"Only the sins themselves were done by another body in the room. Everything else was...just the room."
All those shallower little cuts, those bits and pieces scattered that showed where hesitation had happened, were just a show of the violence of this place rather than the sadism of someone he had been trapped with. Caleb would have suffered them willingly for Essek, but he wasn't sure he could have suffered Essek subjected to either side of it.
He was prepared to say it, to confess that, when the washcloth moved from his skin. Essek's palm was damp, or Caleb's was, or it didn't matter.
The kiss was gentler than the one a month ago had been, almost chaste, for a moment. Caleb saw it coming, that slow lean in like the gravity had shifted. He tilted his head slightly, aching, sore cheek into the touch there so that the kiss could be just a touch more intent without it being harder or deeper.
no subject
All those shallower little cuts, those bits and pieces scattered that showed where hesitation had happened, were just a show of the violence of this place rather than the sadism of someone he had been trapped with. Caleb would have suffered them willingly for Essek, but he wasn't sure he could have suffered Essek subjected to either side of it.
He was prepared to say it, to confess that, when the washcloth moved from his skin. Essek's palm was damp, or Caleb's was, or it didn't matter.
The kiss was gentler than the one a month ago had been, almost chaste, for a moment. Caleb saw it coming, that slow lean in like the gravity had shifted. He tilted his head slightly, aching, sore cheek into the touch there so that the kiss could be just a touch more intent without it being harder or deeper.