Chapter 23 #2
He whispers something into my hair I don’t catch. I don’t ask him to repeat it. I’m afraid of what it might be.
It builds and builds, slow, deliberate, until there’s nothing left but the edge—a thin, trembling line that breaks all at once, every nerve ending in my body lighting up, every thought erased or rewritten, my face buried in the warm skin of his neck.
I don’t make a sound. Not really. Maybe a gasp, maybe a muffled curse, but mostly just say his name, over and over.
His hands are everywhere and not nearly enough; his mouth still pressed to my jaw, his breathing gone ragged.
I have the realization that I’m not at all in control of myself, that if he asked for anything in this moment I’d give it, and that is so fucking dangerous I almost laugh.
He moves then, just enough, and the angle changes as he slips deeper inside, and I lose the entire second half of my brain.
I’m not ready for it when it happens. After the slow-burn lead-up; it’s a supernova detonation, white-hot and full-body, so much bigger and more absolute than anything I’ve ever had before that I cannot, for the life of me, keep it together.
It’s all I can do to hang on. My hands claw at his back, not out of aggression but out of raw need.
I come so hard it’s like the room whites out for a second, sound goes fuzzy, my limbs light up and my breath stops.
I feel every contraction, every ripple, and it doesn’t taper off so much as shatter me into smaller and smaller pieces, each one more sensitive than the last. The way he keeps moving through it, relentless and gentle, makes me clamp down on him even tighter.
He braces himself above me, body trembling, and I can feel that he’s trying so hard to hold it together, to not let go before I’ve wrung every last little bit of pleasure out of the moment.
He bites out a curse, low and shaky, and the sound of it almost makes me come again.
My legs are around his waist and I pull him closer, grinding up helplessly against him, greedy and uncoordinated with aftershock.
The rhythm gets messy; neither of us has any finesse left, just this desperate desire and the need to finish.
He looks down at me, eyes gone dark and wild, and I realize he’s been edging for minutes, maybe longer, holding it back for my sake. There’s a sweetness in that, so vulnerable, that I want to burst into tears and laugh at the same time.
“Jonah,” I say, voice gone to sand and static. I want him to know it’s safe. I want to tell him it’s okay, but all that comes out is a tiny “please.”
That does it. He slams deep into me, groans, low and rough, and then he’s gone, too—hips stuttering, whole body rigid over me, and I wrap my arms around his neck and just hold him there, pulsing inside me.
He shudders once, twice, then stills, breathless and stunned, and we stay like that for what feels like a year.
He holds himself above me in the aftermath—doesn’t collapse, doesn’t even move.
Just stays, forehead to mine, eyes shut, one giant hand splayed against the side of my face, like he thinks letting go even a little would break the spell.
I kiss him because I need to touch him, and I don’t have words for any of this.
He opens his eyes, and they’re so blue, even in the half-dark. He runs his thumb along my eyebrow, pushes my hair back, and I can feel him trembling, not from effort but from something else: the way it’s all too much, all at once, for both of us.
He eases his weight off me but doesn’t break the connection, just rolls to the side so we’re still tangled together, skin to skin. He looks at me, so open it burns.
I rest my head on his shoulder, my leg thrown over his, and try to memorize the way this feels, the way his hand cradles the back of my neck, the way his pulse kicks under my cheek.
I don’t know how to want anything but this, or how I’m supposed to give it up, and the thought is so terrifying I almost push him away on principle. But I don’t.
I stay. I let it happen. I’m not a coward, except for maybe being with someone who makes me feel like this. He follows me with his forehead pressed to mine, jaw tight, breath caught, and we hold there, breathing through it.
I trace a pattern on his ribs with one finger.
Idle. The freckle there, then up along the line of bone, then down again.
I feel him breathe beneath my hand. His other hand is in my hair.
He stares at the ceiling, and even in the dark I can see the look on his face—the look of a man who knows exactly what kind of trouble he’s in and has stopped pretending he isn’t.
“You okay?” he says. Voice rough.
“Yeah.” I press my mouth against his chest. “You?”
A pause.
“Yeah.”
He stays. Long enough that the room goes warm around us, that my eyes get heavy. Long enough that I can feel his heart slow and even out under my ear. He kisses the top of my head. Then again. Then he eases himself out from under me, careful, and finds his clothes in the dark.
I don’t watch him dress. I close my eyes and listen.
Before he goes, he leans over me. Brushes my hair back from my forehead. Presses his mouth to the spot between my eyebrows—the crease, the one he notices when no one else ever has.
“Sleep,” he whispers.
The door clicks shut. His feet shuffle down the hall.
I lie in the dark with the sheets warm around me and the smell of him on my pillow and the slow, terrible knowledge spreading through my chest.
I’m in love with him.
I’m in love with him, and there’s a nine-year-old asleep upstairs who’s lost too many people already, and I told this man on the day I moved in that he wasn’t allowed to fall for me.
And I’m leaving.
I press my hand flat against my chest, where my heart is doing its traitorous thing.
I have absolutely no idea what to do with that.
Outside, somewhere, a car goes by. The heating vent clicks on again.
I don’t sleep for a long time.