19. Calliope #2
His mouth leaves mine to trace my cheek, the corner of my jaw, the spot beneath my ear that makes my knees soften. He pauses when they do, pulling back enough to look at me.
“Still with me?” he asks.
“Yes.” I sound breathless and young and more certain than I feel. “I’m here.”
He kisses me again, then bends and grips my hips with careful strength. “Can I lift you?”
The question itself sends heat through me. I nod, then remember he deserves words. “Yes.”
Dash lifts me onto the counter like I weigh nothing and still sets me down as though the landing matters.
The stone is cool beneath me through my clothes.
He stands between my knees without crowding, hands braced on either side of my hips until I reach for him.
When I do, something in his face breaks open.
He worships slowly.
There is no other word for it. He kisses me until my lips feel tender, then kisses the line of my jaw, my throat, the hollow beneath it.
His hands move over my sides and back, firm enough to make me feel held and careful enough that I never lose the sense of choice.
He learns where I shiver. He learns where I still.
When his mouth nears the place beneath my cardigan where Sloane’s bite marks my shoulder, he stops before contact and looks up at me from under lowered lashes.
The grief comes with the want, tangled together so tightly I can't pull one free without tearing the other.
“You can touch it,” I say, my voice barely there.
Dash’s hand tightens once at my waist. “Are you sure?”
“No.” I laugh a little, but it breaks before it becomes a sound. “But I don’t want it to be a locked room anymore.”
He rests his forehead against my shoulder first. No mouth. No claim. Just warmth and breath and the weight of his choice not to take even this from me. Then he kisses the fabric beside the hidden mark, not the bite itself, not yet, and my body folds toward him with a sob I don't expect.
Dash catches me instantly.
“I’ve got you,” he says, arms around me, voice rough near my ear. “We stop here if you need.”
I shake my head against his shoulder. The tears are hot and humiliating, but my hands are still in his sweater, holding on with everything I have. “I don’t want to stop. I just need you to know I might cry.”
His mouth presses to my temple. “Then cry.”
That undoes me more than anything else could have.
I cry while he holds me on the kitchen counter, his body warm between my knees, one hand moving slowly along my back. He doesn't hush me. He doesn't make the tears into a problem to solve. When I lift my face again, he looks wrecked in a way I can feel under my palms.
“Is it wrong,” he asks, voice low and strained, “that some part of me wished this would happen?”
I touch his cheek. There is shame in his eyes, want, worry, the careful grief of a man who has been trying to keep his hands open for months. The answer isn't simple. Nothing about this is simple.
“Only if it’s wrong that some part of me did too.”
Dash closes his eyes for one breath. When he opens them, he looks at me like I have put something breakable and holy in his hands. “Bedroom?”
“Yes.”
He carries me there.
I should feel ridiculous, but I don’t. My arms go around his neck, and my face presses against the warm side of his throat.
His scent fills my lungs, bergamot bright over sandalwood, familiar now in a way that makes something inside me ache.
He doesn't take the shortest route. He moves slowly through the quiet house, giving me time to change my mind, giving both of us time to feel the line we are crossing before we cross it fully.
In the bedroom, he sets me on my feet first.
That matters. He could lay me down and make the momentum choose for us. Instead, he puts me upright in front of him with his hands at my waist and waits until I step back into him.
Dash’s hands stay light on my sides as I close the last inches between us.
He bends his head and kisses me again, slower than before, learning the shape of my mouth now that the kitchen’s urgency has softened into something quieter.
When I make a small sound against his lips he answers it with a softer one of his own, then pulls back just enough to see my face.
“Can I take this off?” he asks, fingers brushing the edge of my cardigan.
“Yes.”
He eases it from my shoulders with careful hands, folding it over the chair instead of letting it fall.
The blouse beneath follows only after he asks again and I answer.
Each button is deliberate. Each new inch of skin receives a pause so he can watch my breathing.
When the fabric slips away he kisses the backs of my hands first, then the insides of my wrists, then the soft place where my neck meets my shoulder—close to the old bite but not on it.
