Chapter 16 #3
Her bra came next, but I stopped with my fingers at the clasp and looked at her.
She reached back and unhooked it herself, her eyes on mine, letting it fall away.
The cave was dim, the last of the evening light coming through the entrance at a low angle, and it caught the planes of her face and the curve of her shoulders and I had to make myself breathe.
"Still okay?" I asked.
"Very okay." She reached for the waistband of my pants, working the fastenings with focused urgency. "Your turn."
I helped her with the salvaged fabric until it was gone, and then we were both bare and the shock of skin against skin was something I hadn't prepared for, her warmth against my chest, the softness of her stomach against mine, and I had to hold still for a moment just to absorb it without losing myself entirely.
She was small against me. I was aware of that constantly, every point where we touched, the way my hands covered the span of her ribs entirely.
I kept that awareness at the front of my mind deliberately, like a hand on a door to make sure it didn't slam shut.
Not because I was afraid of her, but because I cared whether she was comfortable and I intended to stay present enough to notice if she wasn't.
"Tell me what you want," I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. "I need you to tell me."
She looked up at me with those dark eyes, serious for just a moment, and something passed between us that wasn't words. "I want your mouth on me," she said. "Everywhere."
I learned her slowly. The curve of her throat, the soft skin at her collarbone, the weight of her breasts in my palms. She made sounds that I catalogued the way I'd once catalogued the sounds of the forest, each one meaning something specific, each one telling me whether to stay or shift or press further.
When she gasped and pulled me closer, I stayed.
When her breathing changed, I paid attention.
Her fingers found my hair and tightened, not gently, and the sharp sting of it grounded me in a way that was purely welcome.
I moved lower, learning the soft skin of her ribs, the dip of her waist, and I felt her whole body tense in anticipation before I'd even reached the inside of her thigh.
"Is this what you want?" I asked against her skin.
"Yes," she said immediately, her hips shifting toward me, making her answer plain enough that there was no room for misreading it. "Please, Enslak. Yes."
When my mouth found her, her whole body arched off the ground, and the sound she made went through me like a current.
She tasted warm and clean, faintly sweet, and I worked her carefully at first, reading the movement of her hips and the catch of her breathing, learning what she liked before I let myself get lost in it.
"There," she breathed. "Right there. Don't stop."
I didn't stop.
She came apart with my name on her lips, her thighs tightening around me and her whole body shaking through it, and I held her through every second of it, waiting until the trembling eased before I lifted my head.
She looked undone in the best possible way, her chest rising and falling hard, her hair loose across the bedding.
"Come here," she said, reaching for me, pulling me up the length of her body.
I came willingly and she pulled me down to her mouth, kissing me with a thoroughness that left no ambiguity about what she wanted next. Her hand wrapped around my cock and I groaned against her lips, my hips rocking forward into her grip without meaning to.
"I want you," she said quietly, very clearly, her eyes holding mine. "I know what that means with your size. I want it anyway. Tell me if I need to tell you to slow down."
"I will go slowly," I said, and it cost me something to say it calmly with her hand on me, but I meant every word. "And you tell me if you need me to stop."
"I will," she said. "I promise."
I positioned myself carefully, watching her face. She was watching mine, which helped me stay present in a way that nothing else could have. I pressed forward slowly, feeling her body adjust around me by degrees, and when her eyes went wide I stopped immediately.
"Okay?" I asked.
"Very okay," she breathed, and then she shifted her hips to take me deeper herself, which was her answering the question more clearly than words. I pressed a little further. The sound she made was low and wanting.
"More?" I asked.
"More," she confirmed.
When I was fully seated inside her, we both held still, breathing. Her hands were on my arms, her nails pressed into my skin, and the expression on her face was something I was going to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about later when I could afford the distraction.
"You can move," she said, her voice a little unsteady. "Please move."
I withdrew slowly and came back in, and the sound she made told me to do it again. So I did. And again, finding a rhythm that made her breath come faster, that made her fingers dig in harder, that made her say my name in a way I'd never heard her say it before.
"Harder," she said after a while. "I can take it."
I checked her face. She was completely present, completely with me, her eyes open and dark and entirely certain. "Tell me if that changes," I said.
"I will. Now please stop being so careful and actually move."
Something in me loosened at that, and I stopped managing myself quite so tightly and let the rhythm build.
She met me with her whole body, her hips rising to match mine, both of us working toward something together rather than one of us simply receiving what the other offered.
The distinction mattered to me. I wanted to know we were doing this together.
The pleasure was enormous and building, but underneath it I stayed aware of her, aware of the sounds she was making and the way she was moving and whether she was with me or somewhere else.
She was entirely with me. Her voice was breaking on every exhale, saying fragments of words that were mostly my name, her hands alternating between gripping my arms and splaying flat against my chest as if she needed to feel my heartbeat.
When I felt her start to tighten around me, I changed the angle of my hips on instinct, trying to find whatever made it better, and she cried out suddenly with a sound that was pure surprise and then pure pleasure as she came, her whole body arching against mine, her nails drawing lines down my back that stung in a way that tipped me over the edge after her.