[He returned to stroking her side again, fingers running up and down the area of clothing that covered her tattoo. In the back of his mind, there was a little voice that urged him to move his hand under her shirt, but he ignored it. It wasn't as if he didn't want to do those things, and Alex herself had said that it was alright to do them. It was the missing time that stopped him. The days of understanding and the secrets that he now carried on his own. He couldn't put the burden of their relationship that she didn't know onto her any more than he could tell her about Coralee and Howard, or her black tape.
It wasn't fair to her to do so, and he knew that.
What he was doing now, this was okay, almost innocent even. At least it was innocent enough for Richard to delude himself into thinking it was.]
no subject
[He returned to stroking her side again, fingers running up and down the area of clothing that covered her tattoo. In the back of his mind, there was a little voice that urged him to move his hand under her shirt, but he ignored it. It wasn't as if he didn't want to do those things, and Alex herself had said that it was alright to do them. It was the missing time that stopped him. The days of understanding and the secrets that he now carried on his own. He couldn't put the burden of their relationship that she didn't know onto her any more than he could tell her about Coralee and Howard, or her black tape.
It wasn't fair to her to do so, and he knew that.
What he was doing now, this was okay, almost innocent even. At least it was innocent enough for Richard to delude himself into thinking it was.]
It's also too long.