All of the impulses that should have been at odds just weren't, and it was all too easy to move under Miles again so soon after that reply. Phoenix didn't answer - he wasn't sure he could, not like he'd want to - but he didn't need to speak to sense the brief slowing, the pause that could be coaxed into reaction. He sank into the reassurance of that word and let his hands press on their own, let his spine bow and bend on instinct, and turned his head to catch Miles' mouth again.

For a moment, in the stillness, it had been too easy for Phoenix to imagine a lapse back into what they'd just left - the uneasy, concerned quiet, the strange space between them that touching still didn't banish. There was a comfort in the certainty that remained, sunk right into his bones, and his fingers hooked against the ridged hardness of Miles' spine, as if to unearth the matching sureness he knew was there.