Page 67 of Hollowed

No ritual. No performance.

Just the quiet of knowing he had fucked me slowly, reverently, held my wrists in ribbon, whispered nothing, and still told me everything.

“Let me,” I said.

He didn’t ask what.

He didn’t move.

But when I reached for his hand, he gave it to me.

Rough. Calloused. Strong in the way stone is strong.

I held it in both of mine. Brought it to my mouth.

Kissed each knuckle.

One by one.

Not like a girl who had been ruined.

Like a woman who remembered every bruise, and thanked him for it.

“You keep washing me,” I said. “Let me wash you.”

His breath caught.

Not loudly.

But I felt it. In his fingers. In the silence that followed.

He let me.

He let me bring the cloth and the basin and kneel beside him.

He let me remove what was left of his robe.

He let me see him—not the man who took, but the one who had once been told never to be touched again.

I wiped the sweat from his chest.

The blood from his lip where he’d bitten it while inside me.

The wax that had dried into the curve of his hip.

I pressed the cloth to the lines carved into his ribs.

He didn’t flinch.

But I saw him shake.

“You always look like you’re bracing to be hurt,” I whispered.

He looked at me then.

And said nothing.

Because it was true.

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