45. Long Rest Achieved #3
By the time Ronan settles back against the pillows, naked, something in my chest has started beating too hard.
Not because I'm worried he'll change his mind.
Because he hasn't.
He looks at me and deliberately opens his legs enough for me to move between them.
Trust shouldn't be visible.
Somehow it is.
I crawl closer carefully, mindful of my own sore skin, until my body fits against his.
Ronan takes my wrists.
For one disorienting second, memory flashes—the cuffs from our first night, his hands controlling mine.
Then he places my palms high on his thighs.
“Here.”
The muscle beneath my hands is warm and tense.
I curl my fingers slightly.
“Here.”
“I heard you.”
“I know. You can hold me there, or you can move to do what you need to do with yourself, but don’t touch me anywhere else.”
The restriction does not feel like distance.
It feels like access.
He is telling me precisely what he can give me so I don't have to guess.
I lean over and kiss him.
His body loosens incrementally beneath mine.
Ronan's hand moves between us as he coats me in lube, practical enough to make me smile against his mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Micah.”
“Very romantic.”
“We can either be romantic or comfortable.”
“I vote both.”
“So do I.”
The first push into him makes every stupid thought disappear.
Ronan's breath catches.
His eyes close.
I stop instantly.
His thighs tense beneath my hands.
“Okay?”
His eyes open. And they’re focused. “Yes.”
I don't move. “Sure?”
His hand comes up and closes around the back of my neck.
He pulls me down until our foreheads touch.
“Yes, Micah.”
The way he says my name slides under my skin.
“Fuck me,” he rasps.
I kiss him and move again.
Slowly.
So slowly my arms start to shake before there is anything resembling rhythm.
Every inch changes his face.
The tightening around his eyes.
The way his lips part.
The sharp breath he inhales when I find an angle that presses somewhere deeper.
My body recognizes what that probably means before my brain catches up.
“Fuck.” Ronan's eyes find mine.
“Good?”
His laugh comes out rough. “Yes.”
That sound does something violent to my chest.
The gyrating of his body does something to my cock.
I have seen Ronan in control enough times that I know the pleasure on his face when he is giving it. The focused satisfaction when Cami responds exactly the way he predicted. The almost serene concentration when he has someone balanced exactly where he wants them.
This isn't that face.
This is pleasure he isn't creating for somebody else.
He's receiving it.
From me.
I want to touch him everywhere.
My palms flex against his thighs on instinct.
Ronan notices. “Stay.”
I nod and stay.
The command shoots heat straight through me.
Not because he is dominating me.
Because I can feel how much it costs him to let me do this and still trust me to obey the limits around it.
I move again.
Our bodies find a rhythm gradually.
Slow enough that I feel everything.
The drag and pressure.
The heat of him around me.
The occasional pulse of pain from my own marks whenever my hips shift wrong.
Ronan's hand moves between us and closes around his cock.
Exactly as promised.
He strokes himself while looking at me.
“Fuck, that’s hot,” I breathe, just before my breathing breaks.
His doesn't stay controlled much longer either.
I lean closer until our chests touch, careful to keep my hands where he placed them, and kiss him between movements.
Ronan kisses differently when he is receiving.
Less calculated.
His mouth catches mine almost greedily once, teeth grazing my lower lip before he visibly reins himself back in.
I smile against him.
His hand tightens on my thigh.
“Keep moving.”
“Yes, Sir.” It slips out automatically.
Ronan groans.
The sound goes straight through me.
“Oh, you liked that.”
“Micah.”
I shut up.
Mostly because I am losing my ability to talk anyway.
His body is doing too much to mine.
His face is doing worse.
Every time my hips roll forward, something in Ronan's expression strips back another layer of composure. His hand works himself in rhythm with me, controlling the exact pressure and speed he wants while I give him the one thing he handed over.
Penetration.
That is all.
And somehow it feels like everything.
His eyes stay on mine.
So I keep mine open too.
There is nowhere for either of us to hide.
I watch pleasure gather in his face until his jaw tightens and his strokes become less measured.
“Close?” I ask.
“Yes.”
My own release is building low in my body, but I don't chase it. I don't change anything.
Ronan gave me the rhythm.
I keep it.
His hand speeds up.
A shudder moves through him beneath me, starting in his thighs under my palms and climbing through his stomach.
I feel him tighten around me.
