The Words I Was Afraid To Say

That night I was thinking to myself. I had to tell him that I loved him. I just. I didn’t know how to do it. He was cuddling me, tracing circles on my arms. And I turned around to look at him. He kissed me. Something we’ve done so often now that it’s second nature. We can never keep our hands to ourselves when we’re alone. He was taunting me. Slowly. Making me forget every thought. He rolled on top of me, still not breaking our kiss. He kissed my neck. My chest. My stomach. All the way down until he captured my pussy in his mouth. I moaned at the pleasure he was giving me.

“You taste so sweet little one. So wet for me. Your delicious pussy always craving for my touch, my kisses, my love” he said as he dove back in to feast on me. Like I was the best desert he ever had. His mouth never left my skin. Every kiss was a promise, every stroke of his tongue a devotion I didn’t know how to return. Not yet. But Goddess, I wanted to.

I tangled my fingers in his hair, my back arching as he devoured me like he was starving. My thighs trembled around his shoulders, my breath stuttering through parted lips.

“Atlas,” I gasped, barely able to hold onto reality.

He looked up at me, his mouth glistening, pupils blown wide with hunger and something deeper — reverence. Possession. Need.

“You’re mine,” he said, voice thick and low, like a vow etched in stone. “Say it.”

“I’m yours,” I whispered, because there was no truth more undeniable.

And when he slid up my body, kissing every inch along the way, I felt his weight settle into my bones like a home I’d never known I was missing.

He kissed me again, slower this time. Less hunger. More meaning. Like he was memorizing me. Every breath. Every flutter. Every crack in my soul.

He moved inside me with that same deliberate tenderness, filling me with a rhythm that didn’t rush — just unraveled me, piece by piece. And I gave myself to him, completely. Because I couldn’t hold anything back anymore. Not when I was already his in every way but one.

I clung to him, arms wrapped around his shoulders, face buried in the crook of his neck as we moved together. It was more than sex. More than love-making. It was surrender.

And when the wave hit me — when pleasure overtook thought and I shattered beneath him — I cried his name like a confession.

He followed me into the fall, gasping against my mouth, groaning low in his throat as his body trembled above mine.

For a moment, there was only silence. The kind of silence that felt like sacred ground. His hand cradled my cheek, brushing sweat-damp hair away, his thumb stroking beneath my eye like I was fragile glass he’d spent years searching for.

“I don’t think I can stop loving you,” I whispered.

The words had slipped out before I realized I’d said them. My heart stilled. My breath caught.

He froze, still buried inside me, still holding me.

Everything in me tightened — panic, fear, hope — like a thousand ropes pulling in opposite directions.

I waited for him to say something. Anything.

But he just looked at me.

His face didn’t change. His eyes searched mine, and something passed through them I couldn’t name. A storm, maybe. Or maybe just the weight of something too heavy to speak.

“Atlas?” I said, quieter now, the tremble in my voice betraying me.

He closed his eyes for a moment — not like he was shutting me out, but like he was searching for the right place to put what I’d just given him.

Then he kissed me.

Not like before.

This one was slow. Deep. Gentle.

When he pulled back, his voice was hushed. “You shouldn’t say that unless you mean it.”

I blinked. “I do mean it.”

His jaw flexed. “People say that when things are good. When they’re in bed. When the world feels easy. But love? Real love? It doesn’t just live in moments like this.”

“I know that.” I pushed myself up slightly, my hand pressed to his chest where his heart beat wildly. “I didn’t say it because I’m caught up in the moment. I’ve been holding it in. For weeks. I’ve almost said it a dozen times.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I was scared.”

His breath hitched. Just slightly. Enough that I felt it.

“Scared of what?” he asked.

“That you wouldn’t feel the same.” My voice cracked, but I didn’t look away. “Or worse… that you’d feel it and still walk away.”

He laid his forehead against mine, his hand tightening on my hip. “You think I could walk away from you now?”

“I think… you’ve had to walk away from things before. And I think sometimes… the more we love something, the more we convince ourselves we don’t deserve it.”

Silence again.

And then — a sigh.

Long. Heavy. Full of grief and longing all at once.

“I’ve lost a lot, Calliope,” he said finally. “More than you know. More than I let people see. And every time I think I’m safe… that I can want something without losing it… something happens.”

I felt my chest tighten, tears stinging behind my eyes. “Then let me be the thing you don’t lose.”

He looked at me like he didn’t know how. Like he’d forgotten how to even believe in something like that.

But he didn’t move away.

He didn’t close off.

He kissed me again — and this time, it was a whisper, not a statement. A question. A hope.

“I don’t know how to say it back yet,” he said, his voice raw. “But I need you to know something.”

I nodded.

He took my hand and placed it over his heart.

“This is yours,” he said. “Even if I don’t have the words yet. You already have everything else.”

Tears spilled before I could stop them. Not because I was sad. But because I believed him. Because maybe — just maybe — love doesn’t always come in perfect declarations. Sometimes it comes in the way someone holds you, even when they’re afraid.

He pulled me close again, his arms wrapped tightly around me, and I curled into him like I was made to fit there.

And as I lay there, heart pounding, skin tingling from both pleasure and pain, I realized something.

I didn’t need him to say the words back.

Not yet.

Because love isn’t about what we say.

It’s about what we choose — again and again.

And he chose me.

Tonight, that was enough.