“I know you’re asking. That’s why I’m sure.”
He follows me down the hallway, his hand in mine. The simplicity of that, two people walking to a bedroom holding hands.
I pull his shirt over his head. He pulls mine. His skin is warm and I put my hands on his chest and his heartbeat is fast under my palms.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t fine. I said you’re shaking.” His thumb traces my collarbone. “We can stop.”
“I don’t want to stop.” I pull him closer by his waistband and his breath catches. “I want to not be shaking.”
“Different things.”
“I’m aware.”
He puts his mouth on my shoulder. Presses his lips against the muscle and stays, breathing against my skin, and I feel the breath land and my body accept it. No calculation between the sensation and the response. Just warmth arriving and my body letting it in.
We lie down. He settles beside me, his hand tracing from my hip to my ribs, the same path from that night when everything was urgent and I was running. Same fingers. Same skin. The urgency gone. What’s left is sure and unhurried.
He undoes my belt. Pulls my jeans and briefs down together and wraps his hand around me and the grip is firm and warm and I exhale hard.
“There you are,” he says. The same words from his apartment weeks ago, but quieter.
“I’m here.”
“I know.” He strokes me slow, base to tip, his thumb dragging through the wet at the head, and the sound I make is not a soundI’ve been making this week. My hips push into his hand and he lets them, matching the rhythm, his eyes on my face.
“You’re watching me.”
“I’m always watching you.” No joke underneath it. Just true.
I pull him on top of me and strip the rest of his clothes and feel the full weight of him settle over me, chest to chest, his cock hard against mine. He rolls his hips and the friction drags a sound out of both of us.
“Off.” I pull at his briefs and he kicks them free and then we’re skin to skin, nothing between us, the full length of him pressing warm against me.
I reach between us and wrap my hand around both of us and his forehead drops to mine.
“Zay.” His voice rough already.
“Tell me what you want.”
“You. That’s it. That’s all of it.”
I stroke us together, slow, slick, my grip tighter than it needs to be. He breathes against my mouth and his hand finds my jaw and he holds my face while I hold us and the intimacy of that makes my eyes sting. I don’t try to stop it.
He pulls back. Looks at me. “Hey.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your eyes are wet.”
“I said I’m fine.” But my voice breaks on the second word and he doesn’t push. He just kisses the corner of my eye, feather-light, and moves his mouth down my jaw. My throat. My sternum.
He moves down my body without rush. His mouth on the cut of muscle at my hip. His lips pressing along the crease of my thigh, breath hot against my cock without touching it, and I remember doing this to him on a Tuesday in his apartment and the memory overlaps with the present and both are real.
“You’re teasing.”
