Eli #2
The rest happens by degrees because Julian makes sure of it.
Shoes already gone. Socks abandoned. Hands pausing at waistbands.
His fingers brushing the edge of my sweats, then stopping until I say yes.
Mine at his, shaking too much at first to manage the tie, which makes me curse under my breath until Julian covers my hands with his and helps without laughing.
When he rolls us, I let him, letting my back hit the mattress while he settles over me carefully. The weight of him is controlled but present, a solid heat between my thighs, and the first real press of our bodies skin to skin steals my breath so completely that I have to close my eyes.
He takes his time with me after that, and I finally understand that gentleness can be ruthless. His mouth moves down my throat, across my collarbone, over my chest, and everywhere he kisses feels like he’s writing over the ugliness without ever pretending the old thing didn’t happen.
My body doesn’t belong to fear in those moments.
It belongs to sensation. His lips. His hands.
The scratch of his stubble. The warmth of his breath.
The way he pauses when my breathing changes, then continues only when I pull him back with fingers in his hair and a curse half trapped behind my teeth.
But when he leans back and says, “I want you on top,” my entire body forgets how to function.
I stare at him, every thought falling straight through the floor. I swallow once, and it does nothing. “You mean…” I stop, somehow completely incapable of finishing a sentence.
“I mean I want you to fuck me, Eli,” he says, quickly understanding that my brain has briefly caught fire. “If that’s something you want.”
My face goes nuclear. “I mean, yes. Fuck. Yeah, I want that. I just…” I drag a hand over my face, then drop it because hiding feels stupid when he’s being this open. “I don’t know how to do that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
His face changes at that, something tender and aching moving through his eyes. “You won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can know enough,” Julian says, and then he shifts carefully off me, sitting back against the pillows so he’s angled toward me instead of looming above me.
“You’ll use your fingers first. We’ll use a lot of lube.
You’ll go slowly. I’ll tell you what feels good and what doesn’t.
If it hurts in a way I don’t like, I’ll tell you to stop or slow down.
I’ve done this before, Eli. I know my body. ”
I nod once, because he’s right and I’m making a big deal out of it. Julian squeezes my wrist. “And for the record, I want you so badly I’m trying very hard to be noble and educational, so if you could appreciate the effort, that would be great.”
A laugh breaks out of me before I can stop it. “You’re such a dick.”
“Not yet,” he says, deadpan, and then his eyes widen like even he can’t believe he said it.
I stare at him.
For one perfect second, we both just look at each other. Then I start laughing so hard I have to cover my face, and Julian collapses back against the pillows with one arm over his eyes, groaning. “I hate myself.”
“You should.”
“That was terrible.”
“That was fucking awful,” I agree, still laughing, and somehow the absurdity saves me.
It cracks the pressure in the room open enough for air to get in.
When I finally lower my hand, Julian is looking at me with that soft, lovestruck expression again, and I can’t believe I get to be nervous and scared and laughing with him in the same bed after the day we’ve had.
When he reaches for the lube and condom in his nightstand, my nerves flare hard enough that I go quiet.
Julian notices before the silence can become a wall. He sits back on his heels and doesn’t open anything yet. “Talk to me.”
My face burns because everything in me feels exposed now, not only physically. “I’m nervous again.”
“About touching me?” he asks softly.
I nod. “And about doing it wrong,” I admit. “And about hurting you. And about, I don’t know, being too in my head and ruining it.”
Julian’s hand closes gently over mine. “You’re not going to ruin this by being nervous.”
“You say that like you know.”
“I do know.” He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my palm again, which is such an unfair move that I almost forget my own anxiety. “I’ll guide you, baby.”
The word baby shouldn’t still hit me that hard after how many times he’s said it, but it does.
It gives me something to move toward. I shift with him when he lies back, propped against the pillows, and my heart starts pounding so hard I’m sure he can see it.
He keeps his voice low even as he puts lube into my hand, then closes his fingers over mine briefly.
“Slowly,” Julian says, watching me. “Don’t force anything and let me relax around you. If I tell you more, you can give me more. If I tell you to wait, you wait.”
My breathing has gone shallow. “Okay.”
