“But control, he knew, was never the absence of feeling.”

All the wanting he had trained himself to cage—all the love he’d learned to ration, the restraint, the withheld confession he would never voice—poured through his fingers and pressed into her instead. This was controlled. But control, he knew, was never the absence of feeling. It was containment. And containment, held too long, seeks an outlet. His breathing changed. She softened beneath him. That was the moment.