Ben didn’t move at first.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t breathe.

He let her kiss him like a confession—soft at his temple, gentle at the bridge of his nose—each one a slow unraveling of everything he’d tried to keep stitched tight.

But when her mouth met his…

Something broke.

Something gave.

She kissed him like she meant it. Like they hadn’t wasted all that time pretending they could survive without this. Without them.

And the second she murmured you’re here like it was reason enough to set the world on fire—

That was it.

His restraint snapped without fanfare.

His hand slid under the back of her shirt in one smooth movement, all palm and heat and possession, like he was reclaiming space he’d never stopped craving. His touch was steady, but the pressure was unmistakable—stay right here.

The other hand found her hip, fingers flexing hard enough to leave the idea of a bruise, if not the mark itself. He didn’t push, didn’t drag—but held. Anchored. Claimed.

And when she said we might as well not waste it, her mouth brushing his?

He didn’t even hesitate.

He kissed her like she was oxygen. Like he’d been starved of it since the last time he had her pressed to him like this, all heat and memory and need.

It was messier now. Rougher. His mouth opened over hers, deep and slow and filthy with want—like he was trying to memorize the shape of her from the inside.

His thumb brushed her jaw, tilting her chin just enough to take more. Tongue sliding against hers in a kiss that didn’t ask permission because he already knew she wanted it.

A low sound broke from his throat when her body leaned in, her thighs brushing his knees, and his grip tightened in response—like if he didn’t hold her right now, she might disappear again.

When he finally pulled back, it was barely an inch, both of them breathless, his lips wet and parted like he was already thinking about going back for more.

He looked at her.

Really looked.

Hair tousled from his hands. Lips flushed and kiss-drunk. Eyes wide with that slow, beautiful unraveling he remembered better than sleep.

His voice was rough when he finally spoke.

“Come here.”

Not loud.

Not forceful.

Just low.

Ragged.

Certain.

And when she moved—when she climbed into his lap like she’d never really left it—he didn’t waste a second.

His mouth was on her again before her knees had even settled. His hands—under her shirt now, completely—swept up her back, greedy for every inch of skin, every sound she made, every shiver she didn’t try to hide.

And if this was all he got?

A stolen hour in a quiet apartment, her thighs on either side of him, her breath caught on his name?

He’d ruin himself for it again.
Every time.

No cameras.
No noise.
No promises.

Just this.

Her.
Him.
The fire in between.

Cleo didn’t stop him.

She couldn’t have if she tried.

Her hands slid into his hair, fingers curling tight at the roots, gripping the way she’d wanted to all night—the way she’d been holding herself back from for years. Not delicate. Not careful. Just there, anchoring herself to him the same way he was anchoring her.

She moved closer, instinctively, knees settling on either side of him, bodies fitting together with that familiar inevitability that made her chest ache. It wasn’t choreography. It was memory. Muscle memory. Two people who had learned each other once and never fully unlearned.

Her breath hitched when she felt how solid he was beneath her, how real this was—his hands, his heat, the quiet urgency in the way he held her like he was afraid she might vanish again if he loosened his grip. She rocked forward without thinking, drawn by need and relief and the sheer disbelief of finally being back here, back with him.

Messy. Unguarded. Honest.

Her mouth found his again, open and insistent now, kissing him like she was making up for lost time. Like she was pouring every unsent text, every almost-call, every night she’d lain awake missing him into the space between their lips.

She broke the kiss just long enough to press her forehead to his, breath uneven, hands still tangled in his hair.

A laugh slipped out of her—soft, wrecked, almost disbelieving.

“This is… us,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. Like saying it out loud might finally make it real. “It always was.”

She kissed him again, slower this time, deeper—not rushing, not holding back either. Just two people finally letting themselves collide after years of being careful, afraid, convinced that wanting each other didn’t mean they were allowed to have it.

Her hands stayed in his hair. His stayed at her waist.

And in that moment—no noise, no world pressing in—Cleo let herself feel it fully.

