Page 37 of Omega’s Fold

He says, very quietly, “You smell — “

“I know.”

“You smell like — “

“I know, Wyatt.”

He turns his face into my neck further. Takes another breath. Takes another.

I lie over him and let him breathe me in and I do not think about anything else. I make myself not think about anything else. The laptop in the next room. The project list. The firm. None of it. There is a man under me who hasn’t let anyone this close in his life, and he is scenting me, and I am not going to put anything else in this room right now.

After a while he says, “I want — “

“Tell me.”

“You.” He breathes it. “In me. I want — “

My body answers before I do. He feels it against his hip and makes a small pleased sound and gets a hand between us, low, and wraps it around me and squeezes once, learning, and I have to put my forehead down against his shoulder and grit my teeth.

“Wyatt.”

“Is this — “

“Yes.”

“You’ll tell me if I — “

“You’re fine. You’re perfect.”

He makes that sound again. The small pleased one. His hand gets bolder.

I let him learn. I let him run his hand up the length of me, slow, and then back down, and I let him put his thumb to the head and feel the slickness there, and I let him go still for a second while he works out what to do with his fingers, and when he gets it I kiss the corner of his mouth because he’s frowning with concentration and it’s the sweetest thing I have ever seen.

“Good,” I manage. “God, yes. Like that.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

He does it until I have to stop him. I catch his wrist. Kiss his palm. Put his hand up by his head.

“Turn over for me?”

He goes still. For half a second I think I’ve moved too fast — then I see it isn’t that, it’s nerves, it’s the specific nerves of a man who has never done this before, and I get my mouth to his ear and say, low, “Whatever you want. We don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Sure?”

“Julian.” A breath. “Yes.”

He turns.

The quilt’s rucked under his hip. The gray light from the window catches the long line of his back, the dip of his waist, the muscle of him. I put my hand on the small of his back and he shivers under it. I lean down and kiss the nape of his neck and he makes a low sound.

“Tell me if anything — “

“I will.”