I worked him steady, learning the pace that made his hips roll up and the grip that made him stop trying to be quiet about it. He was warm and solid in my hand and he just felt things and let me see it. No performance. No managing his reaction for my benefit. Just Soren, wide open, his body giving me every answer I was looking for before I'd figured out the question.
He was already leaking against my palm, and I spread it slowly with my thumb the way I'd done to myself alone in the dark weeks ago, when I'd been sitting on my living room floor trying to convince myself this wasn't where I was heading. I wasn't trying to convince myself of anything now. I just wanted to know what he needed and give it to him.
His hips rolled up into my hand and I tightened my grip and he made a sound low in his chest that went through the top of my skull.
“Move down,” he said, and his voice had gone rough at the edges. Not instructing. Just asking.
I looked at him.
“You don't have to,” he said, and he meant it — I could see that he meant it, that he wasn't going to push me somewhere I wasn't ready to go. His eyes were dark and certain and patient and entirely focused on my face.
“I want to,” I said.
I moved down his body.
I pressed my lips to his stomach first, then lower, feeling him tense under every point of contact, his abs pulling tight. I could feel the heat of him against my cheek before I got there, close enough that my breath hit the head of his cock and he inhaled sharply through his nose.
“Take your time,” he said, quiet and even. “There's no rush.”
I wrapped one hand around the base of him, the way he'd done for me, and held him there. He was thick and heavy in my grip and I was aware, in a way that made my pulse jump, that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I'd understood the theory of this for my entire adult life and had now arrived at the practice of it with all the preparedness of someone showing up to a playoff game in street clothes.
“Hey.” Soren's hand found my hair, not pushing, just resting there. “Look at me.”
I looked up at him.
“Just start,” he said. “Your mouth, your tongue. Whatever feels natural. I'll tell you if something's not working.” The corner of his mouth moved. “It's going to be good. I promise you it's going to be good.”
I turned my face back down and pressed my lips to the tip of him.
The sound he made was soft and immediate and genuine, and something about the honesty of it settled the nerves in my chest into something I could work with.
I opened my mouth and took him in — just the head at first, just finding out what the weight and the heat and the taste of him actually felt like against my tongue. Salt and warmth and the specific realness of another person choosing to be this vulnerable in front of you. His fingers tightened fractionally in my hair, not directing, just present.
“That's good,” he said, and his voice was already rougher than it had been thirty seconds ago. “Exactly like that.”
I sank down a little further, feeling the stretch of my jaw around him, the new geometry of the whole thing. My tongue moved against the underside and I felt him exhale hard through his nose above me.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, keep doing that.”
I kept doing it. Found a tentative rhythm, pulling back and sinking down, learning the territory the way I'd learned everything in my life — by paying attention, by adjusting, by refusing to stop until I understood what worked. His hand in my hair shifted slightly, thumb pressing against my temple in a small, deliberate stroke that felt less like guidance and more like reassurance.
“Breathe through your nose,” he said quietly, not making a thing of it. Just information.
I adjusted. The rhythm evened out. His hips made a small involuntary movement that he caught immediately, and I heard him swear under his breath at the effort of holding still.
“You don't have to,” I said against him, pulling back enough to speak, and felt him shudder at the vibration of it.
“Don't have to what?”
“Hold still.”
A pause. “Rook.”
“I mean it.”
He exhaled something that was almost a laugh and almost not. “Let me know if it's too much.”
“I will.”
