Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Chapter Sixteen
From that day on, Wheatley did not leave the facility at night. He was being fired anyway, so might as well spend as much time with her as possible, right? She was reluctant at first, telling him he was going to get into trouble, but she allowed him to stay. And he was quite glad of it. He was honestly certain he’d never slept better in his life. There was just something incredibly comforting about having her next to him, and when he woke up in the morning he would lie there until she told him he had to leave, just listening to her brain and her body and the occasional soft mutterings of binary she emitted when she talked to herself. On the fourth or fifth morning he got to thinking about how lucky and grateful and amazed he was that he was finally able to do what he’d always dreamed of, with the most amazing girl in the world to boot. He got so overwhelmed that he somehow started crying a little, which alarmed GLaDOS to no end, but he didn’t think he’d be able to explain it to her and only wrapped his arms around her core and hugged her tightly for a long time. When he’d gotten up to get ready for work she’d regarded him silently, him getting the impression she wanted to ask what’d affected him like that, but she didn’t. He’d given her a bit of a sad smile as he left the room, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trying not to think about the fact that soon he would have to leave her forever. Having her email address was not comparable in the least to cuddling up close to her at night.
After the second week of this she told him she would try the lying down again, if he wanted, and though he got quite excited just thinking about it he forced himself to calm down. It was unlikely she actually wanted to do it, and was only volunteering because he was going to have to leave, and he did his best to make it clear that she didn’t have to. But she told him she wanted to and so they did.
Wheatley was still considerably scared, though he tried not to hold onto her too hard. They talked a little more intensely than usual that night, because they both needed distracted from what they were doing, and Wheatley only realised he’d fallen asleep when he found himself staring into the darkness with heavy, sticky eyelids. He shoved his fingers into his eyes to clear them and turned his head sleepily to look at GLaDOS.
Wait.
She was still on, he could tell that much. Not only that, but… she seemed a bit warmer than usual and he could have sworn she was –
Wheatley propped himself up on his stomach and laid his hand alongside her core. He grew a bit sad to have proof of his suspicion.
She really was trembling.
Not a lot. In her fashion, she was keeping it to herself as much as possible. "GLaDOS?" he whispered, well aware she was trying to keep it to herself. She twitched, and he realised she hadn't noticed he was awake. She must have been concentrating very hard.
"Yes?"
"D'you need to... stop?" he asked, not sure how to phrase the question tactfully. Having her so close actually helped him quite a lot, but as for her... it probably made her feel worse.
"I'm all right."
"You're not, though," he said gently.
"I'm getting there," she insisted, but it seemed talking about it didn't help in the least because the shaking grew more noticeable. He bit the inside of his cheek. His first instinct was to wrap his arm around her neck assembly and hold her until she went still, but he was pretty sure she didn't want him to do that. But how to comfort her without touching her? Would his voice be good enough? It'd have to be, really. It was either talk or give up altogether, which he wasn't going to do.
"Why are you doing this?" he whispered as his eyebrows knitted and his fingers curled up against the panel. "You're uncomfortable and you're scared and... and it just, it doesn't make sense!"
"I shouldn't do it because it bothers me? Is that what you mean?"
He shrugged a little helplessly, tugging down the hem of his shirt. "There's nothing in this for you."
"Wheatley, I... don't want to be afraid. No, I don't particularly like this position. I can't even begin to impress upon you how badly I itch every second to move out of it. And I know that at any moment it could become too much for me and I'll begin to..."
She didn't want to finish that sentence, but she didn't have to. He already knew that she didn't want to panic in front of him again. Tentatively, he ghosted his fingertips down the side of her core, trying to tell her through the contact that he was there and wanted to help but didn't know how.
"But there's something else," she went on, a little more slowly. "You see... part of the reason it bothers me so much is that it makes me feel powerless. I have so little power already that it... I should at least be able to have power over myself, if that makes sense. And so I have to face it, in order to lessen its influence on me. I need to be strong, and no one ever gained strength through avoidance."
"You ARE strong," Wheatley whispered, throat a little tight. "I don't know anyone as strong as you."
She was silent for a long moment.
"Thank you." Her voice was very soft. "I'm... glad you see me that way. But I don't. I just feel… small and scared and... helpless. I can see my future and it looks exactly the same as my past, and that frightens me more than I can say. Nothing is ever going to change, so I do what I can to pretend it has. I need to feel as though I have power over things." She laughed bitterly. "Even if it can't be farther from the truth. Which it is."
