Gwenaëlle levers herself up and twists and he inadvertently groans at the movement, almost slipping out of her. He has to stop and remember how to talk, when all he wants to do is move. This remains one of the only ways to shut him up; to finally turn his brain off, to drown out that never-ending perpetual ticking in the back of his head.

“I’m— fine, it’s fine, just, unexpected,” Stephen says, which is the truth. He runs his thumb along the edge of her hip, silent acknowledgment, reassurance; and then sees the wings quivering, the strain to keep them in place and out of the way.

He exhales, and says to her over her shoulder, “I want you to be comfortable.”

Not tense, not focused so wholly on controlling the wings that it distracts from her own pleasure —