She pulled back, her chest heaving, the sudden lack of his mouth leaving her cold and aching for more.

The cotton of her shirt felt suffocating. It felt like static. Like one last barrier she didn’t have the patience for anymore.

Her hands dropped from his hair, finding the hem of her top. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t make it slow or seductive or careful.

She just wanted it gone.

She crossed her arms, gripped the fabric, and pulled it up and over her head in one fluid, desperate motion, tossing it blindly onto the floor.

The cool air of the apartment hit her skin, raising goosebumps along her arms, but she didn’t cover herself. She didn't shrink away. She just sat there, straddling him, chest rising and falling rapidly, completely exposed.

She looked him right in the eye, baring it all—the scars, the skin, the truth.

"I’m done waiting," she whispered, her voice trembling just a little. "I want you to see me. All of me."

The air left the room. Or maybe it just left his lungs.

He sat there, hands gripping the denim of his own jeans to keep from reaching for her too fast, and just looked.

For months, his life had been a blur of strobe lights, scream-singing into microphones until his throat tasted like copper, and faces—thousands of them—that blurred into a singular, demanding mass. Everything out there was loud. Everything was fast. Everything was for consumption.
But this? This was quiet. This was sacred.

Cleo sat straddling his lap, her chest rising and falling with that jagged, beautiful breath, and Ben felt like he was finally seeing color again after living in grayscale.

The shirt lay in a heap on the floor. She wasn’t hiding. She wasn’t angling her body for a camera or sucking in her stomach the way people in his world did instinctively. She was just there. The soft curve of her waist, the pale stretch of her throat, the small, faint paint splatter on her collarbone that she probably hadn't noticed.

And the scars. The map of her history. The things that made her Cleo.
"I want you to see me," she’d whispered.

God, if she only knew. He hadn’t looked at anyone else in years. Not really.

He let out a shaky breath, the sound rough in the silent room. He didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. Words felt cheap right now, flimsy things that would just clutter the air.

Slowly, treating the moment like it might shatter if he moved too sharply, he lifted his hands from his lap.
His palms found the bare skin of her waist.

He felt a tremor run through her, and it nearly undid him. His thumbs brushed over her ribs, feeling the heat of her skin, the frantic beat of her heart beneath the surface. It was a rhythm he wanted to memorize.
He leaned forward, his dark hair falling into his eyes, but he didn’t brush it away. He kept his gaze locked on hers, intense and dark, letting her see exactly how hungry he was. Not just for her body—though he was definitely that—but for the peace she radiated. For the reality of her.

"I see you, Cleo," he murmured, his voice a low grit, deeper than usual. "I see every part of you."
He didn’t kiss her lips. Not yet.

Instead, he lowered his head, pressing his mouth to the hollow of her throat. He felt her pulse jump against his lips. He kissed the spot, open-mouthed and reverent, breathing her in—paint thinner, vanilla, and skin.

He moved lower, his hands sliding up her back to pull her closer, eliminating the last few inches of space between them. He kissed the slope of her breast, then the small scar on her ribcage, lingering there. He worshiped it with the tip of his tongue, a silent promise that he accepted the damage, the fear, the past.
He felt her hands tighten in his hair again, heard the sharp intake of her breath, and it fueled him.

He looked up at her then, his eyes blown wide, his hands spanning her ribcage as if he were holding something priceless.

"You are the only real thing in my entire life," he said, the admission raw, torn out of him. "Do you understand that? The rest of it is just noise. This... this is the music."

He didn’t wait for an answer. He slid his hands up to cup her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones, and pulled her down to him, crashing his mouth against hers with a possessive, desperate heat that promised he wasn't going anywhere.

The kiss was a collision. It wasn't gentle, and thank God for that. She didn't want gentle right now. She wanted the desperation she felt vibrating in her own bones matched by his.

His words were still ringing in her ears, louder than the blood rushing in her head. The only real thing. It made her chest ache, a good, sharp ache that cracked open the last of the protective armor she’d wrapped around herself for months. If she was real to him, then he had to be real to her. All of him.

