“Stay tonight.”
He would’ve stayed in the hallway, if that’s the way she’d wanted it.
In fact they got halfway there—desperate, mismatched undressing, Nora pushing Will’s shirt up while he shoved her pants down, Nora pulling at his belt while his hands smoothed beneath her top to get to the clasp of her bra. He had her legs wrapped around his hips before he even realized the impossibility of it, before he smiled against her mouth and tucked two teasing fingers beneath the waist of her underwear, tugging to remind her of their presence. She leaned her head against the wall with a soft thud, inhaling through her nose before she breathed out the wordbedroom, in a voice laced with the same quiet sort of command she’d used to tell him to stay, and it made his body turn unexpectedly harder.
When she slid down his front and stepped away he had a brief, panicked moment of insecurity—that losing her touch would mean losing his focus, that the cut cord would reconnect and remind him why this was all a dangerous idea. But then she walked by him, her legs bare, the back of one thigh pink from where his hand had been holding her, and to him it might as well have been another command. That looked the same as having the wordsfollow mewhispered right into his ear. He’d never really thought of himself as a man who liked to be bossed around during sex, but damn if he didn’t walk toward the cool, dark quiet of Nora’s bedroom and want her to tell him every single thing she wanted him to do, exactly how she wanted him to do it.
And Nora—perfect, particular Nora—she gave him exactly what he craved.
As soon as he crossed the threshold she set her hands back on his chest, guiding him to the foot of her bed before pressing his shoulders down.
“Stay there,” she said, smiling as she stepped out of reach of his grasping hands, all at once pulling her shirt and already-unhooked bra over her head. She stood, backlit by the light that spilled into the hallway from the bathroom, and he thought he’d never seen something as beautiful as that—every curve and angle of Nora’s body shown to him, mostly in silhouette, with small, intimate details coming clearer as his eyes adjusted. When she hooked her thumbs at the sides of her underwear and pushed them down, he thought he might’ve stopped breathing, seeing the movement of her body while she bared herself to him. All those blurry images from before got sharper, more distinct: his tongue licking across the rosy tip of her nipple, his teeth set against the slope of her shoulder, his thumbs smoothing their way up the inside of her thighs.
“Not yet,” she said, another whispered command, and only then did he realize he’d been reaching for her. He pulled his hands back, setting his palms flat on the bed and trying not to clutch too obviously at her comforter. But then she reached up and took down her hair, and he stopped trying; he took two whole fistfuls of her bedding as he watched it fall over her shoulders, her breasts, the full, straight length of it hitting right at the top of her rib cage.
“Nora,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”
She stepped between the V of his thighs and reached up, gently pulling his glasses from his face, and when she moved to set them down on the dresser behind her, he made a demand of his own, catching at her hips roughly and stilling her. “Stay close,” he said, low and serious, because itfeltso serious.
He did not want to lose sight of her. Not even for a second.
She made quick work of coming back to him, setting her hands against the stubbled skin along his jaw before bending to kiss him, and the next thing he knew they were both on the bed, Nora’s warm, soft skin running the length of him. It took all his concentration to let her explore first: her mouth on his neck, down the center of his chest, across his abdomen as she worked the button and zipper on his jeans. He could tell something about the way she moved over him, the way she straddled him, the way she touched and tasted him—it was an assertion, a claiming, the demands she was making as much about herself as they were about him.
I can give her that, he thought, clenching his jaw tightly as she took down his jeans and boxer briefs and socks all at once, as she climbed back over him, the damp heat between her legs pressed against one of his thighs. He breathed out his frantic impatience, his desperation to tug at her again, to set her where he wanted her. He breathed in his focus, and for the first time in his life it felt truly easy, truly natural to sharpen his attention.
It was easy because it was all for her.
To give her this, whatever she wanted. Whatever kept making this feel like a first for her.
She lifted his hands from where they rested in readiness on her waist, moving them up, giving him permission, and when he cupped her breasts in his palms she moaned, dropping her head back, and oh,fuck, when she did that, the ends of her hair grazed against his thigh, his knee, his shin—all places, apparently, that had a direct line to his balls. He levered himself up, his hands on her not enough, and set his mouth to work—soft kisses first, a teasing stroke of his tongue along the edge of her nipple, and when she rocked her hips and clutched at the back of his head he gave her more, sucking at one breast while groping the other roughly, moving his free hand to that fall of hair, giving her the tight, tense hold he already knew she liked.
