Caleb
Idon't rush.
That's the first conscious decision I make as I unlock the door with Rena close enough behind me that I can feel her presence like heat at my back. Every instinct is screaming to move faster. But this matters too much to get wrong.
She steps inside behind me and closes the door which resonates loudly in the silence. I watch her as she takes in the space just like she takes in everything at work. My work boots by the door, a jacket over a chair, and the smell of coffee and my aftershave.
"This feels like you," she says, exactly what she said in the trailer, and I'm starting to realize it's her tell.
There's no family photos on the walls beyond one faded picture of me and my grandmother at a job site when I was maybe ten, with my hard hat sliding down over my eyes. No sign of my mother anywhere in the house, which isn't an accident. I stopped keeping her things around a long time ago.
"You still good?" I ask. I need to hear her say it.
"I'm terrified," she admits. "But I'm good. I'm here. I'm choosing this."
That's all I need. I step into her space slowly, giving her room to pull back. She doesn't. I lift my hand and stop just short of her face, waiting. When she leans into the touch, something in my chest cracks open.
"Tell me if you want me to stop," I murmur, my thumb brushing her jaw.
She shakes her head. "Don't."
I kiss her slower than at the overlook, I take my time to savor her. Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, and the small sound she makes against my mouth lights up nerve endings I'd forgotten existed.
"This stays slow," I say, forehead against hers. "We don't lose ourselves."
"You think we have a choice about that?"
"Yeah. Because this matters, Rena. You matter. I'm not going to treat it like it's just physical."
"Bedroom?" she asks, and the directness of it, claiming what she wants without apology, makes something primal stir in my chest.
I take her hand and lead her down the hall. The bed's made, which is a small mercy. She takes in the room, the quilt my grandmother made, and the battered paperback on the nightstand.
"Still feels like you," she says, with warmth in her voice now.
I back her slowly toward the bed, kneeling in front of her when the backs of her knees hit the mattress so we're at eye level. "You're in charge here. Anything that doesn't feel right, you tell me and it stops. No questions."
"You're very serious about consent."
"I'm very serious about you."
She reaches out, her fingers tracing my jaw, with a slight tremor betraying the nerves under the desire. "I want this. I want you. I'm just not used to someone asking what I want instead of assuming they know."
That does something ugly to me on her behalf, but right now isn't about anger. "Then let me show you what you've been missing."
I kiss her again, deeper now, my hands sliding up her thighs to her hips.
She gasps against my mouth. I ease her back onto the bed, careful to keep my weight on my forearms, and trail my mouth down her throat until she's making small, desperate sounds.
When my hands find the hem of her shirt and slide under to her touch bare skin for the first time, we both go still.
"Okay?" I ask against her throat.
"Yes. God, yes. Keep going."
She helps me pull her shirt over her head, then reaches for my buttons with fumbling fingers. "Let me," I say, catching her hands, and kissing her knuckles before releasing her.
I watch her watch me undress, her teeth catching her bottom lip. "You're allowed to touch."
"I know that."
"Then why aren't you?"
"Because I'm trying to remember how to breathe."
I unhook her bra with practiced ease, sliding the straps down her shoulders, and when I pull back to really look at her, my breath leaves me in a rush. She has real curves, real skin, and a small scar near her ribs that I want the story behind.
"Fell off a scaffold when I was twenty-three," she says, reading the question. "Twelve stitches and a healthy respect for harness protocols."
I press a kiss to the scar and feel her hands grip my shoulders.
I take my time after that, in no hurry despite the want coiled tight low in my gut.
I learn the way she shivers when my mouth moves along her collarbone, the way her breath catches when I close my lips around one nipple and suck it.
I learn that she likes my hand flat and heavy against her stomach before it moves lower, she likes being anchored as much as she likes being touched.
She arches into every point of contact, her fingers threading into my hair, and by the time I've worked my way down her body, she's not forming full sentences anymore, just my name and a string of please that undoes something in my chest every time she says it.
"These need to come off," I say at her waistband.
"Yes. Definitely yes."
When she's finally naked beneath me, I have to close my eyes for a second to get myself under control.
"You still with me?" There’s amusement in her voice now.
"Yeah. Just taking a minute to appreciate the view."
I slide my hand between her thighs, feeling the slick heat there, and watch her face as I explore. When I slide one finger inside her, slow and careful, what I see is pleasure, pure and unfiltered.
"More?"
"More," she confirms, and I add a second finger, working her with steady strokes until she's close, until she comes apart around my hand with a cry muffled against my shoulder.
When she stills, she reaches for my belt. "Your turn."
"This wasn't about my turn."
"Maybe I want it to be."
I let her work, and when she wraps her hand around me for the first time, my vision whites out at the edges. She strokes me until I have to catch her wrist.
"Stop."
"Problem?"
"Only that I'd like this to last longer than thirty seconds."
"Practice," she says lightly, but I hear the vulnerability underneath.
I meet her gaze. "I don't care about before. I only care about now. About you."
"Condom?"
"Nightstand."
She rolls it on with her eyes locked on mine the whole time and it nearly kills me. Then she's pulling me down, guiding me between her thighs, and I pause at her entrance, making sure one more time.
"Yes," she says before I can ask. "God, yes, Caleb. Please."
I push inside slowly, watching her face, and when I'm fully seated we both still, our foreheads pressed together.
"Okay?"
"So much better than okay."
I start to move, slow and deep, more about connection than speed.
She meets me stroke for stroke, her legs are wrapped around my waist, her heels pressing into the small of my back to pull me deeper each time, and it's intense in a way I wasn't prepared for. It’s not just the physical pleasure but the way she's looking at me like I'm giving her something she didn't know she needed.
I catch her hand where it's braced against the headboard and lace our fingers together, pinning it gently to the mattress, and the small broken sound she makes at that tells me exactly how much she needed to be held down as much as held close.
"You feel incredible," I tell her.
I slide my hand between us, finding her clit, and she cries out, her nails raking down my back. "Come for me," I murmur against her ear.
She does, clenching around me hard enough to trigger my own release. For a long moment neither of us moves, both of us trying to remember how breathing works.
Finally I ease out and deal with the condom before collapsing beside her. She curls into my side immediately, her head on my chest, and one leg is thrown over mine.
"So that happened," she says eventually, smiling.
"Yeah. It did."
"We should probably talk about what this means."
"Probably. Tomorrow."
"You want me to stay?"
"I want you to stay, if you want to."
"Okay," she says quietly. "I'll stay."
I pull the blanket over us and let my eyes close, feeling her breathing even out against my side. This wasn't just sex. This was a choice.
For now, that's more than enough.