What followed was intimate the way true tenderness is: unhurried, fierce in its softness. Conley’s hands moved with the precision of the man who’d spent a life mastering rhetoric and law, but tonight his hands were practiced at another craft—mending the small frayed places inside me. He kissed me slow enough that the taste of whiskey lingered and then shifted into heat that had nothing to do with duty. Angel’s touch was warm, curious, and steady; she guided the spaces where my tension lived and taught me to let go.
We made love like three people who had learned to trust each other with nuance—no rush, no need to prove ownership, only the desire to be seen and held. There were whispered names and small requests, breaths that answered like punctuation. Conley’s mouth found the place beneath
