Chapter Eight #2
He undid the button of my jeans with one hand, the zipper following, the denim loosening around my hips.
I stepped out of them without being asked, kicking them aside somewhere near the foot of the bed, and then his hands were on my waist again, lifting me, and the mattress was at my back and Roulette was above me, one knee between mine, his weight braced on his forearms on either side of my head.
The lamp threw his shadow across the comforter, across my body, and I reached for the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head.
My bra came next, unhooked and gone somewhere over the side of the bed, and then there was nothing left between his gaze and me.
He looked at me, his gaze lingering as it traveled over my face, down my throat, across my chest, then slowly returned to mine.
Whatever usually stayed locked behind his calm expression had slipped free.
There was no restraint left in it, only quiet honesty.
His hand traced the curve of my ribs, his callused palm gliding over my bare skin.
I leaned into the touch, a soft breath escaping before I could catch it.
“Tell me if you want to stop,” he said. Almost hoarse. His voice had dropped to a register I’d never heard from him, thick with something that wasn’t quite a question.
I answered by pulling him down. My hands on his shoulders, my body lifting to meet his, and then his mouth was on my throat and his hand was cupping my breast and the sound that escaped me wasn’t a word, but it was an answer all the same.
He took his time. Of course he took his time.
Roulette did everything with the same measured focus, learning me by increments -- the hitch in my breathing when his thumb circled my nipple, the arch of my back when his mouth replaced his hand, the small, involuntary sound I made when his teeth grazed the sensitive skin just below my ear.
He was methodical even here, even now, his attention fixed on every reaction, every shift, every signal my body gave him without my permission.
I guided his mouth back to my throat, wanting to feel his breath against my pulse.
My hands found his belt next, working it loose because I needed his skin against mine more than I needed anything else in that moment.
The rest came off in a rush of hands and fabric, impatient now, until there was nothing left between us at all.
I wrapped my legs around his hips and pulled him closer because the solid press of him above me was the most certain thing I’d felt in weeks, and I needed it more than I needed air.
He entered me slowly.
One hand braced beside my head, the other gripping my hip, his forehead pressed to mine, and the fullness of him drew a gasp from my throat that I didn’t try to swallow.
He held still for a long moment, his jaw clenched, his breathing ragged against my mouth, and I could feel the effort it cost him -- the control, the restraint, the same discipline he applied to everything channeled now into not moving until I was ready.
I was ready. I moved my hips, a small, deliberate shift that brought him deeper, and the quiet sound that escaped him sent a jolt through my chest before settling low in my belly.
His hand tightened on my hip. His pace found its rhythm, and I matched it, my body rising to meet his, my fingers digging into the muscles of his back where they flexed beneath my palms. The bed creaked.
The lamp cast its amber light across the tangle of our bodies, across the sweat gathering at the hollow of his throat, across the place where my hand gripped the comforter and then let go to reach for him instead.
He came with his face buried against the curve of my neck, one hand threaded through my hair as though he couldn’t bear to let me go.
My name left his lips in a voice so quiet I almost missed it, carrying an emotion I’d never heard from him before.
I held him through every second of it, my arms wrapped around his back, my legs still locked around his hips, feeling the tension slowly drain from his body.
He didn’t pull away when it was over. He stayed there, forehead resting against my shoulder, his breathing gradually evening out as though this was the only place he wanted to be.
I tightened my hold on him without thinking, and something deep inside my chest shifted.
The walls I’d spent years building didn’t crumble all at once, but the first crack spread through them, wide enough to let hope slip inside.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I wasn’t waiting for the moment everything fell apart.
I simply held him, and somehow, that felt like the safest place I’d ever been.
After, the room went still. The lamp still on.
Roulette settled beside me, one arm draped across my waist, his breath evening out against my shoulder.
I turned into him. My hand found his chest again, palm over his heartbeat, and I listened to the steady rhythm of it slowing, slowing, until it matched my own.
* * *
Roulette
The lamp was still on. I’d forgotten about it, or maybe I’d left it on deliberately -- hard to say, at three in the morning, when your brain had stopped keeping track of things like light switches and time.
The compound outside the window was dark, the kind of dark that only happens when every engine had been cut and every voice had died away and even the dogs had given up and gone to sleep.
I lay on my back with one arm behind my head and listened to her breathe.
Lark slept with the same fierce concentration she brought to everything, like even unconscious she was holding onto something.
Her face was turned toward me, one arm tucked under the pillow, the other curled against her chest. Her hair had come loose from whatever she’d done with it earlier and now it spilled across my pillow in waves the color of wheat in late summer, catching the lamp’s light along the edges where it curled against her neck.
The comforter was pulled up to her waist now, tugged loose from where it had been tucked taut at the headboard, bunched where her hand had gathered a fistful of it in her sleep.
I hadn’t moved it. She must have reached for it and dragged it up without waking.
The room smelled like her. Not perfume -- she didn’t wear any that I’d noticed -- but the particular scent of her skin and her hair and the faint lavender of the soap she’d used in my shower. My mouth tasted like sleep and the memory of her, and my chest felt lighter than it had in years.