Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Ifeel him coming closer to my room.
Dalton steps in. He's in his dark jacket, but he's carrying himself differently. The professional distance has been gone since the yard — what's in its place is something I'm still learning the shape of. He's holding a bag.
"I was going to wait," he says. "Until you graduated to Orange House. To celebrate."
I look at the bag. "What is that."
"A gift." He says it like it's a simple word. It isn't. I can tell from the way he's holding the bag — carefully, like it matters — that he's been carrying this for a while. "I noticed the uniform situation."
"The uniform situation."
"It's not designed for—" He stops. Tries differently. "You deserve things that feel good. Against your skin." He sets the bag on the bed beside me. "I also wanted to say thank you. For—" He stops again.
He doesn't have the words yet. That's okay. I wait.
"Jim," he says finally. "I came here for Jim and I didn't know it was Jim and I wouldn't have found him without—" His voice does something. He gets it back. "Without you. Without this. Without all of it." He looks at me. "I owe you something I don't have a word for."
I look at him for a moment.
"Can I open it?" I say. I don’t think he understands how much I want the gift bag.
Something in his face shifts. Like the question surprised him. "Yes. It's yours."
I open the bag.
Folded carefully in tissue paper. I lift the first one out and it's — the color hits me first. Bright. A deep coral, vivid and warm, nothing like the grey or red palette of everything in this facility. I touch it and my breath catches.
So soft.
I sit there holding it and try to understand what's happening in my chest. The fabric slides under my fingers like water.
I press my palm flat against it and feel the give of it and think about the fact that someone stood somewhere and looked at this and thought of me.
Not of a resident. Not of a woman in a facility who needed practical things.
Of me specifically — the width of my shoulders, maybe, or the way I carry myself, some detail he noticed, kept, and carried all the way to this.
"There are three," Dalton says. "Different colors. Bras and underwear and—" He stops. "Pajamas. Soft ones."
I look at the second set. Emerald green. The third is a deep blue that's almost violet. All of them bright. All of them impossibly soft.
I haven't had many gifts. The list is short and most of them were practical — things people gave me because they had to or because it was expected, not because someone looked at me and thought she would like this, she deserves this, I want her to have something beautiful.
"Alex." Dalton's voice. Careful. "Are you—"
"I'm fine." I look up. My eyes are doing something I don't have control over and I don't try to stop it. "I'm really fine. I just—" I look at the coral set in my hands. "Nobody's done this before."
He's very still.
"Given you things."
"Given me things because they wanted to." I look at him. "Because they noticed."
He crosses the room and sits on the bed beside me and doesn't say anything. He sits close. His shoulder against mine.
"Your skin—" he pauses. "It's like silk. I noticed the first time I was close enough." A pause. "I wanted you to have things that matched that."
I press my face into his shoulder.
His arm comes around me. Careful of the ribs, even now, which makes me press closer.
"Thank you," I say. Into his jacket.
"You're welcome." Low. Certain.
We stay like that for a moment. Then I pull back and look at the sets laid out on the bed and look at him and the wanting is there — the simple want of being seen, and wanting him back. Nothing complicated about it.
"Will you—" I start.
"Yes," he says. Before I finish.
I put on the coral set. It fits like it was measured — which it wasn't, which means he paid attention. The fabric against my skin is exactly what he said it would be. Soft. Like being touched already.
Dalton looks at me.
"Good?" I say.
"Come here," he says.
I go.
He undresses me slowly. Not because he's being careful — his hands moving over the fabric before he removes it, like he wants to feel it first. His mouth on my collarbone, my shoulder, the curve of my neck.
He works his way down unhurried, finding the places that make me catch my breath, learning them — and coming back to them. Each touch deliberate. Nothing wasted.
"I, I love you," he says against my skin.
"I love you too," I say.
He lays me back on the bed and takes his time. His mouth on my stomach, my hip, moving down while his hands hold me exactly where he wants me. His fingers between my thighs, working me open with that same focused precision, his eyes lifting to read what works — what makes me break.
"There," he says, when he finds it — and keeps going.
"Yes—" I grab his wrist. "Don't stop—"
He doesn't stop.
He makes me come the first time with his hand, his mouth at my throat and the soft coral fabric somewhere on the floor, my nails in the sheets, his name breaking out of me before I can catch it.
He moves over me.
He pushes inside me slowly. Both of us breathing. His forehead against mine.
"Alex," he says.
Just my name.
I know what he means by it — the thank you and the wanting and the feeling of a man who came here with one purpose and found the purpose was bigger than he knew.
We move together. Not rushed — deliberate, every touch placed like it matters, his hands on my hips, adjusting, his voice low in my ear saying things that make me gasp.
I come the second time harder than the first, his thumb working my clit while he's inside me, my face in his neck, the bond blazing.
He follows me over with my name in his throat.
***
Him on his back. Me against his side, the new blue pajama top silky against my skin. His hand moves slowly along my arm — the way he touches things when he's thinking and doesn't realize it.
"Orange House," he says. "Soon."
"Cal thinks another week."
"I'll be there."
I look up at him. "You're staying."
He looks at the ceiling. "Jim is here." A pause. "You're here." Another pause. "Yes. I'm staying."
I put my palm flat on his chest. Feel his heartbeat under my hand — steady, even, the rhythm of someone at rest. He covers my hand with his.
We don't say anything for a while. The facility does what it does at night around us — the reduced hum, the particular silence of a place full of people mostly asleep.
In here it's warm. The pajamas are impossibly soft.
His heartbeat is steady and I have so much I could say and none of it needs to be said right now.
I think about Orange House. Windows that face outward. The pack one short of complete.
RJ somewhere in this building, carrying something. The wanting that monitors without my permission running its quiet loop.
Not yet.
But Dalton's heartbeat is under my palm and the coral set is on the floor somewhere and he said I'll be there and he's staying, and that's enough.
I close my eyes.