Sleep, sweet girl… (Last scene)

January 22

The room has gone quiet now, except for the soft rhythm of our breathing and the occasional creak of the old bedframe as it settles under our weight.

She’s curled against my chest, one leg thrown over mine, the silk still loosely d***d around her wrists like a bracelet she doesn’t want to take off. Her skin is fever-hot, sticky with sweat and everything else we’ve left on each other. Those black heels are finally off—tumbled somewhere near the foot of the bed—and her bare feet are tucked under the sheet I pulled up over us half an hour ago. I can feel the faint tremor in her thighs every time she shifts; little aftershocks that haven’t quite left her yet.

I stroke slow circles between her shoulder blades with my thumb. She makes a small, contented sound against my collarbone—half sigh, half purr—and presses her face closer, like she’s trying to crawl inside my skin.

“You okay, baby girl?” I murmur into her hair. It’s damp at the roots, smells like sex and her vanilla shampoo.

She nods against me. Then, after a long beat: “More than okay.”

Her voice is wrecked—husky, raw from all the crying out she did. I like the sound of it. Proof she gave me everything.

I tilt her chin up with two fingers. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, still a little glassy, but clearer now. The blindfold is long gone, tossed onto the nightstand. When she looks at me there’s no haze left, just that soft, trusting glow that always hits me square in the chest after we’ve gone this deep.

“You were perfect,” I tell her. Not praise for praise’s sake. Truth. “Took everything I gave you. Begged so sweetly. Came so hard I thought you were gonna break the headboard.”

A tiny, shy smile curves her lips. She ducks her head again, pressing a kiss to the center of my chest.

“I wanted to be good for you,” she whispers. “I always want to be good for you.”

Fuck. There it is—that quiet, earnest thing she does that unravels me every time.

I roll us so she’s underneath me again, but gentle this time. No urgency. Just weight and warmth. I brace on my forearms so I’m not crushing her, then lower my mouth to hers. Slow kiss. Deep. The kind that says thank you and I’ve got you and you’re mine without needing words.

When I pull back she’s looking up at me like I’m the safest place she knows.

“I love you,” she says. Simple. No preamble. Just the truth slipping out like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

My throat tightens. I don’t say it back right away—not because I don’t feel it, but because sometimes the words feel too small for what this is. Instead I kiss her forehead, her closed eyelids, the tip of her nose. Then her mouth again, softer.

“I love you too, baby girl,” I finally say against her lips. “More than you know.”

She sighs—long, happy, like something inside her just unclenched—and melts deeper into the mattress.

We stay like that for a while. No more fucking. No more orders. Just skin on skin, her heartbeat steady against mine, my fingers tracing lazy patterns on her back until her breathing evens out into the slow, deep rhythm of someone finally drifting toward sleep.

I don’t move. Don’t want to. I just hold her while the room gets darker, while the city noise outside fades to nothing.

She’s safe. Sated. Marked inside and out.

And tomorrow—when the rope burns have faded to faint pink lines, when the sheets are in the wash, when she wakes up sore and smiling—she’ll still look at me the same way.

Like I’m hers as much as she’s mine.

Like this is exactly where we’re supposed to be.

I press one last kiss to the top of her head.

“Sleep, sweet girl,” I whisper.

She hums something soft and incoherent, already half gone.

And for the first time all night, I let myself relax completely.

Because she’s right here.

And we’re not finished—not really.

We’re just beginning the part that lasts.