My princess

chapter five

Tom

I woke up before the alarm.

That had become a habit lately — lying in the dark, listening to her breathe, counting the seconds between each exhale like if I stopped, she would too. She was curled on her side, facing away from me, and I wanted to pull her in so badly my hands actually moved. Then stopped.

I couldn't.

I didn't know how to explain it — this thing sitting in my chest every time I looked at her. It wasn't disgust. God, it was never disgust. It was something closer to terror. Like if I touched her wrong, reached for her the wrong way, I'd break something that was already barely holding together. Like my hands were the problem and she deserved better than my hands right now.

So I got up instead.

Made coffee. Stood by the window. Watched the street wake up without me.

I called my boss at seven.

Told him I wasn't coming in. He asked if everything was alright and I said yes because I didn't have the words for what everything actually was. He said fine, take the day, and I hung up and stood in the kitchen for a long moment just breathing.

Then I cleaned.

Not because the flat was dirty — Liya kept things tidy even when she was hurting, which said everything about her and broke me a little every time I noticed. I cleaned because I needed something to do with my hands. Something useful. Something that wasn't lying in bed counting her exhales or replaying the hospital or thinking about last night — her in my shirt, legs out, eyes careful and wanting, and me stepping back like a coward wearing the face of a good man.

I'm really tired, princess.

I'd said it softly. Like softness made it less of a lie.

When the flat was done I cooked. Nothing complicated — just breakfast, the kind she liked, eggs and toast ,and the good butter she pretended not to care about. I set the table properly. Poured juice. Stood back and looked at it and thought — this is the least you could do. This is nothing. Do better.

I heard her bedroom door before I saw her.

Slow footsteps. Then ,a pause at the kitchen entrance.

I turned and found her standing there in her sleep clothes, hair loose, eyes still soft from sleep — and then her face changed. Brows pulling together. Something between surprise and confusion crossing her expression.

She frowned.

And I felt it land somewhere beneath my ribs like a stone dropping into still water. Not anger. Not hurt. Just — guilt. Heavy and specific and entirely deserved. Because that frown wasn't confusion. It was why are you here. It was I stopped expecting you. It was every morning I'd left before she woke up, every plate I hadn't touched, every night I'd turned away distilled into one small expression she didn't even know she was making.

I had done that.

I had made her stop expecting me.

"Morning," I said. Like that was enough. Like that covered any of it.

She blinked. Looked at the table. Looked back at me.

"Sit," I said quietly. "I cooked."

We ate in silence.

Not the comfortable kind. The kind that sits between two people who have things to say and no idea how to start. I watched her from the corner of my eye — the way she ate slowly, carefully, like she was somewhere else in her head. I wanted to reach across the table and touch her hand. I didn't.

Then she spoke.

"Not going to work today?"

She still wasn't looking at me. Eyes down, fork moving something small around her plate.

"No," I said. Almost immediately. Then softer — "I want to spend the day with you. My princess."

Something moved across her face. Too quick for me to catch. She didn't answer.

She just finished eating.

When she reached for her plate I was already standing.

"Let me."

I took the empty plate from her before she could argue — took mine too, and stood at the sink with my back to her and did the dishes while she sat at the table and said nothing. I focused on the water. The plates. The small ordinary task of it.

See, I thought. You can still do small things right.

I took a long bath after.

Sat in the hot water until my thoughts went quiet, which took longer than it should have. When I finally got out I didn't bother with much — just black shorts, still damp from the shower, hair unruly, skin warm.

I came back into the room and felt it immediately.

Her eyes.

I didn't look up. I didn't have to. I could feel the weight of her gaze moving across my shoulders, my chest, tracking me the way it used to — open and hungry and completely unguarded, the way she looked at me when she forgot to be careful.

She still wanted me.

The realisation didn't feel like relief. It felt like standing at the edge of something and finally being honest about how long I'd been standing there.

A smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth before I could stop it.

I didn't let her see it.

But God — I felt it.

I sat beside her on the couch.

Close. Deliberately, pointedly close — close enough that she had to know I was doing it on purpose. I dropped my arm over her shoulder like it was nothing.

She was up before I finished the motion.

One sharp look — eyes full of something between fury and hurt — and she moved to the other end of the couch without a word. Spine straight. Chin up. The silent language of a woman who had decided she was done making the first move.

Fair enough.

I followed her.

She didn't look at me when I settled beside her again, but I could see the tension climbing her neck, the way her jaw tightened. I leaned in slow and bit her ear — light, barely anything — then let my lips drag down to her neck, finding the spot just below her jaw that I knew too well. I kissed it. Sucked it slow.

She leaned in.

Then caught herself and shifted away.

Still angry. Good. Anger meant she still cared enough to be.

I closed the distance again, this time letting my finger trace from her chin downward — slow, deliberate — down her throat, her collarbone, following the line of her until I reached the neck of her shirt. My other hand slid beneath the fabric. Found her breast. Squeezed softly.

Her breath hitched.

And something in my chest pulled tight, dark, hungry. f**k. That sound. I had missed that sound more than I knew how to say.

She finally looked at me.

And I kissed her.

Raw and immediate, no preamble, no softness — just her mouth and mine and everything we hadn't said in weeks colliding all at once. She bit my lip and I groaned against her, the sound low and involuntary, pulling her closer by the waist until there was nothing between us. Her hands found my shoulders. Mine found the hem of her shirt.

I latched onto her left n****e and she arched into me with a moan that broke what was left of my restraint.

My other hand found the waistband of her underwear. Slid it off.

Fuck.

She was already wet. Already. For me. After everything — after all the nights I'd turned away and the mornings I'd left and the distance I'd put between us like it was something she deserved — she was still this. Still mine. Still wanting me the way I had never once stopped wanting her.

I kissed down her stomach. Her ribs. Lower.

I tasted her slowly, deliberately, like I had something to prove — and maybe I did. Maybe this was the only language I had right now. She moaned above me and I felt it everywhere, her fingers sliding into my hair, hips rolling toward me. She tasted like her. Uniquely, entirely her. And I thought — why. Why did I make her feel like I didn't want this. Like I didn't want her.

She came against my mouth and I didn't stop until she was shaking.

When I finally pulled back I was out of my mind. Done waiting. Done holding back.

I pushed inside her slowly.

Inch by inch, watching her face the whole time, not stopping until I was completely, entirely seated inside her and the air had left both our lungs at once.

Wait. Her palm pressed flat against my stomach, right where we were joined. Don't move yet.

I stilled.

It took everything. Every single thing I had. But I stayed still and breathed and watched her adjust and didn't move because she asked me not to and she would always, always come first.

Can I move now, princess?

She nodded.

I started slow. Deep and measured, each thrust deliberate, going further each time, watching her head tip back and her lips part. Her moans filled the flat and I wanted to live inside that sound forever. I thought about the man who had taken this from her — taken her sense of safety, her body, her peace — and something cold and certain settled in my chest beneath all the heat.

I would find out what happened to him in court.

And if the sentence wasn't enough — if the law decided his freedom was worth more than what he'd done to her — then I would handle it myself. Quietly. Finally.

I thrust harder.

She came apart beneath me, walls clenching, my name somewhere in her moan, and I followed immediately — pulling out just in time, spilling across her stomach, chest heaving, vision gone white at the edges.

I stayed over her for a moment, catching my breath.

Then I looked at her.

Hair spread out. Chest rising and falling. Eyes half closed and soft in a way I hadn't seen in weeks.

I pressed my lips to her stomach. Once. Gently.

I'm sorry, I thought. I'm so sorry it took me this long.

I didn't say it out loud.

But I would. Soon.