She needed more. The barrier of his t-shirt against her bare skin was suddenly unbearable; it was too much cotton between their heartbeats.

She broke the kiss, gasping, needing air, but mostly just needing access. Before he could question the break in contact, her hands bunched the fabric at his waist. With a surge of adrenaline and pure impatience, she yanked it upward, over his head in one swift, decisive motion.

It landed somewhere in the shadows near her own discarded heap. She didn't care where. Her hands immediately sought the reality of him beneath.

Her palms flattened against his chest, the heat radiating through her fingertips like a furnace. God, she had missed this landscape. She dragged her nails lightly—just lightly enough to graze—through the dusting of hair there, feeling the hard plane of muscle beneath and the rapid thud-thud-thud of his heart matching her own frenzied rhythm.

She missed the texture of him. She missed the scent of road-weary cedar and just Ben that clung to his skin. She missed the rough grit of his voice saying her name like it was a secret prayer, something only meant for this tiny, dim room.

Being on his lap wasn't enough anymore. She needed to be grounded, and she needed the weight of him to keep her there.

"Ben," she breathed, the word half a demand, half a sigh.
She shifted, sliding off his legs and onto the woven rug beneath them. Her sudden movement scattered the papers surrounding them like dry leaves in wind—charcoal sketches of his jawline in shadow, half-finished studies of their hands clasped, memories she had tried to capture on paper fluttered away.

She didn't bother trying to save them. A few drawings remained trapped beneath her shoulders as she laid back against the hard floor, the rug scratchy against her bare skin, but she barely registered the discomfort. She only saw him.

She reached up, gripping his shoulders, her eyes locking with his dark, blown-out gaze. She pulled him down, urging him to cover her, wanting to be crushed under the beautiful, heavy reality of the man who saw her scars and called them music.

He went where she pulled him. He would have followed her off the edge of the earth, so the floor was an easy concession.

He caught his weight on his forearms just before he crushed her, his body hovering over hers, caging her in. The sound of paper crinkling beneath them was sharp in the quiet room—sketches of his own face, the curve of his guitar, his hands—now being pressed into the woven rug by the weight of her shoulders.

It was heady. Knowing she’d spent hours alone in this room, translating him onto paper, obsessing over him the same way he’d obsessed over her in hotel rooms across the Atlantic.

"Ben," she’d breathed, and it sounded like permission. It sounded like a dare.

He crashed his mouth down on hers, swallowing her moan. He kissed her deep and wet, his tongue sweeping into her mouth with a heavy, rhythmic pulse. He let his hips grind down, just once, hard against her pelvis, letting her feel exactly how hard he was through the denim of his jeans.

He didn’t stay at her lips. He needed to taste everything.

He dragged his mouth down her jawline, feeling her pulse hammering against his lips. He moved lower, over the arch of her throat, leaving a trail of heat until he reached the swell of her breast. She arched up into him, a silent plea, and he answered it.

He took one nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, swirling his tongue against the sensitive peak until she cried out, her fingers digging bruising crescents into his shoulders. He worked her with the same focus he gave a melody, teasing, biting lightly, then soothing it with his tongue, savoring the way she writhed beneath him.

"You’re beautiful," he groaned against her skin, the vibration of his voice humming through her chest. "Fuck, Cleo."

He pulled back, breathless, his hair falling messily over his forehead. He sat back on his heels, his chest heaving, looking down at her. She was half-naked, flushed, her lips swollen and her eyes dazed.
But it wasn’t enough.

"Lift up," he commanded. His voice was rough, leaving no room for argument.

She obeyed instantly, lifting her hips off the rug. His hands went to the button of her jeans. He didn't fumble. He was efficient, driven by a singular need. He unbuttoned the denim, dragged the zipper down, and hooked his fingers into the waistband of her pants and her panties at the same time.
He pulled them down, sliding the fabric over her hips, down her thighs, off her ankles, tossing them aside to join the pile of discarded clothes.

Then, he paused.

