Whole

"So what were you thinking about?" he asks, settling me in his arms, his voice in my ear and his hands wandering.
"Nothing coherant. Flashes of memories."
"Such as?"
It's my own game turned back on me; I want to squirm out from under the question, but I hate it when he does. So:
"Kept coming back to those wonderful kisses of yours. The ones soft enough to drown in. And the sound of your voice last night, when you said..."

He chuckles, squeezes me, runs his hand down my stomach. "What else." The hand edges my thighs apart, finds my clit, begins the lovely tease.

"The first time I noticed the curve of her leg from hip to knee to ankle. The first time we were like this. Your teeth in my shoulder. A few memories that would make you twitch to hear."

His wandering hand doesn't stop, doesn't even pause, but the other one finds one of mine, catches, squeezes. "Them too."
"You sure?"
"Mmhm."
And I exhale hard, but I'm caught. One hand won't let me retreat to curl up around things that still ache sometimes, but the other won't let me fall, won't let me down. So.

"The way the bedclothes looked and felt like clouds, the way the rest of the world ceased to exist outside the borders of the mattress, except for sun pouring through the window and the warmth of his skin.
The sound he made when I took his nipple ring between my teeth and pulled."
(He laughs, and I'm relieved enough to continue.)
"Beardburn and warmth and the most improbable tangle of limbs.
The way all of you have bitched about my squirming away."
(more laughter, warm. Oh thank God.)
"And the way he solved the problem, when his mouth was on me, by sliding one thumb inside and pinning me to the bed by it."
"Like this?" my treasure asks, testing the gesture, and just like that I'm dropped into that warm, minimalist room in my head, a biddable and cherished girl.
"Yes. Like that."

And on. And on...
(The last time a man asked me to tell him all of what was in my head and I did, he curled up into a tiny ball and shunned me. "I love you," he'd said, "but you won't let me know you." So I tried. And he wanted nothing to do with me until I could go back to being the girl he was comfortable with.)
With every word, I'm afraid of the same thing from Tesoro mio, but it just doesn't happen. We wander into mental territory I haven't even fully explored, and he's beside me the whole time, yes, keep going. Steadfast.

As I'm coming unglued in his arms, it strikes me: he wants me whole, and he wants all of me.
And he can take it.
He amazes me.

"I know who you come home to," he says afterward. "I know who you've chosen. I know who you want.
It's easier to hear things that happened before we got together. It's easier."

Thank you.