Sophia,” he breathes out. “You feel incredible. You have no i-idea…” His voice breaks slightly on the last word, and I feel that break somewhere deep, because this is Tate, who keeps everything contained, files everything away, doesn’t let anything show, and he can’t contain this. He can’t contain me. That knowledge does something extraordinary to every part of me.
I pull him closer, my legs wrapping around him, drawing him deeper, and he groans against my throat, low and rough, his hips pressing into mine with more intention now, the slow, deliberate rhythm beginning to build into something considerably less controlled.
“Eyes on me,” he says, pulling back just enough to look at me. His eyes are burning, completely open, nothing careful left in them. It’s just him, this moment, and everything he’d been holding back for months. “Stay with me.”
“I’m here,” I breathe out. “I’m right here.”
Something moves across his face at that, the relief of a man who has been alone in something for a very long time and has finally been found in it.
Then he moves harder.
The rhythm changes, deeper and more urgent. I gasp, my fingers dig into his back, and he buries his face in my neck. I feel him everywhere, every stroke deliberate and building, his mouth against my skin saying things that come out broken and half finished, because he is past the point of words.
“You feel so good,” he manages against my throat. “Sophia, you feel so—”
“Don’t stop,” I say. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”
“I’m right here,” he whispers. “I’m right here.”
His hand slips between us, finding exactly where I need it, his thumb moving while he moves inside me, and I cry out, my headfalling back, the combination of it building into something I have absolutely no defenses against.
“That’s it,” he says against my jaw, his voice rough and completely undone. “Give me that. Give me everything.”
The pressure builds, wave after wave, and I feel myself tightening around him and hear the sound he makes at that, something between a groan and my name, his rhythm faltering as his own control begins to slip entirely.
“Sophia…” His voice is rough, urgent, completely him.
“Me too,” I breathe out. “Tate!”
When I come apart, it is completely. His name tears out of me, my entire body arches into him, and everything I’d been carrying for months releases at once in one long, devastating wave. I feel him follow me over the edge a moment later, his forehead dropping to my shoulder, both hands gripping me like I am the only solid thing in the world, a low, broken sound against my skin that is entirely unguarded and entirely his.
Some moments are too full for words.
This is one of them.
Afterward, we lie in the quiet.
His arm is around me. My cheek is against his chest. His heartbeat is under my palm, the same heartbeat I’d woken to, the same warmth, but entirely different now in every way that matters.