He stayed back on his heels, just looking at her.

The image hit him like a physical blow. Cleo, completely bare, sprawled out on the rug. Her skin was pale and luminous in the dim light, a stark contrast to the charcoal smudges on the papers fanned out around her like a halo. She was lying on top of a hundred versions of him, but she was the masterpiece. She was the only thing in the room that mattered.

"Look at you," he whispered, a smirk touching the corner of his mouth—confident, possessive. "Surrounded by all this art... and you put it all to shame."

She tried to cover herself with a hand, a reflex of shyness, but he reached out and caught her wrist, gently pinning it to the floor above her head.

"Don't hide," he said, his eyes darkening. "I told you. I want to see all of you."

He moved then, shifting his body between her legs. He hooked her knees over his shoulders, spreading her wide, opening her completely to him. The scent of her hit him—musk and arousal—and his mouth watered.

He didn't wait. He lowered his head and pressed his face right against her heat, inhaling deeply, letting his breath ghost over her wetness. She shuddered, her thighs trembling against his ears.

He smirked against her skin. Then he licked her.

One long, broad stroke from bottom to top.

She bucked, a strangled noise leaving her throat, but he held her hips firm with his large hands, anchoring her. He dove in, his tongue flat and relentless, tasting her sweetness, lapping at her with a steady, maddening rhythm. He felt her unraveling against his mouth, her taste coating his tongue, and he groaned, the sound vibrating against her clitoris as he increased the pressure, determined to wreck her just as thoroughly as she had wrecked him.

The sensation shattered her. It wasn't just the physical shock of his mouth—though that alone was enough to make her vision blur—it was the sheer, unadulterated reverence in his actions.

She had spent weeks pouring her longing into graphite and charcoal, capturing the sharp line of his jaw and the brooding depth of his eyes, never imagining that the real thing would be here, between her legs, worshiping her with a devotion that made her art look pale in comparison.

Her head fell back against the rug, the paper crinkling loudly under her shifting weight. She could feel the charcoal smudging against the bare skin of her back, the sketches of his face blurring into her sweat, but she didn’t care. She would ruin every single drawing for five more seconds of this.

"Ben," she gasped, the name tearing out of her throat as a ragged plea.

He didn't stop. If anything, her voice seemed to spur him on. His grip on her hips tightened, his thumbs pressing into her soft flesh as he anchored her down, refusing to let her escape the pleasure he was forcing on her. He was relentless, a master of rhythm, playing her body with the same intuitive, devastating skill he used on his guitar.

Her hands flailed blindly, needing to touch him, needing a lifeline. Her fingers found the thick waves of his hair, tangling tight, gripping him. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to pull him closer or push him away because it was too much—it was too sharp, too sweet, too intense.

Every stroke of his tongue felt like he was stripping her bare, peeling back layers of shyness and hesitation until only raw nerve endings remained. The friction of his stubble against her inner thighs was a rough, maddening counterpoint to the softness of his mouth, and she arched her back, her hips snapping upward in an involuntary rhythm.

"Please," she sobbed, the word losing all meaning, becoming just a sound of desperate need. "I can’t—Ben, I can’t—"

She was falling. The room, the sketches, the floor—it all dissolved. There was only the heat of his breath, the wet slick of his tongue, and the terrifying, beautiful realization that he was right. She wasn't hiding anymore. He had found her, completely.

The ache wasn't just between her legs; it was a fever in her blood that demanded to be touched everywhere. The memory of his mouth on her breast was still a phantom burn, and the emptiness there now was unbearable. She needed to bridge the gap; she needed to feel more.

Her fingers slipped from the thick tangles of his hair, her arms feeling heavy and languid as they drifted down.

With a broken whimper, she cupped her own breasts, the heels of her hands pressing firmly into the soft flesh. They felt swollen, heavy with heat. She squeezed them, her fingers digging in, trying to replicate the bruising pressure he’d used earlier. It felt decadent, almost forbidden, to touch herself while he was down there completely unraveling her, but she couldn't stop.

