CHAPTER 0034- On your knees

Morning came slow and gray.

I hadn’t really slept. The light in the guest room had stayed on all night like a punishment that didn’t need raising its voice. My body felt heavy. My mouth tasted like I’d been clenching my jaw for hours. Somewhere down the hall I heard movement — a drawer, the soft sound of feet on hardwood — then nothing.

I got up.

I didn’t put on clothes. He’d seen me naked the night before when he sent me up here. Clothes felt like armor I hadn’t earned. I walked down the hallway on bare feet and stopped outside his bedroom. The door was half open. I pushed it the rest of the way.

Elias was sitting on the edge of the bed in dark sweatpants, no shirt, elbows on his knees. He looked up when I entered. His expression didn’t soften. It didn’t harden either. He just watched me like he’d been waiting for this exact moment and had already decided how it would go.

I closed the door behind me.

For a second neither of us spoke. The air between us felt thick enough to choke on.

“I said you’d come ask,” he said quietly. “So ask.”

My throat tightened. I walked until I was standing in front of him. Close enough to see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. Close enough to smell the clean sleep-and-skin scent of him.

I sank to my knees.

The carpet was rough under them. I kept my eyes on his until the last second, then looked down at the space between us.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what.”

“For sleeping with her. For keeping it from you. For sitting on your lap afterward and letting you believe nothing had changed.”

Silence.

“Look at me.”

I lifted my head. His eyes were dark, unreadable.

“Do you understand what you actually did?” he asked. “It wasn’t just the act. It was the choice to shut me out of it. After everything. After your mother. After the plumber. After Jake. You still decided there was a part of this that didn’t belong to me.”

“I know.”

“Do you.”

“Yes.” My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “I was angry. And scared. And I wanted one thing that was only mine. It was selfish.”

He studied me for a long moment. Then he reached out and brushed his thumb across my cheekbone. The touch was almost careful.

“Get on the bed.”

I stood on unsteady legs and climbed onto the mattress. He didn’t tell me how to position myself, so I stayed on my knees in the center of the bed, waiting. He stood, pushed his sweatpants down, and stepped out of them. He was already hard. He didn’t comment on it. He just climbed onto the bed and knelt in front of me so we were face to face.

“You’re going to take me,” he said. “Slow. And you’re going to keep your eyes on mine the whole time. If you look away, I stop.”

I nodded.

He guided my hand to his cock. I wrapped my fingers around him and stroked once. He exhaled through his nose. Then he reached between my legs and dragged two fingers through the wetness that had already gathered there. He didn’t look surprised.

“Even now,” he murmured.

He lay back against the headboard and pulled me forward until I was straddling him. The head of his cock pressed against me. I sank down slowly, inch by inch, forcing myself to keep my eyes locked on his even when the stretch made my breath hitch. When I was fully seated he gripped my hips and held me still.

“Don’t move yet.”

I stayed where I was, full of him, trembling slightly with the effort of not rocking down. His hands flexed on my skin.

“Tell me again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For shutting me out.”

“For shutting you out.”

“For thinking you could have pieces of this that I don’t get to touch.”

“Yes.”

He nodded once. “Now move.”

I started to ride him. Slow, deep strokes that made every inch of him drag inside me. He kept one hand on my hip and the other wrapped lightly around the front of my throat — not squeezing, just holding. His eyes never left mine. Every time the pleasure built enough that my lids started to droop, he tightened his fingers in warning and I forced them open again.

“That’s it,” he said under his breath. “Stay with me. No hiding.”

The pace stayed controlled for a long time. Not punishing. Not gentle either. Just deliberate. Like he was rewriting the night before with every thrust. Sweat gathered at the small of my back. My thighs burned. When I got close he felt it and slowed me down until the edge receded, then let me build again.

“Please,” I whispered eventually.

“Please what.”

“Let me come.”

He considered me. Then he slid his hand between us and pressed his thumb against my clit in tight, exact circles.

“Come.”

The orgasm hit hard and clean, pulling a broken sound out of me. I kept my eyes on his the whole time, even when it made the intensity almost unbearable. He watched me fall apart with an expression that looked almost like satisfaction. When the last tremor passed he gripped my hips and started thrusting up into me in earnest — deeper, harder, chasing his own release. He came with a low, rough sound, buried to the hilt, eyes still locked on mine.

We stayed like that afterward, breathing hard, his hands still holding me in place.

Eventually he lifted me off him and guided me down onto the bed beside him. I lay on my side facing him. He brushed hair off my forehead with a gentleness that felt more dangerous than if he’d been rough.

“This doesn’t erase it,” he said.

“I know.”

“But it’s a start.”

I nodded against the pillow.

He pulled the sheet up over both of us and hooked an arm around my waist, drawing me closer until my forehead rested against his collarbone. His heartbeat was steady under my ear.

“Next time you want something that’s only yours,” he said into my hair, “you bring it to me first. Even if you think I’ll say no. Especially then.”

“Okay.”

“Say it properly.”

“I’ll bring it to you first.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. Not soft. Not hard. Just final.

Outside, the morning had fully arrived. Light leaked around the edges of the curtains. Somewhere downstairs a pipe ticked as the house settled into the day.

I closed my eyes and let myself stay there, sore and forgiven in the only way he knew how to give it — incompletely, possessively, and with the clear understanding that the next betrayal would cost more than a night in the guest room.

His arm stayed around me.

I didn’t try to move it.