19. Except You
Except You
Kiri
This isn't the clumsy Natalia reaching for my belt from last night with hands that couldn’t quite decide where they wanted to land. Her lips press to the pulse beneath my jaw, checking whether I’m still here. Whether I stayed like I promised.
“Nat,” I breathe.
I’m barely awake, but my body doesn’t need the extra time. It recognizes her before my mind catches up, the weight of her against my side, her knee nudging between mine, the heat of her breath moving over my skin. She kisses the same place again, then lower. My hand tightens in the sheet.
Fuck.
Her leg slides over mine, claiming space until half her body is draped over me.
She's warm and pliant from sleep, but there's nothing sleepy about the way her fingers move over my chest. She traces the lines of the ink peeking out above my shirt, following shapes through touch she can’t see in the dark.
I turn my head toward her. The room is washed in the faint blue-grey that comes before dawn.
Enough light to catch the pale fall of her hair around her face before she lifts her head just enough to look at me.
Her eyes are glassy but focused, pupils blown wide, her lips swollen and pink from kisses I think I must have been asleep for, pressing them against my stubble.
“I’m not drunk anymore,” she whispers.
The slurred words are gone, now they're clear as anything she’s ever said to me. The woman who could barely walk in a straight line last night is a memory. This Natalia knows who's in her bed and exactly what she’s doing to me. I catch her wrist before her hand can travel any lower.
“Hey.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “Slow down.”
“I know what I'm doing.”
Her chin lifts when she says it, daring me to argue. I keep my fingers around her wrist, thumb resting over the quick beat of her heart.
“Really? What's that?”
Her confidence wavers but only for a second. Then she leans closer until her nose brushes mine.
“Trying to feel something.” My grip loosens.
She watches my face, all that bravado thinning enough for me to see what’s underneath it. The grief from earlier, her frustration mixed with some restless need to crawl out of her own head and into anything that doesn’t hurt. I know it too well.
For a second, every nameless bed flashes through my head. Hotel rooms and back seats. Bodies I barely remembered by morning. The same pattern dressed up as freedom, over and over, find someone, lose myself, leave before they can see the scar underneath it.
“Nothing gets through,” she says quietly. “Except you.”
She kisses me before I can decide what comes after, what I might've said.
I make the mistake of kissing her back. The sound she makes is pure torture, reminding me of all the noises I could bring out of her.
Her hand slips free of mine and slides around the back of my neck.
She pulls me closer, mouth opening beneath me, breath spilling into mine and I go helpless in her hands.
I taste the faint trace of alcohol still lingering on her tongue. Her body presses into mine and every part of me answers. She's always known how to get a reaction out of me, even when this was just online, it’s one of her favorite things in the world. Her mouth curves against mine.
“Don’t do that,” I mutter.
“Do what?”
“Act like you've won. I can feel you smiling.”
“Maybe you’re just imagining it, friend.”
I catch her lower lip between my teeth and nip her gently.
The cocky smile disappears. Her breath catches, and her fingers tighten at my neck as I soothe the bite with my tongue.
The tiny shift of her hips against mine sends heat cutting straight through me.
She feels that too. The laugh she lets out is unsteady.
Her hand moves over my chest, slower now.
She drags her fingertips over my ribs, down the center of my stomach, learning every place that tightens beneath her touch.
I let her explore longer than I should. She studies me while she does it and there's nothing shy about it.
She pays attention to each movement, like every change in my breathing tells her something she needs to know.
When her palm finally settles along the length of me, feeling just how hard I am for her, the last haze of sleep leaves my body.
“Fuck.” The word escapes in a muted hiss.
There’s satisfaction in her face when she feels how badly I want her, proof that I didn't change my mind while we slept. As if that was ever a possibility. She bites her bottom lip at the contact as she palms me in her hand, teasing.
“You want this too,” she whispers into the curve of my neck. I close my eyes. Her mouth trails lazily to the corner of mine. My hand slides into her hair, holding her there.
