Page 204 of Across His Line

Her underwear ends up somewhere with the sock.

I rub and circle and tease her. I learn everything that makes her body jolt. She stops watching my face to see what I’m going to do and closes her eyes. She turns her face into my neck and breathes there, hot and fast, while her hand is digging into my shoulder.

She whimpers my name against my ear. ”Rafe.”

And I have to stop.

I hold still with my face in her hair until I can trust myself.

“What?” she whispers. “Why’d you stop?”

“Nothing.”

“Then don’t stop.”

I keep going.

And a while later, with her breath coming in short pieces against my neck and her hand gripping my wrist, she says, “Rafe,” again, different. Exasperated. Out of breath.

I know what she’s asking.

I get the condom out of the nightstand drawer where I put it this morning, and then just sat there on the edge of the bed looking at it for a while like a moron. My hands aren’t steady. It takes me two tries to get the wrapper open, and she props herself up on her elbows and watches me fight with it.

I get it on and come back over her on my arms with my knees between hers, and I stop.

We both feel it. The room changes. A second ago, she was judging me for fighting with a wrapper. Now I’m over her with my weight on my arms and nothing between us, and this is it. This is actually happening. She looks up at me, and I watch her realize it at the same time I do. Her hands go flat on my chest. Not pushing. Just there.

“I don’t want you doing this because you think you already said yes,” I say.

She holds my eyes for a long time. Then she takes her hands off my chest and puts them on my face. She looks at me. Just me.

“I want you,” she says.

Not it. Not this. You.

I put my forehead down against hers and breathe because I don’t have anything to say back to that. There isn’t anything. Nobody’s ever said that to me. Not like that. Not meaning the thing under all the other things.

She waits. She lets me. Her thumbs move on my cheekbones while I breathe.

Then she lifts her head off the pillow and kisses me. Soft. Once.

And I move slowly. As slow as I’ve ever done anything in my life. I watch her face while I press into her. The first moment, the very first, her eyes go wide and her breath stops and her hands on my face go tight. I stop. I hold there with my weight on my arms, shaking a little, and wait.

She breathes. Out, and in. Her eyes close.

Then she turns her face into my arm and says, “Sorry. Sorry, I just—”

“Don’t apologize,” I say. “Not for that. Not ever.”

She opens her eyes and looks at me.

It takes a while. I don’t know how long. Long enough that my arms start to burn. She breathes, and I wait, and every so often she lets go a little more, and I move a little more, and every time her face pinches I stop and wait until it smooths out. She doesn’t have to tell me. I can see it. I can see all of it, every single thing, and she knows I can, and she isn’t watching my face anymore to see what I’m going to do. She doesn’t have to. She knows I’ll stop. So she just closes her eyes and holds onto my shoulders and lets me read her.

And then her hands slide down my back and pull.

She pulls me in. All the way. And she makes a sound, low and surprised, and her eyes come open and find mine.

“Oh,” she says. Different from the first oh. Completely different.