The stimulation punches a groan out of my chest.
Ronan's eyes close.
Then open again.
He looks at me.
Right at me.
His orgasm hits with a broken sound I have never heard from him before.
Quiet.
Rough.
Uncontrolled enough that my entire body reacts to it.
His hand keeps moving while he comes over his stomach, hips shifting beneath me just enough to change the pressure inside him.
Fuck.
I come almost right after him.
Ronan breathes hard beneath me, eyes closed now, one hand still wrapped loosely around himself.
I watch his face settle.
The tension leaving his jaw.
His chest rising against mine.
Something swells behind my ribs so suddenly it almost hurts.
Not grief.
Not exactly happiness either.
Love, probably.
The inconvenient bastard has a habit of showing up when I'm least prepared for it.
Ronan opens his eyes.
“There you are,” I whisper.
His expression immediately becomes offended.
I laugh.
The movement sends another ache through the marks on my ass.
I wince and laugh harder.
Ronan reaches up, catches the back of my neck, and pulls me into a kiss before either of us can say anything else.
It is long.
Soft.
Messy around the edges.
By the time we separate, his breathing is calmer, and my erection has eased enough that my brain works again.
Mostly.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Anything hurt?”
“No.”
“Anything feel wrong?”
His mouth curves.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
I stare at him.
“Wonder where I learned that.”
“Someone competent, presumably.”
“Arrogant.”
“Still competent.”
I kiss him again because there are times Ronan deserves the last word and times he absolutely does not.
Later, Ronan insists on checking the marks again.
Apparently being fucked into a state of visible satisfaction does not reduce his commitment to post-scene quality assurance.
I lie on my stomach while he examines the bruising under better light, his fingertips tracing the spaces between sore areas with careful pressure.
The contrast makes my skin prickle.
“You're going to hate sitting tomorrow.”
“I already hate sitting.”
“You're pleased about that.”
I turn my face toward him. “Very.”
His fingers pause against my thigh.
Then move again.
There is something almost tender about Ronan tending marks he deliberately created.
Maybe almost is unfair.
It is tender.
That doesn't make what happened downstairs less sadistic.
Doesn't make the strap less real.
Once he is satisfied I'm not going to spontaneously fall apart, he turns off the brighter lamp and gets into bed beside me.
I lie on my side because my ass currently has strong opinions about mattresses.
For a minute, neither of us touches.
Not awkward.
Ronan's touch has always worked best when it is chosen instead of assumed, and some part of me still waits for the signal even now.
I shift closer.
His eyes open.
I move slowly enough that he sees exactly what I want.
Ronan lifts his arm.
I settle against him.
My head finds the space near his shoulder, and his hand comes down along my upper arm.
Everything in me loosens.
The room is dark enough that the outlines of his bookshelves blur, but I can still make out the faint light from the charger beside his bed.
Ronan's fingers reach my elbow and reverse direction. “Still sad?”
The question doesn't surprise me this time.
I let it sit.
Mom's face comes back.
Dad's too.
The stupid crooked seven on their house.
Aunt Rachel cutting apples in her kitchen.
Elijah on the swing.
Christmas dinner.
All of it waits exactly where I left it.
My chest tightens.
The pain across my thighs throbs when I shift closer to Ronan.
Both hurt at once.
Different.
Real.
“Yeah.”
I swallow. “But I'm happy too.”
Ronan's fingers pause for less than a second before continuing.
“Good.”
I stare into the dark.
Every time I laughed this week, some part of me felt like I had betrayed the thing that happened.
Like grief was supposed to occupy all available space or it didn't count.
Like enjoying campaign night meant I wasn't devastated enough.
Like wanting sex tonight meant I had somehow recovered.
None of that is true.
My family still chose a version of me over the person lying here.
That still hurts badly enough that sometimes breathing around it feels like work.
And Ronan made me laugh tonight.
He hurt me because I asked him to.
Held me because I needed him to.
Then trusted me with something I don't think he has given anyone else.
Tomorrow I will probably wake up bruised enough to curse him when I put on pants.
I'll still miss my mother.
I close my eyes.
Ronan's hand keeps tracing the same path over my arm until I stop noticing where one pass ends and the next begins.
For the first time since I walked out of my parents' house, happiness doesn't feel like evidence that the grief is getting smaller.
It just feels like something else I still get to have.