The deep, resonant quiet of the late evening had settled over her apartment, a stark contrast to the frantic beeps and urgent voices that had filled their day. She was already half-asleep, curled on her side in the center of her bed, when she felt Joel’s weight settle behind her. He didn’t speak, simply fitting his larger body against her back, his chest a warm, solid wall against her spine. His arm came around her, his hand splaying possessively over her stomach, holding her close.

Then, his touch began. His fingers, so skilled and precise in the OR, started a slow, deliberate journey up her spine, tracing the knobs of bone through her thin sleep shirt.

“Hyoid,” Joel murmured, his voice a low, gravelly whisper right by her ear, his lips brushing her hair. He was naming the bones, not as a surgeon, but as a man in awe. His finger gently stroked the delicate curve at the top of her spine. “Cervical.”

His touch was a hypnotic rhythm, a gentle pressure that seemed to sink deep into her muscles, coaxing out the last remnants of the day’s tension. She felt herself melting back against him, her body becoming pliant and heavy.

“Thoracic,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower, becoming a hushed, intimate sound meant only for her in the dark. His hand moved with a profound tenderness, his thumb rubbing a slow circle over her shirt as he named each segment of her core. It was a litany of care, a whispered devotion to the very structure that held her up all day.

By the time his tracing fingers reached the gentle curve at the small of her back, her breathing had evened out into the deep, slow rhythm of impending sleep. “Lumbar,” he breathed out, the word barely audible. He shifted just enough to press a soft, lingering kiss to the slope of her shoulder. Cradled completely in his arms, named and known, she finally drifted off, feeling utterly safe and profoundly cherished.