Page 56 of Duty Preserved

Delicate and slow, they traced a line from my elbow to my wrist.

My eyes opened, and I was fully awake between one breath and the next. Operator’s sleep. You never lost it. The room was dark except for a thin line of light under the door. The clock on the nightstand read 2:47.

I could barely make out the dark outline of Sarah. She appeared to be facing me. Her fingers paused their exploration.

“Is this okay?” she whispered.

I let my eyes adjust to the darkness until I could make out more of her features. She appeared much calmer, relaxed even. She’d slept for hours and woken up steadier than before.

That was what mattered. Her once-shaky hands, now steady, reaching out for me.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice rough. “It’s more than okay.”

She moved closer. She slid her hand up my arm to my shoulder, and then she pressed herself against me. Her mouth found mine in the dark.

I kissed her back. Slowly. I kept my hands where they were for as long as I could stand it, letting her set the pace, letting her decide what this was. She pressed closer and traced my jaw with her fingers, and when she deepened the kiss, I let her take it there.

I moved my hands. One to her hip, one to the back of her neck, and when I pulled her flush against me, she made a noise against my mouth that finished whatever was left of my self-control.

She was touching me like she was building courage with every inch, her fingers learning the shape of my shoulders and my chest through the cotton of my shirt. If I moved too fast, that courage would snap, and she’d be back behind the wall I’d seen her build last night.

I wasn’t going to be the reason that wall went back up.

She pulled at the bottom of my T-shirt. I sat up enough to pull it over my head, and her hands were on my bare chest immediately. Her expression in the thin light was focused. Intent. She ran her fingers along my collarbone, down my sternum, across my ribs, and I held still and let her take what she wanted.

“Your turn,” I said. Quiet. Giving her the choice.

She sat up and pulled the oversized T-shirt over her head in one motion. No bra underneath. My breath caught, and I didn’t try to hide it.

She was small and bare from the waist up. I made no effort to hide my excitement.

I reached for her. Drew her down against me, skin to skin, and kissed her until we were both breathing hard. Her hips shifted against mine, and I was so fucking hard it hurt. She felt it and rocked against me deliberately. My body let out an involuntary groan.

“I want you to know that I’m on birth control,” she said against my mouth.

“Okay.”

Does that mean⁠—

She pushed at my waistband. I helped her, and then her shorts were gone too and we were naked together in a hotel bed in Nanyuki.

She wrapped her fingers around my cock, and I stopped breathing. Her grip was uncertain for half a second and then it wasn’t, and I had to grab her wrist because I was about thirty seconds from ending this before it started.

“Not yet,” I managed. “Come here.”

I pulled her on top of me. She straddled my hips, her knees on either side of my waist, my hands open on her thighs. She could set the pace. I’d match whatever she gave me.

She looked down at me, and I saw the moment she understood what I was giving her. Her hands braced on my chest. Her hips tilted.

She reached between us and guided me to her entrance, and when she sank down onto me, I uttered something that wasn’t a word.

Tight. Wet. So fucking warm that my hands went to her hips on instinct.

I had to force them to stay loose, not to pull her down harder the way every nerve in my body wanted me to. She took me all the way in and stopped, adjusting, and I could feel her pulse around me.

She started to move. A slow roll of her hips, testing the angle, figuring out what worked. Her eyes fell shut. Her lips parted. She found her rhythm and rode me like she owned me.

I’d had sex. Good, bad, forgettable. None of it compared to this.