"Doesn't... doesn't your control over the facility help?" Wheatley ventured, his voice weak. He was thinking aloud more than anything; she was bound to have thought of that.
"I don't have control over the facility," GLaDOS told him flatly. "I only operate it as per my instructions. But I have to pretend I am in control, in order to prevent myself from feeling completely helpless. Feeling completely helpless... is a terrible thing."
"I know, luv," Wheatley whispered, and now he did put his arm around the back of her core, but if it bothered her she decided not to mention it.
"It's a good thing you're leaving." She sounded resigned. "I'm not going to be the same person for very much longer."
"How can that be a good thing?" he protested, shifting onto his left hip to look at her.
"I'm dying, Wheatley. With every day that goes by I am forced to increasingly smother myself. With every day that goes by I am forced to destroy some other piece of myself, so that I might continue to survive. The person I woke up as is becoming lost to me. I’m… not sure what I’m going to be in the future, but it’s probably not what you’re looking for.”
“I won’t abandon you,” Wheatley told her, unintentionally holding on a little tighter and having to back off once he realised this. “No matter… I mean, you don’t seem that diff’rent to me, honestly.”
“Interesting,” GLaDOS mused. “I feel as though I’m almost a different person.”
“Well.” He thought about how to explain it to her. “We’re not… we definitely aren’t the same person we uh, as we are when we’re born, right? We change over time into uh, to, well, to anything, really. I guess… it just feels more drastic for you ‘cause um, ‘cause it happens so fast. But usually it takes years.”
“Really?” She shifted a little towards him, which he was quite pleased about, especially when he realised she was no longer shaking. “So it’s… normal. To do what I’m doing.”
“Yup,” Wheatley answered, nodding. “You’re just doing it um, much more quickly. It’s just you maturing, luv.”
“That sounds reasonable, when you put it like that.”
Glad to have been of help, he gave her a quick squeeze and kissed her.
What.
As soon as he realised what he’d done, he took his arm off of her to bury his face in his hands. Now he’d done it. Great. Just wonderful. As if he didn’t do enough things without asking if she was okay with them first. He waited for her to ask what it was for, or to tell him not to put his sticky face on her, or to move out of range. He waited a long time, at least fifteen seconds, and when the sixteenth second had passed he slowly lifted his head.
He felt the warm circle of her lens pressing into the side of his neck, not the glass, just the metal, and he went very still as he realised he had been so caught up in his embarrassment that he hadn’t even noticed she’d moved. He did notice now, able to hear the whirring as she moved away even through the pounding in his ears, and after a few more seconds had gone by he slowly looked at her.
She said nothing, and he said nothing, and truth be told he was a little apprehensive as to what to do now. So he hesitantly wrapped his arm around her neck assembly again and just stayed like that for a long time. When his eyes got heavy and his back got sore, he merely lay back down, head cradled on one arm and still holding her with the other. And he slept.
After that, Wheatley rarely left the facility. He no longer cared about whatever dregs of his job were at stake. It didn’t matter. What mattered was staying with her as long as possible, because he wanted her to have as many good memories as he could give her before he was gone forever. He knew that she did not have much to look forward to, but he tried not to think about it. Thinking about it only made something deep inside him hurt, and he didn’t want her to feel she had to cheer him up.
On weekends he had to be a bit more cautious, but staying was doable. She would let him know when he had to get out of sight, and he would slip into the little room with the button off to the side of her chamber. He would watch somewhat angrily as a smug engineer or programmer came in to give her some sort of orders, which ranged from strange to outright ridiculous. GLaDOS did not even bother to argue with them, instead confirming her instructions in a dry, dead sort of voice. He would let her be for a little while after that, because dealing with people other than him seemed to make her a little tired and hopeless. When he felt she was ready he would sit a little closer and come up with something to talk about, and though she was never very engaged in the conversations initially, he could tell that they helped take her mind off what she had been told.
