38. Damian #2
I kissed my way down her body instead of answering, over her ribs, the soft skin of her stomach, the jut of her hip bone, and settled between her thighs with both hands braced under her, holding her exactly where I wanted her while I finally put my mouth where my hand had been.
She made a sound that wasn't language at all, both hands flying to my hair, her hips trying to rise and my forearm pinning her gently down, keeping her right where I could take my time even when neither of us had any patience left for it.
I learned her with my tongue the same way I'd learned every other part of her tonight, fast and thorough at once, finding the rhythm that made her thighs shake against my shoulders and her breath come apart in short, broken pulls, and when I felt her getting close I didn't slow down, didn't draw it out the way I sometimes did on other nights, just gave her exactly what her body was already begging for until she broke apart around my mouth with a sound she didn't try to muffle, her whole body bowing off the mattress.
I gave her about ten seconds to catch her breath before I moved back up her body, shedding my belt and the last of my own clothes in a rush I didn't bother making elegant, kicking them off the edge of the bed without looking where they landed.
She watched me do it, propped up on her elbows, her chest still rising too fast, and when I finally settled between her thighs again, bare skin against bare skin at last, she pulled my mouth back down to hers instead of letting me slow down to look at her the way I usually needed to.
"Later," she said against my mouth, reading exactly what I was about to do. "Look at me later. Right now I just need you to move."
I reached down and lined myself up against her, and felt her breath catch at just that, at the promise of it before I'd given her anything more.
I pushed in slow, an inch at a time, feeling her stretch to take me, her body opening around mine by degrees, and stopped halfway, my forehead dropping to hers, both of us breathing like we'd run somewhere instead of just lying still.
"Damian." My name came out barely a whisper this time, her hips already tilting up to take more of me.
"I know." I pushed forward the rest of the distance in one slow, deep stroke that stilled us both for a full second, buried as deep in her as I could get, feeling her whole body clench tight around me like she was memorizing exactly how it felt to have all of me at once.
Neither of us moved for that one long beat, just felt it, her hands flat against my back, my mouth against her temple, both of us needing that one suspended second before neither of us could hold still any longer.
There was nothing measured about what came after, none of the long, deliberate build we usually gave each other.
Her hips rose to meet mine and her nails found my shoulders and her breath broke apart against my throat every time I drove deeper into her.
She said my name like a plea now, over and over, one hand locked in my hair and the other clutching my back like she was afraid I'd stop, and I had no intention of stopping, not tonight, not with fear still sitting somewhere under all of this, turning every point of contact between us into something closer to desperation than comfort.
I hooked one arm under her knee and drew it higher against my ribs, changing the angle until the sound she made climbed into something close to a sob, and she answered by digging her heels into the small of my back, urging me deeper, faster, like there wasn't a single inch of distance left she could stand between us.
The headboard found the wall and stayed there, a steady counterpoint under everything else, her name and mine tangled together until neither of us could tell which one was which anymore.
"Faster," she said, and I gave her that too, until her whole body went taut under mine, every muscle drawn tight at once, and the sound she made when she came apart a second time was rougher than the first, my name dissolving partway into something wordless entirely, her body clenching around me hard enough to strip away whatever restraint I still had left.
I followed seconds later, her name breaking out of me instead of staying locked behind my teeth as it usually did, my whole body shaking through it with hers, both of us holding on like letting go might actually cost us something real.
We lay tangled after, both of us breathing hard, her head dropping onto my chest the second I had enough air back in my lungs to pull her there.
I felt her heartbeat slow gradually against my ribs, one uneven breath at a time, and ran my hand along her spine without thinking about it, the same reflex that made me fix a loose hinge whenever I couldn't say what I actually meant.
"That wasn't like the other times," she said finally, quiet.
"No."
"Good different or worried different?"
"Both, maybe." I found her hand where it rested against my chest and laced my fingers through hers. "I keep thinking about that light in his window. I don't like what it means, and I don't like that you were standing under it alone."
She went still against me, and for a moment I thought she'd argue, as she usually did whenever I said anything close to a rule. She didn't.
"Whatever happens with him," I said, low, my mouth against her hair, "you don't go back into that building without me. Not the archive. Not any floor of it. I don't care what excuse gets you through the lobby."
She was quiet long enough that I almost repeated myself. Then she nodded against my chest, once, no argument in it anywhere, and I understood, feeling the last of the tension finally leave her body against mine, that some part of her had been waiting all night for exactly that sentence.