Not then, anyway.
Indy knelt up on the couch, arranging herself just as he’d ordered. He heard her breath leave her in a little sigh as she ran her hands down her thighs, then tracked her way up again. Then, holding his gaze again, she trailed her fingers up the length of her torso until she found her own nipples.
He expected her to say something. Something racy, no doubt, but all she did was hold his gaze.
Just as he’d demanded.
Then she played with herself, her hair tumbled all around her and her eyes big, wide, and hot on his.
And Stefan was hard. He was always hard when she was around, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst was his heart. This last month had made it grow in ways he would have thought impossible had he not lived through it.
Now it beat, didn’t it. For her.
Only and ever for her.
And she was still the most perfect thing he had ever beheld. There wasn’t a single part of her he hadn’t tasted, touched, studied, and made his own. She was his in every possible way. He’d seen to that.
But she was the only one who didn’t seem to know it.
Slowly, still obediently holding his gaze, she let her hands move down her body again, settling them between her thighs.
And then, slowly, she began to rock. She thrust her hips into her own palms, again and again. Stefan thought it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. He saw as she stopped worrying about him and tuned into her own need.
Because she began to pant, her hands moving faster and her hips thrusting, while her wide brown eyes became glassy.
But still she worked, until her skin began to glow from her exertion, and it took everything in him to stay where he was. To stay seated, watching her put on a show.
A show just for him.
Stefan knew that in the days to come, this is what he would hold on to. Indy, so wild and so abandoned, doing as he asked because he’d asked it. Because she wanted to do it. His beautiful Indiana, finding her own heat. He loved the flush on her cheeks and, as she got closer and closer, the way that same flush rolled down her neck until even her breasts looked rosy.
He loved the unmarred perfection of her flesh, when, if asked, he would have said that not only did he generally prefer a woman with tattoos but that Indy seemed the type to have a vast selection of them.
But she didn’t. As if she knew, somehow, that no matter how depraved or debauched she might become of an evening, she would always look untouched.
It was mouthwatering.
He loved the way her hair moved with her, and his fingers itched to bury themselves in all that dark silk.
His beautiful girl. His perfect match.
And when she came, she tilted her head back, letting her scream come out like a song.
He let her sob. He fought to catch his own breath. And when she lifted her hands, still shaking everywhere, he crooked his finger at her.
She was still gasping for breath as she moved, coming over to stand before him, shuddering again when he pulled her into his lap.
Stefan was painfully hard, but he did nothing about it. He only held her there, licking her fingers clean as she nestled into him.
And then trying to control the thunderstorm where his heart should be as she drifted off into sleep.
He knew, intellectually, that the day was no longer or shorter than any other. It was a day; that was all. Yet still he would have sworn that this one was the fastest that had ever been.
He cooked as night fell, because it was the only thing he could do. He fed her, then fucked her, but as the night wore on he took her upstairs, spread her out on his bed, and held her to him.
She fell asleep almost instantly. But he refused to give in to any slumber. Not tonight.
He knew that he could have woken her at any point, and that they were so attuned to each other by this time that no matter how tired she was, her body would answer his. With that same joy that marked each and every time they’d come together.
His cock was hard and ready, and more than willing.
But still, Stefan only held her close. And stayed awake, because he wanted to remember every breath. Every small little noise she made as she burrowed deeper into him.
He thought of all things he’d lost, one after the next. His mother and grandmother. The father he should have had, who he’d seen glimpses of now and then, which it only made the reality of his father he actually had worse.
He thought of the things he’d given away, and more, the many things that had been taken from him.
All of it, all the things he’d considered his whole life before her seemed to fade away. He would live without her, because he would have no choice.
But he didn’t fucking want to.
Stefan knew that living without her, waiting for her, was the only possible way to win her in the end. Because he knew her now.
And because he knew her, it wasn’t surprising in the least that she’d decided she needed to pursue whatever passion she wanted. Or that she would use that passion, whatever it was, as a way to put space between them. The truth was, he’d expected her to fight more against the intimacy he’d asked for here.
Instead, in true Indy style, she’d given him everything.
Was that worse or better, in the end? He couldn’t tell. Maybe he would be better suited to handle her departure now if he didn’t know how perfectly they fit together.
“I will remember this,” he promised her sleeping form. “I will remember everything.”
She had not merely become a part of him, as the overwrought