“And Eli?” I look up, and his mouth curves slightly. “You’re allowed to enjoy this part.”
My face heats so badly I almost groan, and Julian laughs, but the laugh turns into a shaky exhale when I run my lubed fingers over his rim.
I watch his face carefully, noting the way his lips part, the slight furrow in his brow as I slowly press a single finger inside. His muscles tense briefly before he exhales, his head tipping back against the pillow.
“That okay?” I ask, my voice quieter than I mean for it to be.
He nods, his hand sliding down to grip my wrist lightly, his eyes fluttering open to meet mine. “Yeah. Just... keep going. Nice and slow.”
I do as he says, moving my finger gently, the tight heat of him making my pulse hammer. He bites his lip, a soft sound escaping him as I twist my hand slightly, watching every little movement, every shift in his expression.
“Good,” he whispers, his voice strained but steady. “Now curl it—yeah, like that. Add another, please.”
Slowly, I add a second finger, working them in together. His body arches slightly, a soft moan escaping his lips. The sound sends a surge of heat through me, and I lean down, pressing a kiss to his thigh.
I scissor my fingers gently, and the little sounds he makes—the soft, breathy moans, the way my name slips from his lips like a prayer—have my cock throbbing.
His body rolls into the motion of my fingers as I stretch him, coaxing soft moans and sighs from his lips. His hand tightens on mine, and his other grips the sheets beneath him.
His reactions give me enough courage to move the way he showed me again, and this time something changes in his face.
His breath catches hard, his head tipping back against the pillow, throat exposed, tattoos shifting with the sudden arch of his body.
I freeze because that reaction is bigger than the others, but Julian’s grip on my hand tightens immediately.
“Don’t stop,” he says, voice strained. “There. Baby, right there.”
It feeds something in me I didn’t know needed feeding. I keep my fingers careful, adding a third one and still listening to every breath, but then I let my tongue trace the length of his cock and suck him into my mouth.
“Fuck! Eli!” he moans, moving his hips. “Shit… come here—I need you inside me right fucking now.”
“You sure?” I ask, my voice rougher now, strained with how badly I want him. “You taste so good, I don’t wanna stop.”
“Jesus fuck,” he groans when I lick him from his balls to the tip of his cock. “We can do more of that another time. I want you inside right fucking now, but go slow, though, okay? You’re not exactly packing light down there.”
I can’t help but chuckle as I let him show me how to roll on the condom properly since my hands are both eager and incompetent. Julian—patient saint and smug bastard that he is—talks me through that too with only one deeply amused look when I nearly curse the packaging into submission.
When he shifts under me and guides me between his thighs, the whole world slows down.
I am suddenly aware of every point of contact.
My knees on the mattress, his hands on my hips, the condom, the impossible intimacy of lining up with his body while he watches me, trusting me, wanting me, giving me instructions even now because he promised he would.
“Slowly,” he says again. I nod, but my throat has closed around every word I might’ve had. He squeezes my hip. “Breathe, Eli.”
I look down at him, at his flushed face and dark eyes and the careful strength in his hands, and I understand all over again that I am here because I chose him.
Not because fear dragged me or grief demanded proof.
Because I love him, and I want to know what it feels like to be joined to him in a way I’ll remember.
Then I push forward.
The first press steals all the air from my lungs as soon as I breach him, and his whole body tenses under me. I clench my jaw, shutting my eyes for a second to keep my control.
“Fuck, you’re so tight,” I mutter, my voice ragged. “You gotta relax, baby, or I’m gonna lose it before we even get started.”
He lets out a shaky breath, his hands gripping my shoulders. “I’m trying,” he whispers, his voice trembling.
I push forward, slow as fuck, the resistance almost making me lose my fucking mind. Julian’s breath catches, his head tipping back, and his grip tightens on me.
My whole body shakes as I force myself to stop, to give him time to adjust, even though all I want to do is bury myself inside him.
“Eli,” he gasps, his voice breaking, and I freeze.
“Too much?” I ask, my voice strained as fuck. My whole body’s trembling, strung tight like a wire, but I’ll stop the second he needs me to.
“No,” he whispers, shaking his head. “Just—fuck—go slow.”