What I Want #2
"And because when I give you something," he said, voice lower now, "you give it back." Her chest tightened.
"Better." She removed her hand.
"Conditions first."
"Naturally."
"No magic."
"Agreed."
"No Hunger. If the shadow changes in a way either of us notices, we stop."
"Agreed."
"Your ribs are injured. Nothing compresses your chest hard enough to affect breathing. Your right hand stays free and supported. My left hand is damaged, so you do not turn this into a test of whether I can ignore pain." His expression warmed. "I would never." Marin looked at him.
"I would attempt not to."
"Better."
She continued. "Enough stops everything. No argument. Two taps if either of us cannot speak. One tap means slow down and check."
"And if I become unbearable?"
"That is baseline, not a stop condition." His laugh was real this time. Good.
"Anything you do not want?" Marin asked.
Oliver considered rather than performing certainty. "Nothing around my throat tonight. Ribs. Hand. No blindfold."
"Why no blindfold?"
His eyes flicked toward the floor. "I want to know whether my shadow behaves." Marin could have objected. Instead she nodded. "Then we keep the lamp where you can see it without staring at it. We do not interpret anything during the scene. If it changes, we stop. Observation only."
"Investigator."
"Always."
"Your turn."
Marin leaned back against the washstand without using her left hand and considered her answer before giving it.
"No pulling my injured palm. No sudden weight against my upper arm. I do not want you to decide what I want because you think you know me. If I have not asked for it, you ask." Oliver's amusement vanished into attention.
"Yes."
"And I want stillness." His brow lifted. Marin felt heat move through her despite herself.
"You spend your life moving first. Reaching first. Deciding the room needs you in another place before anyone else has noticed the problem. Tonight I want you to stay where I put you until I tell you otherwise." Oliver looked almost offended by how much the instruction appealed to him.
"That is cruel."
"Do you consent?"
"Enthusiastically."
"Then stand."
He did. Marin opened his travel case. The rope was where she expected it to be, coiled beneath a spare shirt and a packet of letters.
Soft braided cord, dark enough to look black until lamplight found blue in it.
Oliver had once claimed every sailor carried good rope.
Marin had not bothered explaining why this particular rope had never been used to secure cargo. She lifted it with her right hand.
"This?" Oliver swallowed.
"Yes."
The answer pleased her more than she wanted to examine.
Marin had learned the knots from him first, which remained one of their more ridiculous inversions.
Sailors tied for load, weather and survival.
Lovers borrowed the same mathematics and changed the purpose.
Tonight she kept the structure simple because both of them were injured and because complexity would become vanity.
"Turn around."
Oliver turned. She laid the midpoint of the rope across his upper back, below the shoulders and clear of the bruised side.
The first passes crossed his torso without tightening around the ribs.
Marin worked slowly, checking with two fingers beneath every line.
Her left hand assisted only when necessary, protected by the bandage.
Oliver could have finished each knot faster.
He did not help unless she asked. His unasked-for stillness sent a low rush through her pulse.
"Breathing?"
"Easy."
"Hand?"
"Annoyed by being excluded from the festivities."
"It has poor judgment."
"Inherited."
She smiled despite herself. The rope settled around his waist and upper thighs in a pattern more decorative than restrictive, dark blue-black against his skin.
His hands remained free. He could have stepped out of the arrangement with a little effort.
Instead he looked down at the cord, then back at her, waiting.
"You have tied me in a way that technically prevents almost nothing. "
"Correct."
"Diabolical."
"Kneel."
He went quiet. Then he knelt. No magic gathered.
No shadow moved against the lamp. The change in height put his face below hers and sent a slow, disobedient heat through Marin before she could make it clinical.
She walked around him once. Oliver tracked her with his eyes until Marin touched two fingers to his cheek.
"Forward." He looked ahead.
"Still."
His shoulders settled. Marin let silence lengthen.
She had expected taking control to feel louder than this.
Instead the sharper pleasure lived in attention: Oliver Hawkins, who could fill a room merely by deciding to notice it, holding still while she decided where that attention belonged.
The sight of him waiting for her next instruction made her pulse stumble once. She did not pretend otherwise.
