They Need & Deserve This Soft Ok. - Tumblr Posts
🪐 — EDWARD TEACH for stede !
the sound that tears itself from his throat is halfway between a sob and a laugh, soft and heaved out with a trembling breath. stede speaks with such certainty, like what he is telling him is nothing more than a well known fact: like the sun rising in the east and the coming and going of the tide. you deserve to be touched gently, with kindness. does he have the faintest idea what his words do to him? how they reach inside him and find the part of himself he had learned to bury deep inside? the part that longs for this, for the kindness he has rarely been afforded in his life. stede gives it to him so freely that edward can’t help basking in its warmth, while being wrapped in his arms with this much care.
❛ no one has touched me like you do. ever, stede. if anythin’, i’m the lucky one here. ❜ he raises his head from his incredibly comfortable resting place, only so he can look into stede’s eyes. and the fondness he can see in them is so clear that the need to be even closer to him overtakes edward with sudden and blinding force. the movement is a bit clumsy, but he manages to turn fully towards him, both hands cradling his face and body pressed against his. ❛ the luckiest man in the whole wide world. ❜ he chases the words right to his mouth, punctuating the last three words with a kiss after each one.
THERE IS SORROW in the idea that edward has never known a gentle touch before his. but then when he thought about it, stede supposed that neither had he. he & mary had gone through the motions in every possible respect of course, but they had shared no passion between them, no inherent desire to be near one another. & her hands on his skin had felt nothing like edward’s, the effect that the latter has on him is heady & overwhelming as they take his face within their grasp, & stede presses into the touch, leans up to chase after the kisses that edward gifts him. this was undoubtedly unlike anything else he had ever felt before, there could be no question of that. & yet it was the lack of experience with it that was precisely why stede gave & gave his love to edward without restraint. he had been waiting his whole life to find him, & now that he had, stede found he could rarely find the strength to restrain himself. when you had waited your entire life for love, it would not do to waste a moment of it. & besides, in his view, the world was far too cruel to abstain from gentleness where you could get it. ❝ ed, my love, i could say just the same, ❞ he murmurs, a hand slipping up his back to tangle in the thick mass of dark hair at the back of his head & holding him close — though mercifully, edward doesn’t seem inclined to go far. their legs lie tangled beneath layers of embroidered cashmere & crushed silk, & stede can feel his heart racing in his chest. perhaps one day he will get used to this, but it seems he hasn’t yet. ❝ i think we may just have to agree to disagree in this regard. ❞