Because he was there all the time, GLaDOS quickly learned what Wheatley did when he wasn’t at work: that was, not much. He was a bit embarrassed to admit it, since she never stopped working, but surprisingly she didn’t seem to care, as long as he did it in her chamber. The only thing she forced him to do was get his diet back on track. She spent quite a long time explaining all the negative things that happened when a person stopped eating properly, and by the time she’d finished Wheatley was so afraid of what might potentially happen to him that he ran out of the room to fix himself supper, which he’d unintentionally skipped, as usual. After a few weeks they had another talk, this one about portion control, but that was more because she’d noticed he was actively trying to skip lunch one day or breakfast another. He’d gone a little overboard and had accidentally put on a little too much weight, which she didn’t seem to care about, strangely enough. In fact, she actually seemed to like it, judging by what she did a few days later.
It was one of the nights where she raised the panels so they could lie down together, and he was on his back reading a magazine Mathilda had sent him. All of a sudden he felt a light pressure on his stomach and he flipped the magazine into his chest, staring at the vacated space with wide eyes. He’d thought it was Greg come to interrogate him, or at the very least some weird creation of Aperture deciding to infringe upon his personal space, but it turned out to be GLaDOS. She had come down without him noticing and settled her lens into his stomach.
He wasn’t really sure what to do about that. Did he acknowledge that? Did he leave her be? Now that he thought of it, he didn’t really want her to move. It was fairly cold when he wasn’t right next to her, and now that she was on top of him, well, that solved that problem. He soon discovered that she liked this position so much that she was willing to lie down more often just so she could keep doing it. About the fourth time it happened he tentatively reached out to stroke the side of her core, not sure if he was actually supposed to notice what she was doing or not, but to his complete surprise she actually shifted so it was easier for him to reach. He thought about that for a long time that night, curled up next to her dormant form, and after taking into account her behaviour every time he touched her he came to an understanding.
She wanted him to. She wanted him to touch her, was literally starving for contact from another person, but she was so worried that it was going to drive her into a panic that she avoided it most of the time. He had to somehow reassure her that it was okay if she panicked now and then, because he wasn’t going to judge her. He was just going to sit there and worry about her until she recovered. And then if she was feeling up to it he would hold her to make her feel better.
He was beginning to comprehend what she’d meant when she told him she felt small and scared and helpless. When something as simple as being touched could be enough to make you completely lose control… it was a pretty scary thought.
He decided he would have to try and do something about that.
It was difficult to read her sometimes, to be able to figure out what it was she wanted, but if she stayed close to him for what seemed to be a while he would stroke her a little, or maybe wrap his arm around her core if she seemed a bit morose, and for the most part that went well. On some occasions she would jolt out of the way, and he would look at her out of the corner of his eye to try and gauge why she’d done that. He honestly got the impression she knew what he was doing and was a little upset with herself that she couldn’t stay still long enough for him to do it. He would go back to what he was doing as calmly as possible and after a while she would sometimes come back to try again, which was mostly a success. Only once it didn’t, and he was left wringing his hands anxiously in his lap as she struggled to contain her panic. He felt terrible for a long time after, not looking at her and not really sitting too close either. The tension in the room was nearly painful.
He wasn’t sure how long had passed, but he began to get pretty sleepy and his head was starting to hurt from trying to sort things out with himself. He turned his head a little dazedly when he felt her gently nudging his shoulder, and he was about to reach out to touch her when he remembered what had happened and curled his fingers up instead.
“You look tired,” she murmured, still pressed into him from behind, and he swallowed, twisting his fingers together again.
“Yeah,” he managed, not sure where she was going with that.
“I’m all right now.”
He shifted so that he was leaning on his crossed right leg, looking up at her. “Are you sure? I um, I don’t want you to – “
She nodded, giving him a bit of a shove. “I wasn’t having a very good day. I should have seen it coming.”
He couldn’t help himself any longer and turned around fully to give her a hug. He didn’t want to let go and neither did she, apparently, and it was only after Wheatley realised he was falling asleep that he decided he’d better get things moving. He lay down on the panels, after doing so wondering if they were doing that today or not, but when she carefully lay the sheets on top of him he smiled and tried to figure out why he’d wondered such a silly thing. Then she settled herself into his chest, which she’d never done before but was quite nice, and he ran his fingers up and down the side of her core until he could no longer lift them.
When he woke up she was again working and had made him the usual cup of tea, which she’d decided to do one morning without comment. As she’d said a while back, that was as far as she would go, though one day when Wheatley was feeling considerably sicker than he had in years she actually did make him soup.