She grazed her thumbs over her nipples, finding them hard and incredibly sensitive. She pinched them, twisting sharply, and the jolt of sensation shot straight down her spine, connecting with the wet, hot rhythm of his tongue.
"God," she choked out, her head thrashing against the floor.

The combined stimulation—her own hands working her nipples, his mouth relentless against her clitoris—was a sensory overload that made her toes curl. She arched her chest up, offering herself to her own touch, creating a friction that fed the fire he was stoking below. She was caught in a loop of pure sensation, her body a live wire, and she knew she wasn't going to last much longer.

He felt the shift in her before he heard it. The way her hips stuttered against his hold, the frantic, shallow gasps that sounded like she was drowning. She was close. She was right there on the precipice, trembling like a struck chord.

Then he looked up, just a fraction, and the sight nearly ended him.

Her hands were clutching her own breasts, fingers digging into the pale flesh, squeezing, desperate. The visual was visceral—artistic and pornographic all at once. Cleo, his quiet, grounded Cleo, completely unraveling in his hands, touching herself because he had driven her out of her mind.

A surge of possessiveness roared through him, darker and heavier than before.

He wanted her to come. God, he wanted to drink it down. But not yet. Not this fast. He had waited years for this; he wasn't going to let it be over in minutes. He wanted to live in this space—this chaotic, messy, high-frequency space where she was completely at his mercy—for as long as possible.
With a sheer force of will, he pulled back.

He felt her buck against him, a silent protest of the loss of friction, but he didn’t stop. He pressed a firm, damp kiss to the very top of her thigh, right near the crease, ignoring the way she tried to chase his mouth.

"Not yet," he murmured against her skin, the vibration of his voice buzzing against her sensitive nerves. "I'm not done with you."

He began a slow, torturous ascent.

He didn’t rush. He treated her body like a landscape he had to memorize in the dark. He pressed open-mouthed, wet kisses to her hip bone, tasting the salt on her skin. He moved inward, burying his face in the soft dip of her stomach, exhaling hot air against her navel, feeling the way her abdominal muscles violently contracted beneath his lips.

Every inch he covered was a claim. Mine. Mine. Mine.

He moved higher, over the ladder of her ribs. He saw the smudge of charcoal on her side—a fingerprint of her work—and he kissed right over it, blending the art with the reality of her skin.

When he reached her chest, her hands were still there, gripping her breasts as if holding herself together.
Ben didn't pull them away forcefully. He was gentler now. He kissed her wrists, first one, then the other, feeling the erratic, hummingbird flutter of her pulse beneath the thin skin. He nudged her hands aside with his nose, the stubble on his chin grazing her knuckles, silently demanding she yield the territory to him.
As her hands fell away, limp and heavy to the floor, he took their place.

He kissed the slope of her breast, laving the skin with slow, broad strokes, cooling the heat he had ignited. He wasn't teasing her toward a peak anymore; he was bringing her down, grounding her back into her body, forcing her to feel the weight of his attention everywhere, not just between her legs.

He rested his chin on her sternum, looking up at her face. She was wrecked—eyes glazed, mouth slack, chest heaving.

He smirked, a dangerous, satisfied thing.

"Breathe, Cleo," he whispered, leaning in to brush his lips softly against the hollow of her throat. "We've got all night."

Her chest rose and fell in jagged, broken rhythms, her body still humming with the ghost of the friction he’d just taken away. It was a torture of the sweetest kind—to be brought to the very edge of the cliff and then held there, suspended in the dizzying height of it.

She watched him through heavy-lidded eyes as he moved up her body. The dim light caught the sharp angle of his cheekbone, the messy fall of his dark hair, the focused intensity in his gaze.

He was here.

For so long, he had been a memory she couldn’t shake, a face she tried to exorcise by drawing it over and over again until her fingers were stained black and the floor was covered in paper. But paper couldn’t breathe. Paper didn’t have heat. Paper didn't look at her with that devastating mix of hunger and adoration.

