Page 61 of Slander
I'm not hiding from the day in him, or I'm not only doing that—though if I am, a little, I think after everything I'm allowed.
I want the one clean thing in a day that was nothing but filth.
I want to be touched on purpose by someone who chose me instead of being touched by accident by people who'd scrub their hands after.
"They spent all day telling me what I am," I say against his mouth. "I want you to remind me what I actually am."
Something breaks loose in his face at that.
"Come here," he says, low and rough, and his hands slide up into my wet hair, fingers tangling tight as he pulls me in.
He kisses me like an answer to a question I stopped having the strength to ask hours ago.
He takes me to bed. He's careful with me—not the kind of careful that thinks I'll shatter, but the kind that understands exactly what today cost me.
It makes all the difference.
He undresses me slowly.
His fingers work the buttons, the zipper, the fabric sliding off my skin like he's unwrapping something precious.
And everywhere his mouth follows—my throat, the curve of my shoulder, the inside of my wrist, lower—he leaves a mark.
A bruise. A brand of his own making.
I understand what he's doing without him saying a word.
The town spent all day stamping ugly words across my name like they owned me.
He's writing something else now, in a language only the two of us will ever read.
He's claiming back every inch of me they tried to make filthy.
"Mine," he murmurs against my stomach, his breath hot on my skin. "Not theirs. They don't get to decide what you are. I do." He looks up at me, eyes dark and steady. "And you do. That's the whole damn list."
"Yours," I breathe back, and it's the truest word I've said all day.
His mouth continues down.
He spreads my thighs with his palms and presses his lips to the crease where my leg meets my hip, so close to where I'm aching for him.
His tongue traces a line along my folds, slow and deliberate, tasting me like he has all the time in the world. Like there's nowhere else he'd rather be. Like I'm something worth savoring.
I arch into him, my fingers finding his hair, gripping tight.
He groans against me—the vibration running through my clit—and slides two fingers inside me, curling them just right.
He fucks me slow with his hand while his tongue works circles around that swollen bud, and I'm already close, already trembling, because no one has ever touched me like this—like I'm sacred.
"Please," I whisper, and I don't even know what I'm asking for.
He knows. He pulls back just enough to say, "When I'm ready," and then he's back, his tongue working me harder now, his fingers moving faster.
I come apart with his name on my lips, my whole body shaking, and he doesn't stop until I've ridden every last wave.
When he moves over me, he keeps his eyes on mine.
He pushes into me—slowly, so slowly—and I feel every inch of him filling me up.