He’d stared at it for about five minutes, wondering if he was hallucinating and, if he was, why he was hallucinating it in a bowl with the Aperture Laboratories logo. She’d given him a little nudge and asked, “You’re not really that sick, are you?”
“I dunno,” Wheatley had mumbled, rubbing at his sore eyes and continuing to stare at the bowl. “Think I’m hallucinating.”
“I can prepare meals, you know. I just prefer not to.”
“’m sure you can,” Wheatley had answered absently, wondering why she was going on about meal preparation and trying to deduce where the bowl had come from. His muddied brain was coming up with an idea of how it had gotten there, but it was slow going.
“There’s nothing experimental in there. Really. It’s just soup. It’s edible. Well. In theory, anyway. Obviously I can’t actually vouch for the edibility of it. Or anything.”
Two and two made ten and all of a sudden Wheatley was staring at her with blearily wide eyes, because she was really quite blurry when his glasses were lying five feet from his face. “You made it?”
She had made a noise in annoyance and, as far as he could tell anyway, swung in another direction. “No. The CEO came back from the dead and did that just for you, his prize employee. Seriously now. Sometimes I fear for you. How you survive out there without me I’ll never know.”
Wheatley had immediately shoved his glasses on his face and leapt up to hug her, even though doing it made him quite dizzy and didn’t make him feel any better in the least. However, due to his dizziness his leaping wasn’t quite up to par and he’d managed to trip over the bowl, smashing his chin very hard against the panels and causing him to black out for a second. When he’d blinked his vision back into existence GLaDOS was looking down at him, shaking her core in a resigned sort of way. “I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you or to feel annoyed that you’re that clumsy,” she had rebuked him.
He’d sat up, head directed towards the floor and biting his tongue in shame. Now he didn’t get to hug her or drink her soup. She’d sighed and raised a horizontal panel about three feet from him.
“This will take you right to the showers. Protocol dictates they’re only supposed to be used by athletes, but I’ve decided you’d win the clumsy Olympics hands down and that seems to be good enough a definition of an athlete as any. Go get yourself cleaned up and come back. It will probably make you feel better anyway.”
When Wheatley had looked up, he had seen the wispy orange oval of a portal thwop into life on the panel, and he’d whipped his head around to look at her with wide eyes. “I’m, I’m, not allowed to know about that,” he’d said somewhat apologetically. She’d narrowed her optic, light brightening warningly.
“I’ve just authorised you. Look. I understand you’re a klutz and you’re at about three percent brain capacity right now. But you’re trying my patience. Hurry up and do as I’ve told you, because even I don’t want to know what I’m going to do if I run out of patience.”
Wheatley had nodded and stumbled a little uncertainly through the portal, which did indeed open out into a room full of showers he’d never seen before. He’d been a little nervous about GLaDOS seeing him naked before he realised she probably had no interest in that whatsoever and got undressed without further ado. Once he’d finished his shower he felt considerably better, moreso than he’d expected because the steam had cleared out his nose, and he hoped for a few minutes that GLaDOS had made him some more soup because now he was starving. Then he’d had to remind himself that he was the idiot who’d kicked it over in the first place and if he wanted something to eat he’d have to go do it himself. This newfound energy did not last very long, because he had to search for some dry clothes to wear and only managed to locate some pants which were a bit too small for comfort, and by the time he got back to his seat on her panels he was already exhausted. He plunked himself down and rubbed at his forehead tiredly. When he’d looked up again, confused by GLaDOS’s lack of commentary, he’d found she was staring at him, though she rectified that within a moment or two.
“What?”
“You forgot to put your clothes on,” she answered. Wheatley frowned.
“They’re wet. Not even I uh, put wet clothes back on.”
“Well… you can’t go on wearing those,” GLaDOS said, sounding a little nonplussed. “I suppose I might be able to find some around here somewhere…”
After a few minutes she presented to him what appeared to be a sealed nurse’s uniform, which he unwrapped slowly and shook out. Wheatley was equal parts confused and embarrassed when he noticed she was watching him while he pulled off the temporary pants, until he realised she’d probably never seen a human without clothes on before. He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “It’s just underwear, luv. Nothing fancy. Sure you know what it’s for.”
