The sheets were still tangled with heat when you stirred awake. Richard’s side of the bed was already empty, the dent of his body cooling. He was a creature of habit—up before dawn, gone before you could whisper for him to stay. The faint slam of the door had been your alarm.

On the nightstand, tucked beneath your phone, was an envelope. Your name, printed in his careful, blocky handwriting.

You sat up, his shirt slipping down your shoulder, and tore it open. The lined paper smelled faintly of him—soap, starch, something darker. His handwriting pressed deep, as if he’d carved the words instead of writing them.

I don’t know how to start this without saying the obvious: last night is still in my body. My hands remember your skin, the warmth of you against me. My mouth remembers the sound you made when I kissed the inside of your thigh. I’ve been carrying that with me all morning. It makes it hard to breathe straight.

I’ve read a hundred letters from men locked away, trying to put their need into words. I never thought I’d be one of them. But you—God, you make me want to write. You make me want to remember everything: the way your back arched under my hand, the way you pulled me deeper like you’d never let me go.

I wanted to stay. I wanted to hold you until the sun came up, to make love to you slow in the morning light. But the job calls, like it always does. So I’m leaving this instead. Read it and know that I’m still with you, even sitting in a gray room with fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.

I’ll want you again tonight. More than last night. Don’t doubt that. Don’t doubt me.

—Richard

Your breath caught as the paper slid from your hands. Richard Munoz wasn’t a man of words—at least, not spoken ones. But here, in his rough handwriting, he was stripped bare. Honest. Hungry. Yours.

You folded the letter carefully and stared at the phone. He wouldn’t have his cell in the prison, but you knew the office line he sometimes used. The one he’d told you not to call unless it was important.

Your pulse thrummed as you dialed.

The line clicked after three rings. “Letter room. Munoz.” His voice was low, clipped, all business.

“Richard,” you said softly.

A pause, then a sigh, almost inaudible. “…You got it.”

“I got it,” you echoed. “Your letter. You trying to kill me before breakfast?”

A chuckle, rough and restrained. “Figured it’d hold you over till tonight.”

“Hold me over? Richard, I’ve read it three times already. I don’t think I’m supposed to blush this much alone in bed.”

There was the scrape of a chair, the shuffle of him turning away from the room. His voice dropped, gruffer. “Don’t talk like that while I’m sitting here in uniform.”

“Why not?” you teased. “You started it. Writing about my back, my thighs—”

“Querida.” His voice cracked on the word, warning and wanting at once. “Don’t.”

You smiled into the receiver. “I’ll be waiting tonight. And I don’t want restraint.”

A beat of silence, his breath ragged against the hum of the line. Then: “You’ll get it. Every word I wrote, I’ll make good on. But I can’t… not here.”

“I know,” you said gently. “I’ll let you go. But Richard?”

“Yeah.”

“Next time, don’t just write it. Show me.”

His exhale shuddered through the line. “…Count on it.”

The call ended with a sharp click. You stayed there a while, the dial tone buzzing in your ear, the letter clutched in your hand.

The rest of the day unraveled slowly, every hour strung taut with anticipation. Tonight, there would be no uniforms, no locked doors. Tonight, there would only be Richard—his body, his hands, his mouth—making good on every promise he dared to put on paper.