Page 96 of Hide From Me

I step back, dragging in air like I’ve just surfaced from underwater.

“I should’ve told you earlier. I just…” I rub the back of my neck, laugh bitterly. “It’s not like I can explain it all. Not without giving away—”

I catch myself.

She narrows her eyes. “Giving away what?”

I look anywhere but at her. At the wall. At the curtains fluttering from the cracked window AC unit. “Just... more than you need to know right now.”

She stares at me, unblinking, reading between lines I haven’t even spoken aloud. But she doesn’t push. Just walks toward the bed, crawls onto it, and turns back to face me.

“Well, come on then,” she says with a lazy smirk. “If I’m gonna be part of your quarter-life identity crisis, I’d rather do it horizontal.”

A laugh breaks free before I can stop it, and I shake my head, the tightness in my chest finally cracking just enough for breath to slip in.

She stretches across the bed, arms above her head like she doesn’t even realize she’s inviting me in the most dangerous way possible.

But I don’t crawl toward her, no matter how badly I want to.

I kneel.

Slowly. Deliberately. The mattress dips beneath the weight of my knees as I stay completely still at the end of the bed.

Not because I’m afraid she'll push me away. Not because I'm scared I'll spook her. It's because I need this to be her choice. Not just the moment–Me.

"Ray…" I whisper, leaning over, hands bracing beside her thighs into the mattress. “Do you ever think about what you want? Not what you can handle. Not what people expect from you. Just… what you want.”

Her brows knit, the tension between them softening into something more vulnerable.

"Sometimes," she says, voice low, lips parting as she searches my face.

“Tell me what to do,” I murmur.

She tilts her head. “What?”

My hands slide up her thighs, slow and reverent, stopping just where her shorts meet skin. My thumbs draw lazy circles, waiting.

“I mean it,” I breathe. “You tell me what to touch. What to kiss. How to fuckin’ worship you. You take control tonight, sunshine.”

“Moe…” Her voice trembles, soft and full of something that makes my heart squeeze. “Why?”

And I almost tell her the truth.

Because the world could fall apart tomorrow.

Because I need to feel like I’ve given you power over me, even if I have none over anything else.

Because if I’m turning into something dark, I need to know the last light I touched was you.

I drag my hands up slowly, savoring every inch of her skin under my palms, until my fingers hook into the waistband of her shorts. But I don’t pull.

Not yet.

“Because you’ve been controlled before,” I say, voice low and rough, more gravel than air. “Because someone took something from you. And maybe I can’t fix that—but I can give you this.”

My thumbs graze small, slow circles over her hips, steady and patient, waiting for her to move first.

“I want to give you this. You take what you want. From me. I won’t move unless you say so.”