32. Nora #2
He does. Only a little at first. A slow slide out, then back in.
Deep enough that I feel him everywhere. My nails dig into his shoulders.
He gives me more. Still slow, but deeper now.
His hips roll into mine, his cock dragging against places inside me that make my thoughts scatter.
He groans when I tighten around him. He says good, yes, like that, sweetheart, and each word lands hot and low in my body.
"What do you want right now?" he asks.
That again. The repair. Not the apology. Not the money. This. My husband inside me, shaking with the effort not to take over, asking what I want.
"Harder," I say.
His eyes flare. "How much?"
"Enough that I can feel you tomorrow."
He makes a sound like he has been stabbed. "I can do that."
He hooks one of my legs higher around his hip and drives into me. Hard. Deep. Never careless now, but enough that the headboard taps the wall and my mouth falls open around a cry. He covers my mouth with his. Not to silence me. To catch it.
He fucks me like he missed me then. Like he has been starving and terrified and in love and too late. His hips snap into mine, then slow, then snap again. Then he shifts his hips, just a little, and the head of his cock drags over something inside me that makes my whole body jerk.
He remembers the angle. Of course he does. The bastard.
He pulls my knee higher and grinds into me with slow, filthy precision, each roll of his hips rubbing inside me exactly where I need it. His mouth finds my breast, and he sucks one nipple between his lips while he grinds into me again. I nearly come right there.
"There," he says against my skin, proud and rough. "That's it."
It makes me clench around him so hard his face goes blank for half a second.
"Fuck," he breathes.
Then he gives me that angle again. Deep. Slow. Grinding. The kind of stroke that does not leave me anywhere to escape.
"Come on me, sweetheart," he says.
I shake my head because it is too much. Because being known by him this way after all the ways he failed to know me feels obscene and unfair and perfect.
"I can't."
"You can." His voice drops. "I know you can."
Then he rolls his hips again, slow and deep, and my body proves him right. I shatter. My body clenches hard around his cock, orgasm ripping through me in hot waves while Daniel groans like it hurts. He keeps moving through it, grinding deep, letting me ride every pulse until my legs start shaking.
Then he stops, buried all the way inside me. His whole body is trembling.
"Daniel," I whisper. "Come."
"Because for almost two years, every time I left you, I told myself there would be more time," he says, voice wrecked. "I don't get to rush this because my body is desperate. I want to stay."
Stay. My heart cannot take that word. Not tonight.
"Then stay," I say.
His control goes. Not violently. In a way that feels like surrender. He kisses me deep and starts moving again, the rhythm ruined now. His hips jerk. His breath breaks.
"Nora," he says.
My name this time. Finally. Not sweetheart. Not baby. Me. I lock my legs around his waist and pull him deeper.
"Inside," I whisper.
"I'm here," I tell him, because he said it to me and now I understand why it mattered.
He comes. Hard. His whole body locks over mine, cock pulsing deep inside me as he groans into my neck. It lasts long enough that I feel every wave of it. He does not pull away. He does not hide his face. He says my name again, broken and low, until the last of him spills into me.
I hold him through it. I do not know why. Maybe because he stayed. Maybe because I am a fool.
When it is over, he catches himself on his elbows and kisses my forehead, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. Soft little kisses that feel almost more intimate than the sex.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
I stare up at him. "I just had two orgasms and you're asking if I'm okay."
"Three."
"Do not make a list."
His mouth twitches.
The silence after sex with someone you are not sure you can trust is a dangerous thing.
It gives your brain room to return with a clipboard.
Daniel must feel the shift in me. He pulls out slowly, and we both inhale at the loss.
He comes back from the bathroom with a warm washcloth and cleans me gently, more careful than he has ever been in his life.
Something about that almost breaks me worse than anything else.
Then he reaches for me, then stops with his hand in the air. "Can I hold you?"
I hate that he asks. I love that he asks. Both things can be true. Very annoying.
"Yes."
He gathers me against him. Not like he owns me. Like he is grateful. For a long time, we do not talk. His heart slows under my ear. Mine does not.
"This doesn't fix anything," I say.
"I know."
"I'm still angry."
"You should be."
"And scared. Of wanting you."
"I am terrified of wanting you," he says. "But for me it's simpler. I know I want you forever. I'm terrified because I don't know if you'll ever want me that way again."
I close my eyes. There is no safe answer to that. So I do not give one. Daniel does not ask again. That matters too. He just holds me.
The apartment is quiet. New Jersey quiet. Real life, not glass towers and drivers and elevators that never smell like anyone actually lives there. Daniel's thumb moves slowly over my shoulder.
"I'm not leaving tonight," he says.
My whole body stills. He feels it.
"Unless you ask me to," he adds. "But if you don't, I'm staying. On the couch. On the floor. Here. Wherever you want. I am not going to touch you and leave."
The answer to the old wound, handed to me plain. I should tell him the couch. That would be smarter. I am naked, tired, and not interested in being smart.
"Here," I say.
His arm tightens around me once. Just once. Then he relaxes it like he is afraid even gratitude could feel like pressure.
"Okay. But don't make it weird," I add.
He kisses my hair. "Too late."
I should not laugh. I do. It is small and tired and maybe the first honest sound I have made all day that is not pain.
He stays awake longer than I do. I know because every time I drift close to sleep, his hand is still moving slowly in my hair. Not sexual. Just there. Like he is reminding both of us. Here. Still here.
At some point, I sleep. No dreams. No crying baby. No phone call from another country. When I wake, gray morning light is coming through the thin curtains. For one second, I do not remember. I am warm. There is an arm over my waist. A man's chest against my back. Daniel's breath at my neck.
He stayed. My heart opens so fast it hurts. Then it panics. Hard. All at once. Because trusting him again feels like stepping off a roof.