Page 68 of Cuffed By Your Love

I kissed her again. “You don’t have to explain. I feel it too.”

Her walls fluttered around me, slow and tight. She whimpered, clutching my shoulders like she was afraid to fall and too full to float. We moved like waves, building, breaking, becoming.

When she finally came, it was soft and slow. Her eyes fluttered shut, mouth open, head tilted back. A single tear slid down her cheek, and I kissed it away without saying a word.

I held her there, still inside her, still moving slowly, until I followed, my release deep and low, my breath tangled in hers.

We stayed like that long after the water turned lukewarm, her forehead against my chest, my hand caressing her back. The air was thick with steam and the kind of quiet you didn’t dare interrupt.

“You okay?” I asked, kissing the top of her head.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “For the first time in a long time… I’m really okay.”

By the time we climbed out of the tub, the water was cool, and we were both wrapped in steam and silence.

She handed me a towel like I hadn’t just given her everything, and she gave me that look… thatknowingone, like she understood what I didn’t say in the water, like she could still feel my promises pressed into her skin.

She didn’t speak, just grabbed my hand and led me into her bedroom, the lights dimmed, a candle still flickering on the dresser like it was burning in witness of what we just did.

The sheets were soft and clean. Smelled like coconut, linen, and her,like comfort folded into cotton.

She pressed gently on my chest, easing me down to sit on the edge of the bed, and walked away just long enough to grab a small glass jar off her nightstand. I recognized the label, her handwriting, her ingredients, her magic.

Sanctuary – body balm with rosehip, turmeric, and melted intentions.

She climbed behind me, straddled my hips with her thighs, and dipped two fingers into the balm.

The second she touched my back,slow, warm, and intentional, I almost sighed out loud. Her fingers moved over the scars near my shoulder blade, rubbing the oil in slow, careful circles like she was trying to bless the parts of me I still hadn’t forgiven.

“You always touch me like I’m sacred,” I murmured, eyes closed.

“Because you are,” she said, voice soft and steady. “Even the parts of you that ache.”

She kept rubbing, neck, shoulders, lower back, pausing to press kisses to the spaces between. Her lips felt like scripture, like thank-you, likestay here with me.

I turned to face her, eyes low and full. “You spoil me, Deputy Gorgeous.”

“No,” she whispered, straddling my lap, her arms resting gently on my shoulders. “I see you. You take care of the world, Elias. Of me. EJ. Everybody. So let me take care of you when you don’t even realize you need it.”

I touched her cheek. “What if I don’t know how to let go of that weight?”

She leaned in, lips brushing mine, then said against my mouth, “Then I’ll carry some of it with you.”

I smiled as she repeated what I always said to her.

I kissed her then, not from hunger, but from home. Her fingers laced behind my neck, and I lay back, pulling her with me, our bodies sinking into the mattress like it was made to hold two people this tired, this full.

She curled against my chest, one leg thrown over mine, fingers lightly trailing down my sternum. My arm wrapped around her, and my nose rested in the crook of her neck where she always smelled like brown sugar and clarity.

The room was quiet.

But it wasn’t empty.

There was weight there.

The weight of being seen. The weight of being held. The weight of knowing I didn’t have to be bulletproof to be loved out loud.

“I mean it, you know,” she said suddenly.