16. Damian #2
I didn't change a thing, just kept the same patient pressure until she went rigid at once, back arching, her grip on my hand tightening hard enough to hurt, though I didn't mind it at all.
The sound she made when she finally broke was raw, unguarded, nothing like the composed voice she used across a conference table, and I felt it land somewhere low and urgent in my own chest. I held her through the aftershocks, her thighs trembling under my hands, the last of the tension bleeding out of her in slow waves, and pressed one last kiss to the inside of her thigh before I lifted my head.
I'd been aching the whole time I was over her, every second of it, my own restraint a live thing I'd had to keep a fist around while I gave her what she needed first. By the time she pulled me up my heart was slamming against my ribs, my breath as ragged as hers, and I hadn't so much as touched myself the entire time. That had been the point.
She pulled me up before I'd finished catching my own breath, her mouth finding mine, tasting herself there without any hesitation, and her hands went to the fastening of my jeans with a directness that stole what was left of my control.
"Damian." She said it again, quieter, her fingers working the button loose, her palm dragging in one long, steady stroke over the hard length of me still trapped in denim, and I had to catch her wrist and hold it still for a second just to keep from losing myself right there.
"I want all of you. Not just the parts you've decided are safe to give me. "
"I don't know how to do this any other way."
"Then let me help."
She pushed my jeans down over my hips and I finished the job, kicking them aside, and for a moment I just knelt there over her, bare, exposed in ways that had nothing to do with skin, and let her look at me.
Her gaze moved slowly down my body and back up to my face, taking her time about it, her lips parting slightly, and whatever she saw there made her reach up and pull me down by the back of the neck.
"You don't have to be in control of this," she whispered against my ear. "Not with me."
Something in my chest cracked open at that, and I let it.
I reached into the nightstand for what we needed, my hands not quite steady, my pulse loud enough that I could feel it in my throat, and she watched me the whole time, waiting, her thighs already parting to make room for me.
I settled between them, braced on one forearm, and let the length of my body come down against hers, slow, so she felt every inch of the descent, skin against skin for the first time with nothing left between us.
I heard her breath catch at the weight and heat of it, felt her hands come up to map my back like she was bracing herself for something.
For a moment I just held there above her, not moving, memorizing the way her body fit under mine, the softness of her stomach against mine, her legs already starting to open wider to make room, an instinct neither of us had to think about.
I could feel her heartbeat where our chests pressed together, quick and light, and mine matching it beat for beat.
"Ready?" I asked, and the word came out rougher than I meant it to.
"Yes. Now." A ghost of a smile touched her mouth. "You're the one stalling, Morozov."
That pulled a rough laugh out of me, and some of the tension in my shoulders eased, just enough.
I reached down between us and guided myself to her entrance, and the first press of contact there, the head of me against the slick heat of her, was enough to make every muscle in me go rigid with the effort of holding still.
She made a small sound, half anticipation, half want, and lifted her hips toward me, and I had to close my eyes for a second and breathe through it.
I pushed in slowly, an inch, no more, and stopped.
Her body gave around me in tight, unfamiliar pulses, and I felt every one of them travel straight up my spine.
Her breath left her in a shudder, and her hands found my forearms, gripping hard enough that I knew she felt it too, that first, almost too-much stretch of her body opening around mine.
"You're so..." she started, and didn't finish, just tipped her head back against the pillow and exhaled through it.
"I feel it too." My own voice had gone rough, unfamiliar to my own ears. "Tell me if it's too much."
"It's not. Don't stop."
I pushed in another inch, watching her face the entire time, reading every flicker of it the way I'd read her all night, and when her jaw tightened I stilled again, letting her body adjust, ignoring my own body's demand to keep going.
Halfway in I had to stop entirely, forehead dropping to hers, my arms shaking where they braced on either side of her, the sheer effort of not moving further too fast burning through every muscle I had.
I'd held everything at a distance for so long, and none of it had prepared me for how much it would cost to hold back now, with her under me, around me, asking me with everything she had to stop being careful.
"Okay?" she asked, her hands smoothing up my back, over my shoulders, like she was trying to gentle something wild.
"Give me a second."
"Take as long as you want." Her voice had gone soft, almost tender, and it undid me faster than anything rougher could have.
I laughed, low and rough, surprised at myself for it, and she smiled against my mouth like she'd won something.
I kissed her slow to buy myself another moment, felt her relax by degrees beneath me, and only then did I ease the rest of the way into her, so slow I felt every small give of her body as it opened to take the rest of me, every fractional adjustment, every catch of breath that told me exactly how she was feeling each inch.
By the time I was fully seated inside her, buried as deep as her body would allow, neither of us was breathing at all.
Her heels pressed into the backs of my thighs, holding me there, and she trembled faintly around me, tight and slick and impossibly close.
I stayed still like that for a long moment, forehead against hers, both of us adjusting, both of us feeling the weight of exactly what this was.
Nine years since I'd let my guard down enough to be inside anyone like this, skin to skin, nothing held back, and the intimacy of it hit me harder than the physical fact of it.
I felt her pulse where our bodies joined, felt my own heartbeat answering it, and for the first time in longer than I could remember I wasn't braced for anything.
I was fully hers in that moment, held by her, shaken by how much I didn't want to move yet.
"You feel..." she started, and didn't finish, just exhaled shakily and tightened her arms around me instead.
"Same," I said, my voice as rough as hers.
"Move," she said against my jaw, a little pleading now. "Please, Damian."
I drew back slow, almost all the way, feeling every inch of the slide in reverse, and pressed in again slower still, testing the give of her, watching her face for anything that told me to stop or to keep going.
What I found was her lashes fluttering shut, her lips parting on a soft exhale, her hips tilting up to meet me halfway.
I set a rhythm that matched what her body was asking for, patient at first, deep and unhurried, and every stroke drew some small new sound out of her that I filed away like everything else she'd given me that night.
"There," she breathed, when I found an angle that made her nails drag light down my spine. "Right there, don't stop."
"Not going anywhere."
I held that angle and let the rhythm build, gradual at first, her hips rising to meet each thrust until the give and take of it found its own tempo, one neither of us had to think about anymore.
Her breath came faster against my throat, broken by small sounds that had stopped being words, and I felt my own control fraying at the edges with every roll of her hips under mine.