Lewis’s palm skids over my breast as he tugs up the elastic. I arch into his touch, undone by the slow drag of his skin. My reaction distracts him, I think, because he doesn’t pull the bralette off, just pushes it high enough that he can glide his thumb over my nipple. My hips tilt forward, lust coiling tightly in my abdomen.
Again, his hand drifts over my breast, but now he studies me with heavy-lidded eyes as if to catalog the reactions in every part of my body. “I…” His chest rises and falls with the intakeof his breath. “Is it weird if I tell you that I’d hoped phase two would involve something like this?”
“Getting hyper focused on my nipples?” I ask, as he kisses a path down my neckline. Not that I’m complaining, but it’s slightly humiliating to be so highly strung when half of my clothes—and all of his—are still on.
“Seeing you naked.” His breath ghosts against my nipple, taut after all his attention.
About that.
“Technically,” I remark, unbuttoning his shirt, “I’m not. You know, since you’re so detail-oriented.”
He smiles against my lips as he kisses me, my fingers busy mapping the geography of his chest. And then it’s a competition of who can undress the other first, although it’s unfair that he has a head start. His thumb finds the button of my shorts, my palms push the linen fabric off his shoulders, he finally drags my bralette over my head.
He wins.
By the time he has me truly naked, I’ve only gotten his shirt off and the buckle of his belt open. Freckles dot his shoulders, fainter but more densely clustered than on his face, like the point cloud of an imperfect correlation. Muscles and a trail of hair disappear into the waistband of his shorts, which hang low on his hips, bulged out by the clear shape of his desire.
I reach for him, hungry for the pressure of his leg, and when he slots his thigh between mine and pushes me against the table again, I feel a glimpse of relief, but it’s short-lived. The index finger of his right hand skirts over my torso, traces over my ribs and to my belly button, but instead of dipping down lower to where I’m unhinged with need, Lewis steps back. And pauses. And looks at me with hunger, slowing my blood down to a crawl.
Then he gently pushes me back onto the table and kneels.Fingers finding my ankle, he starts a maddening path up the inside of my leg.
“This…” he mumbles, and with his cheek against my thigh, I can feel the stubble of his jaw against my skin. It makes me needy. Greedy.
“What?” I gasp out, only noting how my hips have bowed up when he settles his palm over my abdomen and pushes me back to the table. He dips down his thumb, inches from where desire is strumming out a heavy rhythm.
“… Was my very faint hope for phase three.” He swallows. I take in the soft curl of his hair, the calm focus of his eyes, the puckered lips. “Do you know you narrow your eyes in a very specific way when you’re trying to one-up me? You get this little nick on the bridge of your nose. And then you say something smart about fucking basket cells and their contribution to the hemodynamic response. There’s nothing more sexy than when you explain things to me.”
The confession rushes out of him in a string of breaths against my inner thigh, words slurring as though his discipline is fading. When did I talk about basket cells? Wednesday? I squirm under him, out of my mind for his touch.
Lewis is gentle when he finally strokes me. He slips his hand between my legs, palm and then fingers dragging in one long movement against my clit. His touch sets off quivers everywhere, the tectonics of my body shaking and rearranging even furthest from my epicenter.
“Lewis.” His name is little more than a whimper on my tongue.
“Are you good?” he asks innocently, as his thumb draws tight circles over me. “Or would you prefer the board games now?”
My laugh veers into a choking sound when I feel his tongue on me. He moves between my legs the way he kissed me: slowand unhurried, even when I move my hips against his face with impatience. I could stay in this state for hours, drunk on his attention, plied by his fingers and his tongue, but every time he licks my clit, this heavy, empty feeling winds tighter around my spine. It’s not enough, not even when he slides a finger into me, and I push my hips into his palm.
My fingers in his hair, on the arch of his ear, bring him to a halt.
“Did you bring condoms?”
Lewis blinks at me, dazed, and I can see his brain reboot in the way his stare loses its glazed-over look and pivots into a sharp focus. “I did. They’re in my bag.” He sits back onto his heels and runs his left hand over his face, the other still palming the pulse between my legs. After a glance over his shoulder, he rises slowly and walks over to the couch to dig through his duffel bag.
“Is this what you expected for phase four?” I ask him, watching as he steps out of his shorts on his way back to me.
“Shush,” he says against the crown of my head, as I hook my thumb into the waistband of his boxers and tug them down. “I did not expect anything. I also brought cocoa powder, vegan marshmallows, bath salts, and a copy of your dissertation.” He tears open the packet, then pulls the condom on, fingers twitching once they’re wrapped around him. For a breath he’s quiet and presses his eyes shut, as if he’s holding on to this conversation only by a tether. “It’s better to be prepared for everything than end up regretting not bringing the right thing later.”
I swallow forcibly, gaze catching on his hand. That edge in his voice does something to my body, makes it feel liquid and molten. His eyes flash back up to me and his chest expands with a deep inhale as he runs his hands over my hair.
“Come here.” His voice is soft as he beckons me in for another kiss. He cradles my cheeks, turns my head to one sideand bites my earlobe, the underside of my jaw, the curve of my neck.
I lean back onto my hands. Attention unwavering, his hands lift to my ass and slowly, gently, pull me closer to the edge of the table. Closer to him.
“Is this okay?” he chokes out as he lines himself up against me.
Impatient as I am, it takes me a breath to register what he’s waiting for. Then another one to get the word out. “Yes.”
He holds my gaze and only when I nod to emphasize my words, does he finally sink into me. For a hitch of a breath, the pressure of him satisfies my longing and I let out a moan. But then he stills, and I spiral back into a wide, gaping emptiness. Lewis breathes out a sigh, his eyes closing for one long blink, before they come to rest on my face. I clasp my thighs around him, desperate to increase the tension.