Her hands lifted, trembling slightly, and slid back into his hair.

This time, she wasn't gripping for leverage; she was touching him just to prove she could. Her fingers threaded through the thick, dark waves, feeling the warmth of his scalp, the solid reality of him. It was a texture she hadn’t been able to capture with charcoal—the softness, the life.

"Ben," she whispered, the name vibrating in her throat.

When he replaced her hands with his own, brushing his lips against the swell of her breast, a high, helpless whimper escaped her lips. Her skin felt too tight, too sensitive, every nerve ending exposed and raw. The sensation of his stubble grazing her tender skin sent a fresh shockwave through her, making her toes curl into the rug.

She looked up at him, her heart hammering against her ribs where his chin rested, and the truth of it spilled out of her, raw and unguarded.

"I never want this to end," she admitted, her voice cracking on the final word. "Please... don't let it end."

Her other hand drifted up, moving with a dreamlike slowness, until her palm found the side of his face.

Her fingers curled under the sharp ridge of his cheekbone—that precise angle she’d spent hours trying to get right with charcoal, shading the hollows to capture exactly how the shadows hit him. She had memorized the geometry of his face in his absence, obsessing over the lines, but the paper had always been cold. Flat.

This was warm.

His skin burned against her palm, solid and undeniable. She traced the line of the bone with her thumb, feeling the slight resistance of his stubble, the way a muscle in his jaw ticked under her touch as he watched her. It was a tactile map she was finally allowed to explore, no longer limited to memory or imagination.

She let her hand cup his jaw, holding him there, anchoring his gaze to hers. She needed to feel the weight of his head in her hand to believe he wasn't going to vanish like smoke the moment she blinked.

"You're real," she breathed, the words barely audible, more for herself than for him. Her thumb brushed over the corner of his mouth, catching the edge of that smirk. "You're actually here."

He leaned into her touch, closing his eyes for a brief second as her palm cupped his jaw.

He could smell the faint, metallic scent of graphite on her skin, mixed with the vanilla she always wore. It was the scent of her world, and having it pressed against his face felt like an induction. Like he was finally being allowed inside the studio of her mind.

He turned his head, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the center of her palm, tasting the salt and the charcoal, worshiping the hand that had spent years drawing him from memory.

"I’m here," he rasped against her skin. "And I’m not going anywhere. I’m not a sketch, Cleo. You can’t erase me."

He opened his eyes, the dark irises blown wide with intent.

He didn't just want her to see him. He needed her to feel him. Everywhere.

He took her hand—the one that had been tracing his cheekbone—and slowly, deliberately, dragged it down. He pulled her hand over the corded muscle of his neck, down the hard plane of his chest, over the ridges of his stomach, until he reached the waistband of nothing.

He wrapped her fingers around him.

A guttural groan tore out of his chest, vibrating through his entire frame as her cool fingers closed over his hardness. She felt velvety and small in his grip, and the contrast of her delicate artist’s hand against his rigid desire nearly ended him right there.

"Feel that?" he gritted out, his hips bucking involuntarily into her hold. "That’s real. That’s for you. Only you."
He let go of her hand, surrendering control, letting her take the weight of him.

She squeezed, tentatively at first, testing the drag of her skin against his. But then she pulled back, her hand lifting away from him for a split second.

He watched, his breath caught in his throat, as she brought her hand to her mouth.

She didn't break eye contact. Her gaze was dark, heavy with intent, as she opened her mouth and licked into the cup of her palm—a long, wet stroke of her tongue, gathering moisture. It was a raw, instinctive move, messy and practical and completely devastating.

She reached back down, and when she wrapped her fingers around him this time, the sensation nearly buckled his knees.

The cool slickness of her saliva mixed with the heat of her palm created a glide that was almost too good. She stroked him, learning the texture of him just like she’d learned the lines of his face, sliding from the base to the tip in a slow, wet rhythm.

"Fuck," he breathed, the word punching out of him.

