She heard his breathing change behind her.

She turned around.

He was looking at the table with dark eyes and a jaw that was no longer tight in the way it had been tight all day. Tight in a different way now. The anticipation of someone who trusted completely what was coming.

"Stand up," she said.

He stood.

She crossed to him and reached up and unbuttoned his shirt slowly, her fingers unhurried, and pushed it off his shoulders and let it fall. She ran her hands over his chest — not sexual yet, just present, grounding — and felt him breathe under her palms.

"Arms behind your back," she...