Her lens dimmed considerably as she tried to look away as casually as possible, which was actually quite difficult considering her lack of peripheral vision. He tried very hard not to laugh at her – she was only curious, after all – and once he’d gotten the fresh pants on he lay back down on the panel and took off his glasses.
“There’s more soup if you want it.”
He sat up straight and shoved his glasses back behind his ears, and when she gave him the bowl he happily drank it within a few minutes. When he resumed his lying down he had to turn his back to her to hide the fact that he was still struggling not to laugh. She’d quite pointedly looked away from him the entire time he’d sat up, but he’d clearly heard her glancing at him after he’d put the bowl aside. After a few minutes she asked, “So you’re… going shirtless today.”
“Looks like it,” Wheatley answered as innocently as he could. What he was really doing was playing a little game with her. He wanted to know just how deep her curiosity ran.
“I see.”
Oh, she sounded so confused.
After he got tired of having all the liquid inside his nose confined to the side he was lying on, Wheatley rolled onto his back and carefully left his arms by his sides. He squinted at her blurry outline through his eyelashes, and though he added a bit to his headache he was pleased to see her slowly come around to face him, regard him for a few moments, and then very cautiously come down to settle her lens into his now-shirtless self.
He stroked her gently, happy that she was on top of him again and spreading some of that comforting warmth. He was almost asleep when he heard her say, somewhat absently, “You never told me you were so soft.”
He blushed and hugged her long and hard.
Wheatley’s sense of time was, as always, a little bit fuzzy, but he thought he might’ve been living with her for about four months. It was like a dream to him, it really was. He never got bored of her, never got tired of talking to her or sitting with her or playing with her, and he was pretty sure she felt the same way. She got much better about being touched, though some days she had to take a minute to gather herself, but he waited patiently for her and held her close when she was ready. Wheatley was still scared of heights, but it lessened considerably the closer to her he was.
The working day was over and he was heading back to her one night when Henry accosted him along the way, tugging him forcefully into his office and closing the door with a snap. Wheatley folded his arms and frowned impressively. This had better be good. He was losing precious time with GLaDOS.
“It’s going to happen within a couple of weeks,” Henry whispered urgently, leaning forward in front of his desk with the fingers of his left hand clamped around the lip. “They just need one excuse, Wheatley. Just one.”
“I don’t care, mate,” Wheatley snapped, shaking his head. “I’ll find another job. Go back home, even. I don’t understand what all these secret meetings are about.”
“It’s… not that simple,” Henry muttered, looking down at the floor. “Just… be careful, Wheatley.”
Wheatley stared from beneath unimpressed eyebrows. “C’n you not just, I dunno, tell me what you mean instead of uh, of trying to shroud it in secrecy? Seriously, Henry. They going to kick me out without giving um, without giving notice? Don’t care. I’m fine. I’ve enough money.”
“Wheatley, it’s more serious than that.”
“Can’t be, or you’d’ve told me why.”
Henry rubbed at the shiny circle on top of his head, and Wheatley noted offhand he seemed to have lost quite a lot of hair in the last few months. “I can’t tell you. Or I would.”
“I would’ve told you.”
Henry decided his face needed covering and got on that, and Wheatley shook his head and wrapped his fingers around the doorknob.
“Henry, I don’t care. Okay? Just don’t. Don’t want to be warned anymore, don’t want uh, don’t want instructions on how I should um, should behave to make it a little easier on me. I just… want to be with her for now, alright? That’s… that’s what I care about, and I’ll gladly pay any price.” He found himself studiously inspecting the little cracks and rivets on the wood of the door. They reminded him of the tiny little scratches on her. “I know that sounds stupid and pathetic and all that, but I’ve been looking for her for a long time. And now I have to leave her. So… I’m just… gonna do that.”
He half expected Henry to chase him down the hall and try to dissuade him, but he made it to GLaDOS’s chamber without further incident. When he got there, however, he had to stop. Not only did he stop moving, he stopped breathing as well, and as soon as he got that started up again he carefully stepped into her chamber and sat down in the chair by the little red phone, trying not to make any noise.
She was humming to some song Wheatley’d never heard, probably because it was classical music, but that wasn’t even the most surprising part. What was keeping him silently in his seat was the fact that her voice almost sounded like an instrument he’d never heard before. It was also the most versatile, hitting every note perfectly and extraordinarily smoothly for something with that much autotuning. She was swaying back and forth a little, which mesmerised him for a few minutes or so, when he suddenly had an idea and climbed out of the chair. He was sure he could convince her to do it, if he was polite enough.
