Page 92 of What We Don't Say: Part One

For a moment, I think she’ll argue. Calliope has always been gentlest when she’s most prepared to bleed quietly. She can make self-erasure sound like maturity if no one listens closely enough. I used to think that was only old damage. Some of it is. I can feel the history under the way she holds herself, the old almost-family wound Sloane warned us about before we ever let Garrett put our names on the same filings.

This feels fresher.

I turn her hand palm-up and press my thumb into the center of it, slow and firm. “I can leave this alone for now,” I say. “I can sit with you. Or you can come upstairs with me and let me take care of you for a while. Your choice.”

Her breath shakes out of her. She looks at the hallway again, toward the sunroom, toward Garrett’s closed study door, toward every invisible line this house has drawn across her body.

Then she looks back at me. “Upstairs.”

I don’t smile. I don’t praise her like she has passed some test. I just nod, take her hand, and lead her upstairs.

Our bedroom is quiet when I shut the door behind us. The click of the lock settles through the room, clean and final. Calliope stands near the foot of the bed with her fingers curled against her palms, like she doesn’t know what to do with herself now that there’s no chore in front of her.

I step into her space, but I don’t touch her yet. “Tell me your color.”

Her lashes lower. “Green.”

“That was fast.”

“It’s still true.”

I put two fingers beneath her chin and lift her face. “Then say it again.”

Her throat works. “Green, Idris.”

The sound of my name in her mouth loosens the tightest part of my control. I lean in slowly enough for her to turn away. She doesn’t. She rises onto her toes and meets me halfway, her hands catching in the front of my shirt. The kiss starts careful, then breaks open when she makes a small sound against my mouth, wounded and relieved at once.

I pull back before the need in me gets ahead of the need in her. “Last choice before I touch you properly. Bed, my lap, or we stop here.”

Her eyes shine. “Bed.”

I guide her there with a hand at the small of her back. She sits on the edge of the mattress first, then lets me ease her fully onto it when I nod. I stay standing for a moment, looking down at her, giving both of us a final breath of space.

“Color,” I say.

“Green.”

I undress her slowly. Shirt first, button by button, watching her face the entire time. She lifts her arms when I ask. The fabric slides away. Her bra follows. I set each piece aside instead of letting it fall. Pants next, then the soft underwear beneath. When she is bare I pause again, one knee on the mattress, and rest my hand over her sternum so she can feel the steady pressure.

“Still with me?”

“Yes.”

I lean down and kiss her. The first kiss is careful. The second deepens when she answers it. Her hands find my shoulders, then slide into my hair. I keep the pace measured, learning the exact moment her breathing changes from nervous to wanting. Only then do I move lower.

My mouth traces the line of her throat, the slope of one shoulder, the soft skin above her heart. I take my time at her breasts, kissing, tasting, drawing one nipple into my mouth untilher back arches and a quiet sound leaves her. The other receives the same attention. Her fingers tighten in my hair.

“Idris—”

“I’m here.” I kiss the underside of each breast, then lower, across the soft plane of her stomach. “You don’t have to do anything but feel this.”

When I settle between her thighs she opens for me without hesitation. I press a kiss to the inside of one knee, then the other, then higher. The first stroke of my tongue is slow, dragging a gasp from her lips. I do it again, following the familiar shift of her hips and the soft, broken sounds she makes. One of my hands rests on her hip, holding her steady. The other reaches up so she can lace her fingers through mine if she needs the anchor.

She takes it.

I work her open with patience, circling the swollen peak of her with the flat of my tongue, then dipping lower to taste her more deeply. Every time her breathing stutters I ease back just enough to keep her from tipping too fast. Every time she softens I press closer again. Her free hand finds the sheets, then my shoulder, then my hair once more.

“Color,” I murmur against her.