He was finding it harder to ignore all the things he wanted her for. Watching her from across the office, he recalled the previous night, spent together at his apartment. Their bodies twisting in a melting fall over his rumpled sheets. It was hard to reconcile her quiet composure, the same fingers that had scratched pleasure across his back then now softly typing. He wondered at all the roles she now filled in his life. Friend. Partner. Confidante. Lover. She was his complex sufficiency, and his body was her verb.
In the thin night hours, he'd bent to press his ear to her breast, listening to the beating of her heart as it hammered in time with his own. That music had been there from the start, even before they were ready to hear its rhythm. What a satisfying discovery, to awaken to its tempo. He summoned the feeling of her thighs kissing the sensitive skin along his flanks. The things they had done to each other in his bed could set fire to the sun.
She looked up from her work, feeling his gaze on her like a caress, saying more than his words could speak. Making contact with her eyes, the elastic around his chest tightened, forcing his pulse up his neck and making his head swim. It invoked the limitless moment when he held his breath, knowing that his next exhalation would unravel all the fragile threads of his control. He was never more alive than when he died a little death inside her. She made everything in his life seem new.
He knew she had no need of a love that could be sung from the rooftops, subtle to her core. But he was finding it harder and harder to hold his tongue. He had never imagined a woman would treat his heart so well. His woman. His. He loved her.