He watched her hand moving on him, the charcoal smudges on her knuckles stark against his skin, the faint glistening of her spit catching the dim light. It was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. She wasn’t just touching him; she was memorizing him.

She tightened her grip, finding a rhythm that matched the frantic beat of his heart, her thumb dragging over the sensitive head of his cock, slick and relentless.

His hips snapped forward, chasing her hand, unable to help himself. The pleasure was sharp, blinding, and immediate. He was starved for her, and having her hand on him, owning him like this, was pushing him dangerously close to the edge.

He endured it for as long as he could, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs, sweat beading on his forehead. Every wet stroke chipped away at his restraint until the need to be inside her, to be surrounded by her completely, eclipsed everything else.

"Cleo, stop," he choked out, his voice wrecked. "Stop, or I’m going to finish right now."

He reached down, his hand trembling as he covered hers, halting her movement. He held her there for a second, just pulsating in her grip, letting the sensation burn into his brain, before he gently pulled her hand away and pinned it to the floor beside her head.

He moved, shifting his weight until he was settled between her spread thighs again. The friction of his skin against hers was electric—heat on heat.

​He braced one hand on the floor next to her head, the other reaching down to guide himself. He paused at her entrance, the tip of him brushing against her slick, swollen heat, teasing the opening that was already damp and ready for him.

​She let out a shaky breath, her hips lifting instinctively, trying to bridge the gap, but he held back.

​The impulse to just shove forward, to bury himself in the familiar heat he’d been craving for weeks, was a roar in his ears. But he stopped. He forced his eyes to focus on hers, his chest heaving as he hovered there, agonizingly close.

​"Wait," he breathed, the word barely audible over the blood rushing in his ears. He swallowed hard, needing to know, needing to be sure. "Do you want me to grab a condom?"

She had been lost in the texture of him. The reality of having him in her hand had been overwhelming—he was heavier, harder, and hotter than any memory she had tried to preserve. She had been fascinated by the visual of it, too; the dark smudges of charcoal on her fingers stark against his skin, the glisten of her own saliva making her movements slick and fluid. She had wanted to map the vein that ran the length of him, to feel the exact pressure required to make his hips snap forward, revelling in the power of wrecking him just as he had wrecked her.

When he stopped her, gripping her hand to halt the motion, she felt the tremor vibrating through his fingers. It was a testament to how close he was, and the knowledge sent a fresh spike of heat through her belly.

As he pinned her hand to the floor and shifted his weight, she didn't lay still. Her body was magnetic to his; she couldn't help but follow his movements.

As he settled between her spread thighs, hovering just at the entrance, her free hand—the one not pinned above her head—reached out instinctively. She couldn't touch him there anymore, so she needed to touch him everywhere else.

Her fingers curled around his bicep, nails digging into the flexed muscle as he held his weight up. She traced the tension there, feeling the rock-hard solidity of his arm, the way it trembled with the sheer effort of holding back. She dragged her fingertips down to his forearm, tracing the roadmap of veins that stood out against his skin, feeling the dampness of his sweat. She wanted to pull him down. She wanted to wrap her legs around him and force the issue, to eliminate the agonizing inch of space between them.

The tip of him brushed against her wetness, a tease that made her entire body arch off the floor, a broken sound tearing from her throat. She was ready. She was aching for it.

Then he spoke.

The question cut through the haze of lust like a sharp intake of breath.

Condom.

For a split second, her brain refused to process it. The biological drive to just feel him, to have him fill the empty ache inside her, was so loud it drowned out everything else. She stared up at him, her eyes wide and dazed, her chest heaving against his. The responsible part of her brain kicked in a second later, warring with the desperate, reckless need.

She swallowed hard, her throat dry, her pulse hammering a frantic rhythm against her collarbone.

She gave a jerky, breathless nod, her head rubbing against the texture of the rug.

"Yeah," she whispered, the word trembling as it left her lips. She tightened her grip on his forearm, terrified that if he moved away, the spell would break. "Yeah. Do you... do you have one?"

