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I let myself become lured in the direction of Rory’s bed, buoyed by his teasing grin and half-lidded eyes. Falling into bed beside him, he wraps his arms around me and plants a soft kiss on the nape of my neck. A finger gently strokes my skin, tracing the outline of my shoulder before Rory’s hands wrap underneath my waist and he pulls me tight against him.
His erection digs into me and I find myself automatically wriggling against it.
“Fuck,” he mutters against my ear, a warm puff of air that spirals a blaze of heat toward my core. I grind my thighs together, arching against him, taking advantage of how pliant he’s being.
But then, with a firm hand, Rory turns me around to face him. “No,” he says with effort. “Keep doing that and you’ll make me explode, little saint.”
I give him an actual pout. I’d quite like to make him explode. At first I assume he wants nothing to do with me if it’s not physical touch, that I’m a danger to his dick or something and need to be as far away as possible from it. Instead, Rory gathers me close to his chest. I swallow at the intimacy. He holds me tight, his arms wrapped securely around me, and together we listen to our heartbeats and breaths.
In the quiet of the room, we’re so insanely close. Listening to the rhythm of his heart, the heart he buries so far down. Being offered proof that it truly exists.Thud, thud, thud— its sweet, predictable melody slows my breath and calms me, and I become so soothed that I almost fall asleep.
Rory plays with my hair, fingers toying with individual strands. It seems like he does it for ages, a meditative grounding reflex, a kind of tactile prayer, like the earnest caress of rosary beads.
I don’t know what time it is when Rory next speaks. In fact, I think he wakes me from the unexpectedness of it. The two of us had been cloistered in the quiet, lulled by the onslaught of sleep, for what feels like an eternity.
“Do you know the first thing I did this morning?” he murmurs, barely audible as he wraps a coil of my hair around the tip of his finger. “After my father… Well, after my father,” he concludes in a wry tone. There’s another beat in the stillness, as though Rory’s debating his next words. “I called up an animal rescue, told them to come look after the abandoned chicks, that it was urgent. Gave them coordinates for the nest.”
He pauses and plants a kiss on the top of my head.
“That’s on you,” Rory adds quietly, with a note of fondness I’d have never expected. “You’ve taught me how to care.”
