Page 123 of Unclench Me Softly

“It’s got wings,” I say, trying for casual, failing spectacularly. “Obviously.”

He smiles again, closer now, walking toward me like he belongs here, and sits beside me with the kind of easy, unbothered grace that makes my heart thump against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.

And then, his tone shifts. Not much. Just a little. Just enough to tilt the air between us into something thicker, something sweeter, something terrifyingly electric.

He picks up the journal, still looking at the page, still smiling that soft, reverent smile, and says, casual, sweet, lethal, “Do you ever draw what you want?”

I blink at him, slow, stunned, already a little ruined without him even touching me.

“What do you mean?” I ask, voice thinner than it should be.

He turns the journal toward me, one hand steady, one finger tapping against one of the cocks, gilded, sparkly, majestic as a sacred monument to my spiritual collapse.

“This one,” he says, voice deceptively light. “Is this… aspirational? Or a memory?”

I just stare at him, mouth open, air stuck somewhere between a laugh and a prayer.

And he meets my gaze, steady, soft, and somehow burning from underneath, like a match held too long but refusing to let go. “Because I’ve been trying to be respectful,” he says, low and even, like he’s reading a confession written directly into my skin, “But I think about you. All the time. In that dome. On that floor. On your knees.”

My breath catches. Loud. Embarrassing.

He doesn’t smile, doesn’t flinch, just watches me fall apart like it’s his sacred calling. “And I want you to know,” he murmurs, leaning closer, “If you let me touch you, if you let me have you, I’m not going to be soft.”

My thighs press together instinctively, helplessly, spiritually.

His voice drops lower, darker, deliciously dangerous. “I’ll worship you. I’ll praise you. I’ll hold you when it’s over. But when I fuck you, Bliss...” He leans in, so close my whole body is vibrating on a subatomic level, and finishes, almost gently, “You won’t be able to draw straight lines for days.”

And just like that, the sweet one becomes the storm.

I don’t know when he took the journal out of my hands.

I don’t know when he set it aside, or when my robe slipped lower, or when the air inside the dome became so thick with wanting that I felt like I was floating through it, like every breath was syrupy and sacred and dangerously combustible.

I only know this, Asher is no longer just the sweet one.

He’s the patient one, the planning one, the one who’s been watching, waiting, while the others moved faster, rougher, louder.

And now he’s here, beside me, still not touching, not yet, but his gaze alone is doing things to my body I didn’t even know eyes could do.

“You think you know what I am,” he murmurs, voice low enough to vibrate against my ribs, eyes flicking to my lips like he’s already claimed them, “But Bliss… I’ve been soft because you needed softness.”

He leans in, kisses the edge of my jaw, just once, just enough to leave an imprint I’ll feel for days, and when he pulls back, his smile is gone, replaced by something deeper. Older. Infinitely more dangerous. “But that’s not all I am.”

He stands, smooth and sure, and reaches for my hand, pulling me up with terrifying gentleness, like I might shatter if he touched me wrong.

And then he says it. Low. Calm. “Take off the robe.”

I freeze. I can’t move. Can’t think.

The air between us crackles, hot and sharp as a ritual blade.

He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. He just drops it, lower, deeper, softer, and that drop hits me harder than a shout ever could. “Take. It. Off.”

My hands are moving before my mind catches up, trembling slightly as I push the robe off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor like it was never really mine to begin with.

He steps behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him even before he touches me. And then he presses his chest to my back, like he’s claiming space I didn’t even know I had left to surrender.

His hands slide around my waist, palms hot and sure, fingers dragging along my skin with a reverence that feels nothing like patience and everything like possession.

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