“Yeah,” I admit, against her lips. “I do. I want you.”
Then she presses closer. Her body moves on instinct, seeking the pressure of my thigh between hers.
A needy sound catches in her throat when she finds it, and I go still.
Because I want this, her, too fucking much.
She rolls her hips against me, chasing the friction.
Her forehead drops to my shoulder, breath warming my neck.
My fingers flex in her hair. She does it again and the sound she makes this time is louder, more honest.
“Nat, look at me.” I cradle her chin and lift it gently until she does.
Her eyes are dark, lashes heavy, cheeks flushed.
She looks embarrassed by how openly her body is responding but she's too desperate to stop. Something in me knows if she keeps looking at me like that, moving against me like she wants me to take her, I’m not sure I’ll be able to hit the brakes, and she clearly doesn’t want me to.
Not right now, anyway, but right now is the problem.
She’s still reaching for me because she wants out of her own head, because she needs something strong enough to drown everything else out.
Tomorrow, the grief will still be there.
The alcohol in her system will be long gone, and I know that this feeling won't just go away, no matter what we do tonight.
What if we do this and then she looks at me differently? I don’t think I could survive her looking at me like a mistake, so the words come out even if my dick throbs in protest.
“This isn’t how I want this to happen.”
“Shut up and touch me, Kiri.”
Something primal wakes up at the sound of my name in her mouth. Fine, I’ll touch her. I’ll give her enough to burn through what she’s trying to outrun tonight. I'll let her believe it, let her chase it. But I won’t take everything she’s offering.
She doesn’t understand the shape of my plan when I kiss her hard enough to steal the next demand from her lips.
Her hands clutch at me, pulling me closer like she still thinks this ends with me giving in completely.
I kiss her temple, then the space beneath her ear.
I press my mouth to the same place again, slower this time and her head tips back.
I trace the line of her throat, feeling every swallow beneath my lips.
A frantic rhythm jumps beneath her skin when my teeth graze her, and the hand at the back of my neck tightens.
I kiss the hollow at the base of her throat, then her collarbone.
The warm skin revealed where the neckline of her dress has slipped.
Her breathing grows uneven as my hand follows the path of my mouth, tracing her shoulder before moving down her side.
I feel the faint tremor that runs through her when my thumb brushes the curve beneath her breast. Her body leans into my hand before she can pretend otherwise.
I cup her through the thin fabric, feeling the instant change in her breathing.
I move my thumb slowly over the swell of her breast, then gently brush the raised tip of her nipple.
The next sweep draws a soft moan from her, and the sound travels through my body like a live wire.
I kiss her again before she can swallow it, I can feel her losing herself a little more with every pass of my thumb.
She arches into my touch, hips moving against my thigh again, but this time I give back the pressure she’s been searching for.
She breaks the kiss with a gasp and her nails dig into my shoulder.
I slide my hand down the length of her body, over her waist and hip, following the line of her thigh.
The fabric between us is thin enough that I can feel the heat of her through it.
She goes still in anticipation. I move the fabric aside and my own breath leaves me at the first touch of her heat.
My fingers slide against her gently as her moan breaks against my throat.
The realization of how ready she is, of how long her body has been asking for me while I tried to convince myself we could keep pretending, sends a violent rush of desire through me.
“Is this how you get every time you think about me?”
Her fingers tighten in my hair. The words embarrass her and excite her at the same time, I can see both reactions move across her face.
I touch her slowly, taking my time. Her body answers, hips tipping toward my hand.
I repeat the motion. The sound she makes is louder this time, wilder.
I kiss her as my fingers continue their exploration, learning which movements make her breath hitch and which make her press closer.
She tries to stay quiet at first, biting the inside of her lip whenever a sound rises.
A shiver moves through her when I change the pressure and her moan comes out broken and helpless.
Every nerve in my body catches fire. She buries her face against my neck, as the rhythm begins to build between us, my hand moving with her, her body seeking mine.