The air felt suddenly cold where his body left hers, a sharp, physical loss that made her breath hitch. She watched him shift, his weight lifting off the floor as he twisted toward the chaotic pile of laundry they’d created—her shorts, his shirt, the mess of papers.

His hand dove into the back pocket of his discarded jeans, the denim crumpled on top of a charcoal sketch of his profile. The mundane sound of him wrestling the wallet out of the tight pocket seemed deafening in the quiet room.

She lay there, her chest rising and falling rapidly, feeling exposed and achingly empty, her eyes tracing the line of his spine, the tension in his shoulders. There was a frantic quality to his movements now—he wasn't being smooth; he was hurrying. He flipped the worn leather open, his fingers digging into a hidden slot, and for a terrifying second, she thought maybe he was empty, maybe they’d have to stop.

But then she saw the glint of silver foil.

Relief crashed through her, hot and dizzying. He had one.

He tossed the wallet aside—it landed with a soft thud on the rug—and turned back to her. He didn’t waste time with his hands; he brought the packet to his mouth, tearing the foil open with his teeth. The sound was sharp, feral, and incredibly loud.

It did something to her, seeing him like that—shoving the wrapper aside, rolling the protection on with quick, trembling hands. It was the final barrier coming down. The confirmation that this was happening, right now, on her floor.

She reached for him before he was even fully settled, her hands grabbing at his forearms, desperate to pull his weight back down onto her.

"Hurry," she whispered, the word barely more than a gasp. “Benjamin, please."

When his weight settled back over her, it felt like the roof of the world coming down—heavy, grounding, and absolutely necessary. The air rushed out of her lungs in a relieved whoosh as his heat engulfed her again, chasing away the brief, biting cold of the room.

Her hands didn't wait. They flew to his shoulders, her palms slapping against the damp skin, her fingers digging in to pull him down, down, down. She needed to close the distance until there wasn't a single molecule of air left between them.

He nudged her knees wider, his hips settling into the cradle of hers, and the sensation of his tip pressing against her opening again made her entire body string tight.

Then, he pushed.

It wasn’t a gentle slide. It was a reclaiming.

Her head fell back against the rug, a jagged, broken sound tearing from her throat as he filled her. It was a stark, invading pressure—thick and stretching and overwhelming—and it felt like coming home. Every inch he took was a memory slotting back into place. The emptiness that had been gnawing at her for months, the hollow space she’d tried to fill with work and noise and sketching, vanished in a single, devastating stroke.

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes—not from pain, but from the sheer, crushing relief of it. He was deep. He was here. He was buried inside her, anchored to her, a solid, heavy knot in the center of her universe.

She locked her ankles around the small of his back instantly, trapping him there, terrified he might pull away even an inch. She looked up at him, her vision swimming, seeing the strain in his neck, the blown-out darkness of his eyes.

The rhythm he set wasn’t gentle. It was a collision.

He pulled back almost completely, leaving her aching and empty for a split second, before slamming back into her with a force that knocked the breath from her lungs. The impact of his hips against hers was a dull, heavy thud that reverberated through her entire skeleton, a shockwave traveling straight up her spine.

She felt completely boneless, rag-dolled by the sheer power of him. With every hard, driving thrust, her body was jarred upward, and she felt the heavy sway of her breasts moving in time with his violence. They trembled with the force of it, shaking and quivering against the cool air, a stark visual of just how hard he was taking her.

It felt primitive and exposing. She could feel the weight of them shifting, the soft flesh moving uncontrollably as he wrecked her from the inside out. There was no hiding this, no way to be poised or pretty. She was just raw reaction, her body echoing the brutal, desperate cadence he was pounding into her.

"Baby," she gasped, the word punched out of her as he bottomed out again, the force making her chest heave.

She looked down at herself—at the pale curve of her breasts swaying with the rhythm, the flush spreading across her chest—and then up at him. He was watching it too. His eyes were dark, tracking the movement of her body, the way she shook with every stroke, and seeing the hunger in his gaze made her core clench tight around him, milking him, begging for it to be even harder.