Page 55 of Open Road

“Good girl,” he says, then carries me to the bed.

What follows is not something Craig ever gave me.

Roam moves down my body with the same thoroughness he brings to everything he does— methodical, patient, and entirely focused. His mouth and hands work in concert, the warmth of his palms, the rough drag of callouses against my skin, and the deliberate, unhurried attention of a man with no intention of rushing this. He learns me the way he takes inventory of a room—complete, nothing missed, total commitment to the task.

When he puts his mouth on me, I stop thinking about Craig entirely.

There is only this. The warmth of his breath, his skill, and the particular patience of a man who has decided this matters and is going to see it through to its conclusion, regardless of how long it takes. My hands find his silver hair. My hips rise without my permission. The sound I make is something I don’t recognize, something that has been locked behind four years of silence.

His name comes out of my mouth on an exhale.

He doesn’t stop.

When the world breaks apart the first time, it does it quietly, internally, a wave cresting and falling somewhere deep, and I come back to myself with his mouth still on me, gentle now, easing me down.

I sit up, and my hands find his chest, shoulders, and the solid, warm mass of him in the dark. Something has shifted in me, some careful design Craig built, the one constructed to keep me small, still, and grateful for whatever I was given, has developed a crack. A significant one. Enough to move through.

I push.

He lets me.

Roam goes onto his back without resistance, which is its own kind of power. He’s a man who could hold his ground, choosing not to, because I’m the one moving. He lets me climb over him, and he lets me set the pace. His hands rest at my sides, present but not directing, and he watches me in the dark with those patient, flat eyes and waits.

Slowly, I lower myself onto him.

The sound he makes is low, involuntary, and his jaw tightens. The hands at my sides flex once, grip briefly, release. He gives me the pace. He gives me the time. Roam watches me the way he watched me in the mirror, without flinching or looking away, seeing every inch of whatever is on my face right now and not managing his reaction to it.

“God,” he says. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

He says it the way he says true things, without ceremony, softening, or inflation. He says it as a plain fact, reporting something he looked at and found, and now naming it because it’s there.

My hips move.

His breath catches.

The pace builds. My hands are on Roam’s chest, his hands find my hips, and when his grip tightens, it’s not constraint but direction, an offer, and I take it. The rhythm shifts. His hips move to meet mine, and the sensation telescopes, narrows to a bright point, and his voice is low in the dark, saying things I will remember without being able to repeat them, things about how I feel and how he’s wanted this. Things about me.

He thrusts upward.

My body breaks apart for the second time, harder and longer, in a wave that starts in my spine and reaches every extremity, and his name comes out of my mouth again.“Roam…”This time it is not quiet.

In the dark, he smiles. I feel it against my throat.

“Mine,” he says as he rolls us. His weight comes down over me, and it is not Craig’s weight, nothing about it is Craig’s. This is warmth and solidity. This is a man who has told me exactly what I am to him and is now moving inside me with the complete conviction of someone who means it. Deeply, steadily, and deliberately. Riding out what’s already cresting, building something new on top of it, his forearms on either side of my head, and his eyes on mine in the dark.

Eyes on me.

The pace builds again. My legs wrap around him, while his breath is against my throat. The calloused hands and dog tags are warm against my chest, the particular weight of a man who has never been behind glass and never will be, who has been on every road and chosen this one.

When he drives into me one final time, it is deep and absolute, and he doesn’t make a sound, instead he growls my name.

Not Janie, who sat on the side of a dark highway, wondering if anyone would come. Not Janie, the way Craig used to say it, with the particular inflection of ownership masquerading as love. My name in Roam’s voice is rough, undone, and sounding like home.

“Janie.”

As though it means something.

***