“Christ.”
He speaks, and my suction breaks with the movement. He bends and curves over the top of me, bringing my nipple between his lips, pulling at it, drawing it deeply into his mouth. He moves, repeats.
Lick, and touch, and draw long breaths. Pull back, survey his landscape. Look for something more. More connection, as if I need another sense to take him in. So I want to give him the single one left: hearing.
The problem is, I don’t know what exactly to say.
The high ceiling is invisible in the current light, only acoustics of reverberated gasps bounce back down upon us. In a room already filled with our soft moans, he needs words.
In this moment, I recognize my power. Because, for once, I can say how I feel without reservation. He needs to know, and I need to tell him. Where earlier words had seemed trite, in this space and time I accept that they can, they will, they must—must—make everything right. I conjure strength and force myself to break away and speak.
“You are who I’m meant for.”
Lowest groan. Eyes close. Breath holds. Touch lips. Tremor. Enter. Lightning strike.
The unspoken words “Take me” rattle around in my brain. The sentiment seems insufficient somehow, perhaps embedded in patriarchal notions. The idea that there is a penetration, a plundering, an invasion, so there must be a taking. It’s somehow off to me…for I am taking him. I am claiming. I receive. There will be just as much of me when we are done. If anything, he might be the one leaving himself behind. I will be the same…but more. I envelope, encase, claim. I accept.
I take him.
There is a responsibility in that notion that I never saw before. Take care of as well as care for.
He trusts me to be as strong as the both of us need me to be. We are but two short steps from loneliness, longing.
Trust gives way to thrusts, and I find I can no longer contemplate the intricacies of the universe.
He’s being so careful and slow. It’s touching, torture. Both.
Braced on his elbows, hover and touch and rasp, shallow breaths. Move, slip. Flat of palms beneath my shoulder blades. Wet along collarbone, neck. Water drips, rivulets beyond my ear. Kissed away. Pound. Harder. Harsh. I want him at the spot inside me all his own. Again. Beyond count. Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. More. More. Fuck, please just more. Thunder, shudder. Body wracks. Hair clings, slick locks.
With each movement, each in then out, he moves fractionally further. Slow and paced and acutely aware of each new stretch. He continues, quakes so much and me, maybe more. I think, perhaps, he’s resisting the urge to plunge ahead and finish the trek. I would be inclined to appreciate the need represented by such urgency—because I’m only human, heck, I want to feel that desired, that wanted—but it occurs to me that this inch-by-inch method has been going on for quite some time…and he’s not done yet.
Move. Kiss. Slide. Farther. Further. Stretch. Again. Move…
And he’s not there yet…
That is to say, Elvis has barely entered the building.
Holy. Shit. Am I that nervous? Or were those pernicious pineapples I’ve been sneaking into his meals really GMOs laced with super-conductor growth hormones?
I mean, I have been doing Kegels like a mofo, but seriously? This fit before? Just yesterday?
“Ungh…uh…uh…a…ric. I…oh, God—” I cry out as his hips tilt and thickness presses inside me against the spot his fingers had stroked earlier. My limbs leave my control, and I wrap around him, clinging. I clutch and grasp, fingertips pressing at the contours and sinews of his back.
Legs flail, and suddenly, I find I’m around him, past waist and hip, ankles entwined above. It causes a shift, a surge. Farther in, into me, much farther.
A shift that may catch him unawares; long, moaning curses fall beside and all around me. Progress and movement still. Only tremulous movements along his limbs. Strain and hold back.
I wriggle, then writhe, then learn to make his body beg.
Hands down the small of his back, smoothing one over his hip, press thumbs into bone. Will him, plead with him to continue. My hands slide between us, to where we meet. Near scorches, humidity, heat.
Partially sheathed, consume, complete. Hands run circuits along my sides, along my waist. Palm draws my thigh up, anchors him down. Transfixed, I don’t have any idea why I note the soft webbing between his thumb and index finger as it presses against the back of my right knee. He holds fast, sounds so soft, kisses forming a line over my breastbone. They’re unsteady. Tender whisper-laced kisses. Barely audible over the pulse thrumming in my ears.
These are the secrets.
Finally.
And I hear some of what he has to say for the first time.
Furtive, so much so it almost feels like I eavesdrop. “Only you…” His mouth press to the pulse point on my throat.
“Whatever it takes…” His lips smooth along my neck, open and moist. “Mine…goddamn it all….now…” The words are hoarse and dry. I feel him swallow against my breast.
My hands fly to his face and pull him to me and kiss him and never let go. I have never felt more. My palms rub against the scruff along his cheeks. Kiss and delve and swallow any more of these clandestine curses. Then I spread my legs, strain near pain, drag the hand he held me with along the way. Hips hitch forward. Manage a great deal more poise than I would have ventured I possess. Draw his length in. To the hilt. All of him, all that remains of him, of me.
He cries out into my mouth when his hips fully meet mine. I think he might have tried to hold fast and allow me to adjust, but I am having none of it; I raise myself and grind against him. Alaric breaks from our kiss and watches the space where our bodies join. Each joining, his breathing picks up more, and then yet more. Strong fingers wrapped at my waist. The fingertips of one hand feel as though they may almost touch the other, completely encircling me in his grasp.
Full, long, deep…complete.
Steady movements. Try to force my eyes to remain open. More than can be managed. Peek through foggy slits. Shadows, silhouettes move above me, within me.
He alternates in some rhythm I can’t measure. Lips to mine. Then, watching himself in me. Slide. Disappear. Focus, gauge my reaction.
Vaguely, I register one of his hands moving from my waist, feel the drag along smooth sheets, past my body, my face, my hair, sliding until it extends over my head and, probably, latches onto the back of the mattress. Leverage. Heaving push.
I’m no scientist, but if this is what fulcrum or leverage (or, hell, thermal dynamics and industrial water technology, for all I know) do for intimacy, sign me up for the courses.
For a doctorate.
Pressure, and the hand he still uses to secure my waist tilts my pelvis up to greet his. He draws himself up on his knees slightly, slides his length into me. Slow. Rubs along my front wall, edges. All. Watching, ever watching my reactions.
I give up. Give in. Unmasked and no disguise, he sees it all. All that is me on display.
Draws back out, maneuvers me again. Forward plunge. Different path. Different point. Oh, more right there, and again, again and please. Air in throat, breath catches, soundless moan.
Moonlight glints off his smile. Finds what he’s looking for. Takes a long breath, then draws back, then enters and pounds again, again. There. Just…there.
Scream. I want to. Need to. For all I know, I might.
Force. Extreme. Hold on. Ankles dig and ache. Feel my body, my back arc up and away from the point where we join. My head is weighted, too heavy, stays touching the bed. Back bows, mimics a flesh rainbow.
Might say his name. Might blaspheme. I begin to call out all manner of sounds. Some might even be actual words. Or the recipe for tuna noodle surprise.
Clutch at the sheets, pulling, arc further, and shake. He moves his hand from the mattress and drags a flat palm down the length of my torso to join his other one in holding my waist.
Breaths that are rough. He continues to pound into me. Thoroughly. Fully.
Completely.
All around, words spill. I hear myself saying things and can’t stop. I tell him how I would think of him every day. Thrash and cool sheets and night air. Whisper nonsensical rants about cherry wood doors and white dress shirts and conference room C. How I can’t concentrate except on him.