Weather Report
His fingers remain at my wrist, respectful, listening to my pulse like it’s a language he wants to speak properly.
Read The Companion Article Now
The kitchen is still half asleep.
Blue-grey light leans through the blinds, hesitant, like it has to ask permission to enter. The tiles bite at the soles of my feet. I pad across them anyway, tugging my jumper down over my thighs, pretending I’m not cold.
The kettle is heavier than it should be. Or maybe my hands are. Maybe I am.
I fill it at the sink and watch the water arc clear and obedient, then settle into the belly of metal. The click of the switch is small, domestic, almost nothing, but it begins a sound I trust. A quiet, patient hum. A thing building in its own time.
Behind me, the floorboard answers. One soft creak, then another.
I don’t turn straight away.
There are mornings where I’ve learnt the choreography before the music starts, where my body offers itself like a reflex, like a peace treaty, like a habit. There are mornings where I’ve thought, If I’m easy, if I’m hot, if I’m available, then I will be safe.
That thought is old. It lives in the bones.
His hands find my waist. Light at first, palms warm through the thin cotton, thumbs not pressing, just resting. Not taking. Not assuming.
He kisses the back of my neck once. A closed-mouth kiss, soft enough to be a question.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
His mouth lingers near my shoulder and my body does what it’s always done. It tries to decide fast. It tries to be ready on command. It tries to produce an answer like a good student.
But the kettle keeps humming. The room keeps breathing. And I feel something in me push back, gentle but firm.
Not no.
Not yet.
Just… wait.
I swallow. My throat is tight in a way that has nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with history. My jaw has been clenched in my sleep again. I can taste last night’s toothpaste. I can taste the way I have been carrying myself.
His thumbs make a slow circle at my hips, still careful, still asking.
I turn then, not to face him fully, but enough to catch his eyes.
They’re open and steady. Not hungry in a way that scares me. Hungry like warmth. Hungry like a fire that will keep its distance until invited.
“You okay?” he asks.
The question lands like a hand offered, not placed.
I nod because that is what I do, and then I stop myself. I can feel the lie of it in my skin. I can feel the way a nod can be a shortcut into a room I’m not sure I want to enter yet.
“I’m…” I begin, and the rest won’t come. Not because it isn’t there. Because I’m not used to saying it.
He doesn’t fill the silence. He doesn’t tease it out. He just stays, hands still warm at my waist, breath against my shoulder.
The kettle’s hum rises a fraction, as if it’s reminding me I have time.
I lift my hand and take his, guiding it away from my waist.
He follows without resistance, without that flash of disappointment some people wear like a bruise. His hand is heavy, real, calloused at the fingertips from work. Warm.
I bring it to my wrist.
“Here,” I say, quietly.
He blinks, confused for a moment, then lets me position his fingers against the pulse on the inside of my wrist. Two fingers, gentle pressure, not searching, not testing.
My heartbeat is there. Honest. A steady knock that does not care about my performance.
He looks down, then back up at me.
“You want me to feel it?” he asks.
I nod, and this time it’s true.
“I want you to feel me,” I say. “Before anything else.”
Something soft shifts in his face. Like relief. Like reverence. Like he has been waiting to be trusted with a truth instead of a show.
“Okay,” he says, and the word is an anchor.
I take a breath.
Not a sexy breath. Not a rehearsed one. A breath that drops me down into my feet on the cold tiles, into the shape of my body as it is right now, not as it should be.
I notice my shoulders, raised. I let them fall.
Second breath.
I notice the tightness in my throat, the way my chest feels like a closed door. I notice the warmth low in my belly that is real, but quiet, like a cat half asleep. I notice that my hips are not pulling away. They are not leaning forward either. They are waiting.
Third breath.
I ask myself the question I never learnt to ask in time.
What do I need for this to be true?
My body answers in sensations, not sentences.
Slower.
Look at me.
Stay.
I lift my eyes.
He is already looking.
His fingers remain at my wrist, respectful, listening to my pulse like it’s a language he wants to speak properly.
“Give me a weather report,” he says.
It’s said gently, without humour, but it makes me smile anyway because it feels right. Simple. Human. Something we can both understand.
I swallow again, throat loosening a fraction.
“I’m a yes,” I tell him, “but slow.”
His hand tightens just enough to acknowledge he heard me, then loosens again. A promise not to grip.
“Slow,” he echoes. “Got it.”
The kettle clicks, the water beginning its sharp, urgent boil. The sound spikes, then evens out into a fierce hiss. The room fills with steam-scented metal.
He slides his fingers from my wrist to my hand, interlacing them. He brings my knuckles to his mouth and kisses them one by one, like he’s counting.
My belly warms. My jaw unclenches. The cat in me opens one eye and stretches.
He steps closer, but he doesn’t press. He lets his chest hover against my back without claiming it. He lets his breath skate down my neck and stop.
“Tell me if it changes,” he murmurs.
“I will.”
I can’t remember the last time I believed myself when I said that.
He turns me by the hand, slowly, like a dance lesson. Now I’m facing him fully. The kitchen light catches the sleep in his eyes, the faint crease at the corner of his mouth.
He looks at me like I am not a task.
Like I am not a performance.
Like I am a person he wants to meet.
His palm cups my jaw, thumb brushing my cheekbone.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
The question is so simple it almost hurts.
I take one more breath, just to be sure.
Yes.
“Yes,” I say, and this time it is not a donation. It is not a bargain. It is mine.
He kisses me like he has nowhere else to be.
His mouth is warm, a little dry, tasting faintly of sleep. The kiss starts small, then deepens as my body leans in. Not because I’m trying. Because I want to.
He pauses after a few seconds, still close enough that our noses brush, and checks my face.
“How’s the sky?” he asks.
I laugh quietly, the sound soft and surprised. My body feels lighter for it.
“Clearing,” I whisper. “Warm front moving in.”
His smile is slow.
“Good,” he says, and kisses me again, one hand still holding mine, the other resting at my waist like a hand on a railing, not a grip on a throat.
The kettle clicks off with a small final sigh.
We break apart, breathing a little harder, not frantic, just awake now.
He turns, pours the boiling water into two mugs. Coffee granules bloom into dark swirls. The smell rises rich and immediate, grounding the room.
He hands me one mug, then leans his hip against the counter beside me. Not pressing me into it, just sharing the space.
We drink in silence for a moment. The heat burns my tongue slightly. I welcome it.
His hand returns to my wrist again, absent-minded, tender, as if the pulse is a place he likes to stand.
“I’ve given yeses that weren’t mine,” I say, and my voice wobbles on the last word.
He doesn’t look away.
“I know,” he says softly. “I don’t want those.”
My throat tightens, but this time it’s not the old tightness. It’s the kind that comes before tears, the kind that arrives when the body realises it might not have to fight.
I lift my mug and take another sip, letting the heat steady me.
He kisses my wrist right over the pulse, lips lingering just long enough to feel like a vow.
We stand there with coffee between us, winter light creeping higher, the kitchen warming by degrees.
Today the weather is yes.
And for once, I believe it.
An Erotic Horror That Doesn’t Touch You First. It Enters. It Opens. Then It Consumes.
Let The Dark Take Me is sacred horror for readers who crave possession without mercy, worship without safety, and prose that peels the skin back to reveal what writhes beneath.
You won’t just want this story. You’ll beg to be taken by it.
