19. Victoria #2
I pulled him up to kiss me, needing his mouth, needing to swallow whatever words were coming next because they were undoing me. His hand kept moving, stroking through the wet fabric of my underwear, finding the rhythm that made my hips lift off the mattress.
“Timothy...”
“I know.” He kissed my jaw, my neck, the hollow of my throat where my pulse was pounding. “I know what you need.”
He did know. That was the devastating part.
Those years of marriage, even the distant ones, even the lonely ones, meant he knew exactly how to touch me.
Exactly where to press and stroke and tease.
Exactly what pace would drive me to the edge and keep me there, trembling and desperate and so close I could taste it.
I had forgotten what it felt like to be known like this.
I had forgotten what it felt like to be wanted.
“Look at me,” he said.
I opened my eyes. His face was inches from mine, his hand still moving between my thighs, his whole body trembling with restraint.
“I need you to see me,” he said. “I need you to know that I’m here. That I see you, every part of you, even the parts you try to hide. That I’m not going anywhere.”
Something broke open in my chest.
I pulled him down and kissed him hard, and when he finally pushed aside the fabric and slid inside me, I cried out against his mouth.
Not from pain. From the overwhelming fullness of it.
From the feeling of being filled by someone who had been empty for so long, and who was finally, finally giving me everything he had.
He stilled, his forehead pressed to mine, his breath ragged.
“Are you okay?”
“Don’t stop.” I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him deeper, feeling him everywhere. “Please don’t stop.”
He didn’t.
He moved slowly at first, watching my face with an intensity that made my skin flush. He adjusted his angle, once, twice, until he found the spot that made my eyes roll back and my fingers dig into his shoulders.
Then faster.
Harder.
His hands braced on either side of my head, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“I love you,” he said between thrusts, the words torn from somewhere deep inside him. “I love you. I should have said it every day. I should have whispered it when you were falling asleep and shouted it when you walked into a room and written it in every message and every note and every...”
“I know.” I pulled his mouth back to mine. “I know.”
We moved together like we were trying to make up for lost time.
Like every moment of connection could erase a moment of distance, like we could build something new from the ruins of what we had destroyed.
His hand found mine and pinned it to the mattress above my head, our fingers interlaced, and something about that simple intimacy, the intimacy of holding hands while he was inside me, made tears prick at my eyes.
“I’m close,” I gasped. “Timothy, I’m...”
“I’ve got you.” He changed his angle slightly, grinding against me in a way that made sparks shoot up my spine. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
I shattered.
The orgasm hit me like a wave, rolling through my body in pulses that made me shake and cry out and cling to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid and bright.
I heard myself crying out his name, felt his arms tighten around me, felt him thrust once, twice, three more times before his whole body went rigid and he buried his face in my neck with a groan that sounded like it was torn from somewhere primal and unguarded.
We lay there afterward, tangled together on the mattress on the floor, breathing hard.
His hand stroked up and down my spine, slow and gentle, learning the shape of me all over again.
“You’re crying,” he said softly.
I hadn’t realized. But my cheeks were wet, and not from the rain that had long since dried on our skin.
“I’m not sad,” I said.
“I know.” He kissed the tears away, one by one, his lips gentle against my cheeks. “I know what this is.”
Relief. Release. The overwhelming fullness of being wanted after so long of going without. Of finally trusting someone with my body again after months of holding myself apart, of building walls so high I had forgotten what it felt like to let someone inside them.
“I’m here,” he said, pulling me closer until there was no space left between us. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.” He kissed me softly. “Every day. For the rest of our lives. I promise.”
***
We made love twice more that night.
The second time was slower. More exploratory.
He spent what felt like hours relearning my body, his mouth tracing paths I had forgotten existed, down my stomach, along my hip bones, between my thighs, until I was begging him for more.
When he finally gave in to my demands, sliding back inside me while I was still trembling from the orgasm he had given me with his tongue, I cried again.
“You’re going to give me a complex,” he murmured against my throat, and there was laughter in his voice, warm and real. “All this crying.”
“Shut up.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him deeper. “It’s your fault.”
“I’ll take responsibility for that.”
The third time was fierce. Desperate. I pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him, my hands braced on his chest, setting a pace that made both of us gasp.
His hands gripped my hips hard enough to leave marks, and I didn’t care.
I wanted the bruises. Wanted the evidence written on my skin, proof that this had happened.
That we had found our way back to each other.
When we finally collapsed, sweaty and satisfied and utterly spent, the first light of dawn was creeping through the windows.
***
After, we lay tangled together on the mattress.
The rain had stopped. Silver light filtered through the windows, casting pale patterns on the floor.
My head rested on his chest, rising and falling with his breath, and I could hear his heartbeat, steady and strong, the same heart that had been beating beside me for six years, even when I couldn’t feel it.
His fingers traced patterns on my shoulder, absent and gentle.
“The transcript,” I said quietly. “In the envelope.”
He went still beneath me.
“Was that the only one you saved?”
Silence stretched between us, heavy with something unspoken.
“There’s something I need to show you.” His voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. “In the morning. Can you wait until morning?”
I lifted my head to look at him.
His face was open. Vulnerable. Whatever he was about to show me, it mattered more than anything he had shown me yet.
“I can wait.”
He kissed my forehead.
“Thank you.”
I settled back against his chest and closed my eyes.
For the first time in months, I slept without dreaming.