When she comes she looks a little like she's crying, a little like she's in pain. He watches with fascination, with the intention to commit these moments to memory so perfectly that he may live them over again and again.

It's the only time she's truly quiet, steady moaning to his movements ceasing suddenly, her sharp intake of breath followed only by a breathy sigh rather than a glass shattering scream.

It's new, this intimacy, a welcome distraction from the chaos around them. The first time was so pumped with adrenalin and anxiety that his hands shook hard enough that he couldn't undo the buttons on her dress. He surprised her then by tearing it open, popping three buttons off in the process. She was just as eager as he, unable to summon any irritation at his disrespect for her clothing when she saw his reverence for her bare skin.

She'd call it worship, but devotees don't leave bruises. He spent hours proving to himself that she was truly beneath his fingertips, and when she found the purple ghosts of his touch later she'd flush with the memory of his uttered prayers. When he said her name like it was holy, when his eyes burned into hers, and he pressed her harder into the mattress, she felt as if all that terror were a distant and easily brushed aside nightmare.

It all begins so gently, soft and teasing finger tips take their time enjoying what he had begun to fear would never be here under his hands. But when he pushed himself into her he lost the semblance of control he'd held onto for the sake of all that time they'd wasted, and those gentle fingers dug into her soft thighs like iron and she adored the painful proof of his existence, and of this moment without the fear of loss or destruction.

"Lydia," his voice his hot against her throat, "oh, Lydia, you're just- Lydia" his broken sentences are like music, or poetry. When he hooks her legs up and over his shoulders and illicits a gasp of "Stiles" he groans against her skin, because it's better than he'd ever imagined, and he vows to hear her say his name like that again.

When she came that first time it was such a surprise to her, a relief after so long of focusing all her energy on survival, that she could only sigh in response. She'd whisper to him afterwards, when they're side by side and catching their breath beneath the heavy covers, that he was the first to bring her there. While Jackson had certainly been enthusiastic, and she couldn't deny she'd enjoyed herself with he or Aiden, she'd never felt herself surrender like this. He buries a smirk in her hair, and pulls the blanket tighter around her, feeling like someone who just might be considering believing in fate.