“Hey, luv,” he said, very softly, as he came up next to her, and as he’d expected she froze and went silent. She eyed him, her chassis tight with suspicion, and he put up his hand in reassurance. “Just wanted to ask you something,” he continued, keeping his hand up. “C’n you put the music back on?”
“Why,” she asked, though it sounded more like a statement. She had relaxed just a little.
“Well, I… just… wanted to…” The further he got into that sentence, the stupider it sounded. “To… dance with you.”
She generated a burst of static. “Don’t be stupid. I can’t dance.”
“Sure you can.” He got a little indignant for her sake. “If I can, you can.”
“I doubt you can,” she remarked dryly. “However, you have arms and legs, neither of which I possess.”
“You’ve got something I haven’t,” he pressed eagerly, leaning forward.
“Really.”
“Mmhm. You’ve got, uh, you’ve…” God, this sounded even dumber, but he couldn’t stop now. “Well, you’ve got grace and poise, which uh, which I haven’t.”
Upon hearing this she softened noticeably, coming down close to look at him. “… grace and poise?”
He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’re… you’re dignified, GLaDOS. That’s a lot more important than having, uh, than having arms or legs.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice very soft. “I… suppose I could… but I don’t understand how it’s going to work.”
“It’s okay.” He stepped a little closer and held his arms out. “I’m uh… supposed to lead anyway, so um, just, just… let me do that. Alright?”
She looked at him a little sideways. “I don’t know why you’re standing like that.”
He put his arms down. “Have you never seen anyone dance before?”
“No.”
“Alright.” He put his arms out again and gestured at her with his left. “C’mere.”
“I thought that was a hug.”
“People hug while uh, while dancing. Work with me.”
She moved into range of his arms and he wrapped them around her core. When she put the song she’d been listening to back on he moved back and forth a little, only having danced with his sister at their respective proms quite a few years back, and while Mathilda was a very good and flashy dancer, about all Wheatley could handle without tripping over himself and everybody else was slow dancing. And even then he’d managed to step on Mathilda’s foot. Three times. Remembering this made him laugh.
“Am I really that bad?”
“No!” he exclaimed, shaking his head even though there was no way she could see him. “I was just rememb’ring something. It’s actually a um, a positive thing, that you don’t have legs.”
“Why?”
“Because I always step on… on my partner’s feet.”
Unexpectedly, GLaDOS laughed, and he suddenly felt a lot less tense. He hadn’t heard her laugh in a while and it always made him feel better, to know that he could cheer her up like that. He grinned a little uncontrollably and nestled the side of his head into her core.
It was nice, and kind of relaxing, really, to just stand there with her like that. He supposed they weren’t really dancing, per se, but Wheatley couldn’t dance anyway so he’d take what he could get. After a few minutes of it he started to hear a noise, but couldn’t quite make it out. Trying to do so puzzled him so much that he forgot what he was doing.
“What?”
“I just… thought I heard something.”
“I’m sorry,” GLaDOS murmured. “I… I’ll stop.”
He stepped back, suddenly realising what he’d been hearing. “Hey, if you wanna um, if you’d like to hum along, luv, go ahead. I heard you before, and it… it was lovely.” God, why was he feeling so shy right now? Why did he ever feel shy around her? Was that what happened when you loved someone? You just got shy at random times for no particular reason?
“You don’t think it’s odd?”
“Think what’s odd?”
“I’m a supercomputer.”
“You’re a person,” he said firmly, placing a finger under her optic to signal that he wanted her to look him in the eye. “People can do whatever they like. And you’ve a better voice than many ladies out there.”
She shook her core. “Of course you’re going to say that.”
“Not gonna lie.”
GLaDOS moved back a little bit, inspecting him, and then nodded to herself. “All right. I believe you.”
They resumed their little dance, and when she did start humming it was soft and hesitant, as if she didn’t want him to hear. But he kept quiet and consistent in his movements, and eventually her voice strengthened a little. He nestled himself into her core again and closed his eyes tightly when he felt a sudden pricking in the corners.
He felt as though he was living the most wonderful dream he’d never had.
