Page 135 of The Grumpy Defenseman
“No.”
A short, broken sound. Almost a laugh. Mostly not.
I took my time. I worked his shirt over his head and pressed my mouth to the bruise above his ribs that had not finished healing. He let me. He had not let anyone touch the places his body had paid for the league with, but he let me. I felt the choice in his hand at my back.
He let me have all of it.
I undid his belt. He undid the back of my dress. We ended up on the bed without urgency, because the urgency was the thing we were past. Now there was just the slow geography of two people whohad decided.
His hand was steady when he undid my bra. He moved over me the way he did everything: present, attentive, watching my face for the answer before he asked the question.
But there was something in him tonight that had not been there before. Less restraint. More choice. The difference between a man holding himself back and a man who had already decided.
“Look at me,” he said.
I did.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.”
“Say it back.”
The request undid something I had not known was still tied.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
He moved down my body and learned me by mouth the way I had learned him by camera — the crease of my hip, then his tongue against my clit until I could not keep still under him. He worked two fingers inside me and curled them up exactly wherehe had learned to curl them three nights ago, and I broke around his mouth with my hand fisted in his hair.
He waited until I went still.
Then he crawled up my body and reached for the nightstand without me having to ask.
When he settled between my thighs again, he stopped.
“Sam.”
“Yes.”
“Look at me when you come.”
“Yes.”
He pushed inside me slowly, and I felt every inch of him this time — slick, hot, exact — because I knew him now. He found my hand on the pillow and laced our fingers through.
He held it there.
He did not let go.
Not when his rhythm changed and his thumb found my clit and worked the same patient circle until I started to shake.
Not when my back archedoff the sheet.
Not when I came apart the second time with his mouth against my temple and his fingers tight around mine.
Not after.
When he finally came apart, he did it quietly. Face pressed to my shoulder. My name low against my skin. His hand still in mine.
