POV Owen
I watch Noelle before I touch her.
Not the way I used to—hungry, unguarded, already reaching. I watch her like someone studying the moment before a storm, trying to decide whether it’s safer to step inside or stay where the ground still feels solid.
She feels it immediately. “You’re staring,” she says, not unkindly, but there’s an edge beneath it now. Awareness. And expectation.
“I’m looking,” I reply.
“That’s different,” she says.
I don’t contradict her. I step closer instead, letting my presence do the work words would only complicate. She tilts her head slightly, eyes tracking me, waiting. That’s the part that twists something inside my chest—she’s waiting for something she knows I’m holding back.
“You don’t have to wait,” I say. “For me to decide how close to get.”
Her lips part, then press together again. “That’s not how this used to work.”
“I know.”
She studies my face like she’s trying to read a language I’ve started speaking less fluently. “Then why does it feel like you’re punishing me for it?”
I scoff quietly. “You think this is punishment?”
“I think it’s distance dressed up as control,” she replies.
The words land hard. Too close to the truth. I reach for her then, grip firm at her waist, guiding her backward without asking. She goes willingly, but her eyes never leave mine.
“You like it when I take charge,” I say.
“I like it when you want me,” she answers.
The distinction matters more than she knows. I kiss her—deep, deliberately rougher than I’ve allowed myself lately. Her breath catches, her hands fisting in my shirt, and for a moment the familiar rhythm returns.
Dominance. Response. Power exchanged without discussion. But something is off.
I’m aware of myself in a way I never used to be—watching from a distance even as my body moves. I see her face, flushed, searching, and the guilt slides in sharp and unwelcome.
She’s looking at me like I’m withholding oxygen.
“Owen,” she murmurs, not pleading, but close. “Look at me.”
I don’t let her finish. I don’t want to hear it. I guide her down, movements confident, unmistakably dominant. My tone shifts without permission, harder, colder.
“Stay still,” I tell her.
She obeys—and that obedience sends a dark, familiar thrill through me. The part of me that wakes up at that sensation doesn’t belong to the man Noelle fell in love with. It belongs to the man I used to be, the one who never questioned whether he deserved to be obeyed.
The problem is how easily he steps forward now.
“You’re being rough,” she says quietly.
“You don’t sound like you want me to stop.”
Her gaze flickers. “I want you to see me.”
I freeze for half a second too long. That’s when the images intrude—not as fantasies, not as intention, but as memory and instinct tangled together.
Miranda’s certainty. Lucille’s composure cracking, slowly, beautifully.
I see their bodies right here. They act, they are present. They ask me to take them! They never ask to be careful with them. This scene before my eyes excites me.
I push it down hard and lean closer to Noelle, my voice low, controlled. “Look at me.”
She does. “What do you see?” I ask.
Her voice wavers just slightly. “Someone who’s holding himself back.”
That’s the moment I lose my patience.
I kiss her again, harder, biting back the urge to demand, to take more than she’s offering. The urge isn’t about her. I see Miranda before my eyes. It’s about reclaiming a version of myself that didn’t hesitate.
She responds, but I can feel the difference in it now—the way her hands tighten, then loosen, uncertain. She’s adapting to me instead of meeting me.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says softly, almost to herself.
“Do what?” I ask. I keep moving, harder and deeper, throwing my body on her again and again.
“Be someone you think you need to be,” she is breathing heavily, her words turn into moansю “With me.”
I pull back enough to look at her. “You think I don’t know who I am? Look!”
I straighten, creating space. The dominance drains out of the room, leaving behind something awkward and unfinished.
She sits up slowly, drawing the sheet around herself, eyes never leaving mine. “You were rude,” she says, not accusing, just stating a fact.
“I know.”
“And you liked it,” she adds. I don’t deny it.
She studies me like she’s trying to decide whether to reach or retreat. “I don’t need you to be perfect,” she says. “I need you to be honest.”
I run a hand through my hair, frustration coiling tight in my chest. “I don’t know how to give you what you’re asking for without losing control.”
She laughs softly, without humor. “You think I haven’t noticed that’s what you’re afraid of?”
Silence settles between us, thick and unresolved.
“I feel like I’m standing in front of you,” she continues, “and you’re looking past me. Like there’s something else in the room.”
There is. And I hate myself for it.
“I’m tired,” I say finally.
She nods. “So am I.”
We lie down without touching, the space between us louder than any argument. I stare at the ceiling, my mind replaying moments I don’t want to own—how easily dominance came back, how quickly guilt followed, how vividly the past asserted itself.
I didn’t imagine them with her the way my mind threatens to frame it later. Not in detail. Not in action.
Just in presence. Just in the way they never asked me to soften. That’s the part that scares me.
Noelle turns onto her side, back to me. “Goodnight, Owen.”
“Goodnight,” I reply.
Sleep doesn’t come. Somewhere between guilt and desire, I realize something I don’t yet know how to say out loud:
I don’t know how to give her what she’s waiting for without becoming someone she might not survive loving. I thought of other women while being inside of her…
I don’t know how long I can keep pretending that distance is control—
instead of fear wearing a familiar shape.