The sheets are cool against your skin, even with the fire low and flickering at the far wall. He doesn’t like heat. You learned that early on—he sleeps uncovered, if he sleeps at all, lying still like marble under silk.

Beside you, Tom breathes slow and even, his chest rising in the calm rhythm of someone untouched by the moment you’re still caught in. You lie there, bare, aching, marked. Not in bruises or kisses—he’s too precise for that. But in absence.

You cling to these moments. Because for you, they mean something. For him, they’re permitted.

Sex was never something he needed. You know that. He could go without it for weeks, months, maybe years, and never seem to notice. But sometimes—when the world is quiet, and you’ve been good, obedient, silent when he needed silence and sharp when he needed steel—he’ll let it happen.

He lets you happen.

You still remember what he said the first time. “Pleasure is a distraction, not a weakness. But distractions must be earned.”

And you earned it tonight. You always do.

He lies with one arm folded under his head, staring at the ceiling, utterly unbothered by the vulnerability of the moment. Or maybe he just doesn’t believe in it. To him, closeness is proximity. It’s not feeling. It’s not love.

You do not speak. Not yet. If you speak too soon, it will ruin everything.

Eventually, his voice cuts the quiet.

“That is enough, is it not?”

Not cruel. Not cold. Just… done.

You nod, though he’s not looking. You’ve trained yourself not to expect more. You’ve trained yourself to believe the silence that follows is a kind of intimacy. That the fact he doesn’t send you away means something. That the permission to stay is a kind of love.

You turn to face him, even though he still faces the ceiling.

“I love you,” you whisper.

The words hang there. Not daring. Not demanding. Just honest. Desperate in their softness.

He blinks, slowly. No sharp breath. No flinch. No reply.

Of course not.

He does not love. He will never love. And still—you do.

So you lie back down, curling slightly toward him, not close enough to touch. Because this is what love looks like, when only one of you feels it.

And you’ll take it. Because he lets you.