“Don’t rush,” she murmured, pulling his hand under the silk of her robe. “I want you to learn me.”
He wasn’t used to this.
Most women he’d been with didn’t ask to be explored—they surrendered or deflected. But she? She was guiding him without directions. Letting him feel his way—literally.
“Start higher,” she said, lifting her chin and letting his hand glide from her collarbone down. “Then lower. But not where you think.”
He followed.
Her skin was soft, but it wasn’t the softness that made him pause—it was the responses. The way her shoulder twitched under a certain touch. The way her stomach fluttered when he passed a particular spot, just left of center.
She watched him. Not with judgment—but with interest. Like she was waiting to see if he’d pay attention.
And he did.
He listened not to her words, but to her body. To the breath she held when he found a ridge beneath her ribs. To the moan she stifled when his thumb grazed the inside of her thigh—but stayed north.
He thought he’d found her before.
He hadn’t.
Not until now.
Because there was a place—hidden under expectation, beneath her daily armor—where she kept the version of herself that no man had bothered to find.
She didn’t want friction. She wanted discovery.
And tonight, for the first time, she let someone in—slowly, deliberately, fully.
Not because he was perfect.
But because he listened.