Loxley's hands come down to rest on the backs of her thighs, articulate points of contact where fingertips gently dimple her skin. Like the potential to do more is there, to lift or to pull or anything, but held in reserve and just feeling as she tips herself in by those fractions.

Between them, the air feels close and warm, and his skin hot. There'd been a sketch of a smile at her first answer, distracted. And then her softer question, and his hands squeeze her, needful, not quite conscious. The next twist of her hand gets a noise out of him, quiet and broken off, and the slight push of her thighs under her, knees raising an inch as tension strings through him.

"Yes," he says. No line, this time. Something luxurious in this pace, yes, but also something risky, vulnerable, in allowing him to be driven to a point in the midst of this all.