She touched his hair first, combing damp strands back from his forehead. Then his cheek. The line behind his ear. The uninjured shoulder. Each contact slow enough that he could anticipate it without knowing exactly where it would land. His breathing deepened.
"Color?" she asked.
"Green."
The modern simplicity of the word had always amused Oliver.
Tonight he gave it without irony. Marin moved behind him and rested her palm over his sternum, above the rope and away from bruised ribs.
His skin was warm beneath her hand. His heart beat hard enough that she could feel the rhythm against her palm, and the knowledge that he was affected without being endangered made desire gather low and steady in her body.
"Still you?" The question had followed them from the ridge. Oliver's eyes closed briefly.
"Yes."
"Good."
She kissed the back of his shoulder. He stayed exactly where she had put him.
Marin let her mouth linger for one breath before she drew away, watching the small change in his breathing.
Nothing in the room had become safer by becoming intimate.
She wanted the risk visible between them rather than disguised by trust. She came around in front of him.
"Tell me what you want." Oliver looked up.
"You already asked."
"I am asking now. Here." His expression changed.
"You."
"Specific." A laugh threatened. Marin raised one brow.
"I want you to kiss me."
She did. The kiss was slow because Marin made it slow.
Oliver stayed where she had put him, hands resting open against his thighs.
She controlled distance by moving closer and away, by deciding when his mouth got hers and when it got only the breath between them.
The cord shifted lightly with every deeper breath. His hands stayed open.
When Marin pulled back, Oliver followed half an inch before stopping himself. She noticed. His eyes darkened.
"Good," she said.
"You are enjoying this."
"Immensely."
"Evidence?"
Marin kissed him again instead of answering.
This time she let one hand close in his hair and held him where she wanted him while the other traced the rope where it crossed his abdomen, fingertips slipping beneath one line only long enough to feel warm skin and the pull of his breath.
Oliver made a low sound against her mouth, not pain, not protest. Want.
She felt the response through her fingers and stopped anyway.
"Color?"
"Green. Very green."
"Unscientific."
"I contain multitudes."
She almost laughed. Instead Marin lowered herself carefully until they were eye level, knees protesting against the floorboards.
"Hands behind your back." Oliver's gaze sharpened.
"They stay unbound," she said. "Your right hand is injured. I want the position, not the damage." He placed both hands behind him.
"If your hand complains?"
"I tell you."
"If you forget?"
"You become terrifyingly reasonable."
"Correct."
She kissed the corner of his mouth. The control changed shape after that.
Marin told him when to look at her and when to close his eyes.
She traced the rope with slow fingertips, sometimes following the cord and sometimes leaving it for bare skin, and made him describe pressure honestly instead of pretending comfort for her sake.
She made him ask before touching her, then occasionally denied the request long enough that wanting stayed visible in the set of his mouth and the careful restraint of his hands.
The first no left no sulk, bargaining or wounded pride behind it. Oliver only breathed deeper and waited. When Marin finally told him he could touch her, his hands came forward slowly. The left settled at her waist. The bandaged right hovered.
"Where?"
Marin guided it to her hip, clear of the wound in his palm.
"There."
He obeyed. She kissed him until her own control became less effortless, then stopped because effort was not failure. Her forehead rested against his.
"Still green?"
"Yes."
"Ribs?"
"Present. Irritating. Not worse."
"Hand?"
"Throbbing a little." Marin sat back immediately. Oliver sighed.
"That was not a stop."
"No. It was information."
She loosened the rope one pass around his waist and changed his position so the injured hand could rest on the bed instead of behind him. Oliver watched her with the peculiar softness he usually hid beneath wit.
"You know," he said, "most people would consider this a mood interruption."
"Most people are welcome to handle their own nerve damage."
"Romantic."
"Extremely."
She checked his fingers for color and warmth. Then she looked at him.
"Do you want to continue?" Oliver answered without hesitation. "Yes."
"Why?" He smiled faintly. "You remain committed to ruining simple pleasures with epistemology."
"Oliver." The smile faded.
"Because stopping to check did not make me want this less," he said. "It made me trust it more." Marin's throat tightened.
"Good answer."
"High praise."
"Do not become insufferable."
"Impossible condition."