I work upward. My lips on the soft skin of her inner thigh, then the other, alternating, taking my time. She's trembling. Her breath is coming fast and uneven and her hand comes to the back of my head, fingers sliding into my hair, holding on.
I've spent all day thinking about her mind. The speed of it. The courage. The way she processes things and moves forward instead of breaking down. I've spent all day admiring her from a distance I imposed because I thought that was the decent thing to do.
This is not decent.
This is me on my knees in front of a woman I've known for one day, pressing my mouth to the swollen heat of her, and I don't care about decent anymore. I care about the sound she makes when my tongue finds her. The sharp, strangled gasp, the way her thighs tense around my head, the way her hand tightens in my hair.
That. That sound. I want to hear it again.
I use my tongue. Flat and slow and deliberate, the way I do everything, and she shudders. Her hips shift toward me, an instinct she can't control, and I hold her steady with one hand on her hip while the other slides up her stomach to rest between her breasts. I can feel her heartbeat under my palm. Hammering.
"Oh god." Her voice is thin. Wrecked. "Iosif, that's—"
I don't stop. I adjust. Find the spot that makes her legs shake and stay there. She told me to stop deciding for her. Fine. But this is something else. This is me deciding for her in a way I think she'll forgive.
I think about how she looked this morning, across the counter, shadows under her eyes, offering herself up like a transaction. Would you consider a relationship with me? Like a contract. Like a deal.
She has no idea.
I press harder with my tongue. She cries out. Her back arches off the table and says my name like it's the only word she knows.I feel it everywhere. Not just physically. Somewhere deeper. Somewhere that has been shut down for a very long time.
I change the pace. Faster. Tighter circles. I can feel her climbing. The tension building in her thighs, the way her stomach muscles contract under my hand, the desperate, rhythmic motion of her hips. She's close. I know she's close because her breathing has gone ragged, her fingers are gripping my hair hard enough to sting, and she's stopped trying to control the sounds she's making.
Good. I don't want her controlled. I've spent enough time around control. I am made of control. What I want from her, right now in this room, is the opposite.
My cock weeps for attention as a fresh burst of her taste mixed with mine coats my tongue.
Then I feel it happen.
The exact moment her whole body draws tight, her trembling thighs clamping against my head, her back lifting clean off the table. She says my name once, broken in the middle, and then she's coming with my mouth on her, my hand steady on her belly, anchoring her while the rest of her flies apart.
It lasts a long time. Longer than the first. I feel every wave of it under my hands and against my mouth, and I stay with her until the aftershocks taper to small tremors and her grip in my hair loosens and she goes limp against the table.
I press one last kiss to the inside of her thigh before I stand.
She's lying on the table. Eyes closed. Chest heaving. The lamplight paints her in gold and shadow. There are books scattered across the floor around us. Her clothes a scattered trail with mine around the chair.
She opens her eyes. They're bright and alert.
"You're very good at that," she says. Her voice is hoarse.
"I'm good at most things."
She laughs. It's loose and raw and real and it fills the room, and I lean over her and brace my hands on the table on either side of her head. I look down at her and think: I was right. Earlier. When it hit me. The thought I tried to dismiss.
I am going to fall in love with this woman.
Not going to. Already started.
She reaches up and touches my face. Traces the line of my jaw. Her fingers are gentle and certain.
"Stay with me tonight," she says.
It's not a question. It's not a demand. It's somewhere between the two, in that space she occupies so naturally, the space where vulnerability and directness coexist.
I pick her up from the table. She wraps around me easily, her head dropping to my shoulder, and I carry her out of the library and up the stairs to my room.
The house is dark and quiet around us. Her breathing slows against my neck. Her fingers trace absent patterns on my shoulder.