He did it for so long that the movements of her hips got more rhythmic, more insistent, her breathing quick. A revelation, a first: somehow satisfying Nora with what amounted to a dry hump against his leg was already the best sex he’d ever had.But if you could only—
Once the thought intruded, it was so vivid he had to pull his mouth from her breast, to rest his damp forehead against the flushed skin of her chest. He was speaking before he could stop it, before he could regain his focus. “Nora,” he whispered, a plea. “Let me taste it.”
She made a small noise, part gasp, part grunt, and his thigh got wetter. If she came from this, he certainly wouldn’t blame her, and he definitely wouldn’t be far behind. She hadn’t even touched his cock yet and he wasclose. Edge-of-a-cliff close. He breathed in, smelling her sex, his mouth fairly watering for it.
“Not yet,” she said again, and then she moved off of him, crawling toward her nightstand and pulling out a still-sealed box of condoms.
“I want this first,” she said, so bold and gorgeous, and thank God she let him take the box from her; thank God she let him rip it open and grit his teeth and put one on himself, because he wouldn’t have survived her touch, not right that second. But what shediddo was almost as arousing, her body easing onto its side, her elbow propping her up, her eyes on his hand, on the hardness between his legs. She watched him roll the condom on like she’d never paid attention to a man doing this particular task before.
When he was done he moved to lie beside her, waiting for her to tell him, to show him, what she wanted. Given what they’d been doing he half expected her to push him over, to straddle him so that they could pick up where they’d left off, but instead she gripped his shoulders and rolled onto her back, and he didn’t know how it could be so perfectly done, how this first time they could line up like this—her legs spread beneath him, her sex rubbing so exactlyrightagainst his.
Focus, he told himself, bending to kiss her, to whisper against her mouth and ask if she was sure. She gave it to him three ways: her nod, heryes, her hand on his ass, guiding him toward her. But the second he pushed inside her—the barest inch—he had to drop his head to the mattress with a groan and reach back for her gripping hand. He would not last with her touch like that, urging him on, and he had to make this last, to make it so good for her. So he made another silent demand, catching up that hand first and then her other, intertwining their fingers and raising their pressed-together palms above her head.
“Yes,” she said, before he could ask if it was okay. “Yes, likethat.”
So, like that. Like that he pushed all the way inside her, her clutching heat breath-stealing. Like that he gave his first, slow thrust, and he closed his eyes, wondering if he’d actually seen stars. Like that he knew he’d never felt anything close to this—Nora beneath him, breathing out her pleasure and rolling her hips to intensify it, her grasp around his fingers tightening as they found the perfect pace together, as he went deeper.
Like that he knew he would never be the same.
But he couldn’t think of that now, not with Nora getting closer and closer. At some point, they’d lost their shared patience for keeping their hands out of it; when his focus came back, she had one on his back and one on his ass; he had one pressed flat on the bed and the other on the back of her thigh, holding her open for the thrusts that had gotten harder, more insistent. He bit the inside of his cheek, not making the demand he wanted, not telling her to come, but as it turned out he didn’t need to, because Nora’s hips sped up beneath him, her nails scratching perfectly against his back as she bit down on her lip to quiet her moaning cry.
Don’t come, he commanded himself, wanting to see her all the way through it, wanting to feel fully every clutching pulse along his length. But it had been so long; he had waited so long to feel this with her, since the very—
“Will,” she said, lifting her head to lick up the side of his neck, dewy with the sweat of his exertion, and that did it; that was all it took. He groaned and stilled above her, grateful for her arms around him, grateful for the way she held him tight as he came apart. It was better, more intense, more complete than seeing stars; it was like becoming them, cut-up pieces of him scattered to the night. He said her name, once and then again, because nothing else would come to him, no other thought or feeling available. No pressure, no practicality, no responsibility. Nothing but Nora.
A perfect, unforgettable first.