Each small adjustment drawing another reaction from her until both of us are breathing hard.
She twists her fingers into the back of my shirt, clutching me like she needs something solid while the tension gathers inside her.
Her hips press into my hand when I tease her; my fingers passing her entrance again in favor of prolonging the sensation. She makes an exasperated sound, the sexiest pout I've ever heard in my life.
“You're driving me crazy.”
“Some things are better… when you wait for them.”
She glares at me, breathless and offended. “I’m trying to come.”
A laugh breaks out of me before I can stop it. She groans, throwing her impatient head against the pillow.
“And,” I murmur near her ear, “I'm trying to listen, to learn about you.”
Her eyes track me, watching my face. My lips part, a mirror of her pleasure as I move my fingers just enough to pull another broken sound from her. She bites my shoulder in frustrated retaliation. It turns me on far more than it hurts. An automatic response in Khmer escapes.
“Koun krapeu. (Baby crocodile)” I mutter as I gently nip her nose, mimicking the attack.
“That’s what you get.”
“Violent woman. A crocodile in your past life.”
“Keep teasing me and I’ll—”
I move my hand exactly the way she’s been begging me, thrusting two fingers inside her and pressing my palm against her most sensitive place.
Her threat collapses into a full-body shudder, followed by a gasp.
I rock my hand gently at first, fingers curling inside her, pressure with each thrust, but her desire takes over.
Suddenly she’s pulling me in, tensing, moving against me, chasing every way I touch her.
She presses her forehead hard against my neck, saying my name again and again, each repetition losing another layer of control.
Each version of it in her mouth is softer, needier, and it sets me on fire.
I’m painfully hard, every part of me straining toward her, but I don’t ask for my own relief.
This is about her. I keep one arm locked around her, holding her through every trembling breath.
My mouth moves over her temple, her cheek, the corner of her lips.
Her body tightens, pulsing against my fingers and I can tell she's close. Her whole body tenses.
“Give me that fucking sound again,” I whisper. “Come for me.”
She trembles against me, the release hitting her in a series of beautiful, helpless waves.
Her fingers dig into my skin, her body drawing tight before finally giving way.
The sound she makes is my name mixed with noises that never become words.
I hold her through all of it, every tremor and broken breath.
Every moment it takes for the tension to drain from her body.
Then she collapses against me, all that fierce restless energy finally quiet.
Her forehead rests beneath my chin. I can feel her heartbeat beginning to slow where her chest presses against mine, fingers loosening her grip, nails finally freeing the skin they dug into. I press a kiss to her hair.
For a long time, neither of us moves. The room grows lighter around us, grey turning slowly toward blue.
The edges of furniture emerging from the dark.
Her body stays curled around mine, warm and trusting.
I should feel relieved that I held the line.
Instead, every part of me aches with what we didn’t do.
What I wanted to do.
I wait until her breathing is slow and even before easing her back onto the pillow.
She makes a small sound of protest, reaching for me without opening her eyes.
I pull the blanket over her shoulders and brush her hair away from her face.
Her eyes flutter open. For one awful second, she looks frightened, like she thinks I’m already gone.
“Are you leaving?” she whispers.
The question in her mouth nearly breaks me.
“No, I’m staying until you fall asleep. Again.”
Her hand finds mine beneath the blanket.
She laces our fingers together and pulls them against her chest. Within minutes, she's asleep.
I lie there listening to her breathe. My body still burns, my shoulder stings where she bit me, and the skin along my neck feels marked by every kiss she left there.
None of it matters as much as the weight of her hand around mine. I stay until her grip loosens, until I know she's deep enough asleep that moving won’t wake her. Then I ease my fingers from hers and sit at the edge of the bed.
My watch reads five. Plenty of time to leave before anyone sees me, to make this look innocent. To slip back into my room like I left hours ago. I look back at her, curled into the space I left behind, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
As the door clicks shut behind me, I wonder how I'm supposed to pretend nothing happened when the sound of her breaking apart around my name is all I can hear.