Page 184 of The Lies We Play

Then he gives it to me.

The next thrust goes deeper, and I grab his shoulder, nails digging in. My body jolts beneath him. He stops immediately, but I tighten my leg around him before he can retreat.

“No,” I gasp. “Don’t stop.”

His eyes open.

That look again.

He lowers his forehead to mine.

“Stay with me,” he says.

I laugh once, breathless. “I’m literally pinned under you.”

“Not what I meant.”

“I know.”

My throat burns with it.

I do know.

He means don’t leave the moment. Don’t disappear into sarcasm. Don’t become the version of myself who can skate through pain, the smile for cameras, make everyone else comfortable, then fall apart only where no one can document it.

He wants me here.

All of me.

That should feel impossible.

With him inside me, his hand sliding up to lace our fingers together beside my head, it doesn’t.

It feels terrifyingly simple.

I squeeze his hand.

He moves again, and this time the rhythm starts to build.

Not fast. Not frantic. Deep. Patient. Devastating. Every thrust feels like he is asking the same question with his body.

Can I have this?

Can I keep this?

Can you let me love you where it hurts?

I answer by lifting into him. By letting the sounds come. By keeping my eyes open even when the pleasure gets too intimate to face. His mouth finds mine, then my cheek, then the corner of my jaw. He keeps touching me like he can’t decide which part of me needs him most. Face. Hip. Hand. The back of my thigh. My ribs, where I’m bruised. My hair, damp at the temples.

He kisses me there.

At my temple.

Like I’m precious after being used so hard by the season.

That almost takes me out.

“Don’t,” I mutter.