Through the blur, I see his face, familiar and dark. I take it into my hands, feeling his warmth, the soft, scarred flesh, thumbs on lips, lips on lips, the salt of tears as we kiss. I push away his shirt, popping the buttons when I slide my hands underneath to touch him, needing his skin, needing to burrow closer, kissing him while my fingers brush over years-old scars. I want them to become familiar. I want to memorize them. To know the past the ink hides. To see the broken man hidden beneath.

He draws back, but I pull at him. I need to be close. To touch him. To feel him.

“I need you,” I manage.

He hesitates, but a moment later, he slips the nightgown I’m wearing over my head. I’m naked and shivering until he takes me into his arms again, skin on skin, his shirt gone, ripped away, my hands on his face as I memorize his eyes, feel the stubble that grows on the un-inked side of his face. My gaze follows the path of my own hands over his neck, shoulders, chest as he lays me on my back and straddles me, keeping his weight on his forearms while my fingers trace over skin and scars and ink.

I see the bandages that circle my wrists before I close my eyes and feel him kiss me, kiss my face, my neck, my breasts. I wrap my legs around him, wanting him inside me. Needing him inside me.

He draws back just a little, eyes locked on mine, and I hear the buckle of his belt, the zipper of his pants, and then he’s at my entrance. I draw in a rattling breath, and I watch him as he pushes inside me, watch how his eyes shift, darken, pupils dilated, skin flushed, mouth open just a little as he dips his head down to kiss me, gentle at first, then as the fucking grows more frantic, teeth scraping teeth as he says my name again and again like he needs this too, as much as I do.

One hand wraps around the top of my head, and the other closes over my shoulder. His eyes lock on mine with the final thrusts, and when we come, it’s a deep, slow thing, not frantic, not hurried, neither of us taking but instead giving, and I feel tears again sliding down over my temples when he kisses me, the thudding organ inside my chest not twisting but something else, something different.