I reach for him in return. My fingers find the hem of his sweater and lift. He helps me, raising his arms so I can pull it free. The undershirt goes next. When my palms settle on the warm skin of his chest he makes a low, quiet sound, almost a sigh, and the want in it steadies something in me.
“Still yes?” he asks.
“Still yes.”
He guides me only when I reach for him again.
The bed receives us slowly. Dash lays me down on my back and follows, bracing his weight on his forearms so I never feel trapped.
He kisses my mouth, my jaw, the line of my throat.
His hands map my sides, my waist, the soft curve of my hips.
Every time my breath changes he stills. Every time I make a sound he answers it with attention rather than speed.
When his mouth nears the hidden mark beneath my collarbone he stops and looks up.
“You can,” I whisper.
He rests his forehead there first, just as he did in the kitchen.
Then he kisses the skin beside the bite, never claiming it, only acknowledging that it is part of me.
The tenderness of it pulls a soft, unexpected sound from my throat.
Dash hears it. His hand comes up to cup the side of my face while his mouth stays gentle against that old hurt.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs.
He undresses the rest of me with the same patience—pants, underwear—pausing after each piece to check my eyes, my breath, the way my hands stay open on his shoulders.
When I'm bare he simply looks at me for a long moment, not with hunger that demands, but with a quiet, almost reverent attention that makes my chest ache.
I help him out of the last of his clothes. My hands shake a little. He steadies them with his own, then lets me explore the shape of him—shoulders, chest, the strong line of his stomach—until the wanting in me grows steady enough to speak.
“I want you,” I say.
Dash’s breath catches. He reaches for the drawer, finds what he needs, and prepares himself without rush. When he settles between my thighs he doesn't push forward. He waits, the blunt heat of him resting against me, until I lift my hips in clear invitation.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Please.”
He enters me slowly.
The stretch is careful, unhurried, every inch given with attention to the soft sounds leaving my mouth.
When he's fully seated he holds still, forehead against mine, breathing with me until my body softens around him.
Only then does he begin to move—deep, measured rolls of his hips that keep us close.
His mouth stays near my ear, near my cheek, near my lips, catching every quiet gasp and answering it with a low answering sound of his own.
“Callie,” he whispers when I make a particularly soft, broken noise. “I’m right here.”
The rhythm stays gentle. When emotion rises too sharply and tears prick at the corners of my eyes he stops completely, still buried inside me, and gathers me against his chest.
“We can pause,” he says. “We can stop. You’re still wanted either way.”
I shake my head against his shoulder, crying quietly while he holds me.
The grief and the pleasure sit tangled together, and for once neither one is required to leave.
His hand strokes my hair. His body remains warm and present and unhurried.
When the tears ease I kiss the side of his neck and whisper, “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He begins again only then.
The pace stays the same—slow, focused, built around the sounds I make and the way my hands pull him closer when the feeling becomes too much.
He listens to every shift in my breathing.
When my thighs tighten around his hips he deepens the angle just enough.
When a soft, helpless moan leaves me he answers it with my name spoken low against my skin.
The climax gathers gradually, fed by the care as much as the friction.
When it breaks it is quiet and full, rolling through me in long, trembling waves while Dash holds me through every pulse.
He follows soon after, still careful, still close, my name a soft sound against my temple as he comes. He stays over me until our breathing slows, easing out only when I’m ready before drawing the blanket over us.
He eases out only when I'm ready, then draws the blanket over both of us and gathers me against his chest. One arm stays around my back. The other rests over the blanket covering my hip. His heart beats steady beneath my ear.
Dash hand rests in the center of my back, warm through the cooling air, and every few breaths his thumb moves once, a small proof that he's still awake and still here. I should be frightened by how natural his body feels around mine.
My phone is somewhere beyond the bedroom, facedown in the kitchen where I left it beside Mara’s texts. For the first time in months, I don't need to check whether the silence is still there.
Dash kisses the top of my head, slow and careful. “Sleep if you can.”
I close my eyes.
He feels like he belongs here, which makes no sense yet.
Still, I let myself stay.