He looks… God, vulnerable? Shocked? Ambivalent? It’s hard to tell. Like thousands of years of human evolution has completely left Rowan’s brain, and he suddenly doesn’t know how to read another person at all.

Rowan mentally runs through his aftercare checklist.

Unbind… get him comfortable… talk him down… soft touches… hydrate… shower… walk… diner….

He cups Mal’s cheek, the skin heated under his palm, and swipes away a bead of sweat trickling down from his temple.

And he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help dipping down and brushing his lips against Mal’s damp hairline, lower lip catching a stray droplet of sweat poised to fall.

“Did so good, Mal,” he tells him, voice low and tone—hopefully—soothing. Rowan feels like a broken record with the number of times he’s said that tonight. “Listened and did everything I asked.” He brushes the longer locks of Mal’s hair away from his face. “Asked for what you wanted.” He rubs each of Mal’s wrists in turn, though there are no visible marks from the cuffs. Presses another light kiss to the inside of his palms.

It doesn’t linger, barely more than a whisper of a press, but Mal slowly tugs his hands back to drape heavily across his chest.

Right. Despite what’s happened, they’re not there yet. Rowan has risked some small kisses to Mal’s skin in past sessions, mostly when he’s been teasing him, and almost always followed by a hard smack or thrust or bite or pinch or something to dampen it. And tonight there’s been next to nothing to dampen the action. No spanks or slaps or biting words to take away the fact that Mal broke one of his own boundaries and kissed him.

Rowan lies beside him, ignoring the stickiness on his skin and the cramp in his side, and talks him down. Watching the rise and fall of his chest and his eyes moving gently behind his eyelids. It feels exactly like it did after the gangbang. Like he’s talking with little thought behind the words, despite the fact that he’s done it multiple times now and knows more or less what to say.

Feels like he’s back at square one.

But he keeps going, making sure Mal knows that he did so well for him. That he looked gorgeous. Felt even better. He doesn’t mention the kiss. Stays far, far away from that particular subject for now.