“Are you?” he asks. His fingers brush over the sensitive skin.
No,she thinks.I don’t think I can do this, and then not have you.
Unspoken, she thinks she sees a similar response from him, as he looks at her.
Lili reaches behind her back. She undoes the clasp of her bra, shrugging it off.
Aleksandr breathes, a hard exhale. Glancing down, he runs his thumb over one nipple, and then the other, holding the weight of her breasts, before he leans forward, and kisses the spot between them, a thin place of bone and skin where he can probably hear how hard her heart is thrumming.
Her hands tangle in his hair, grasping at his sweater. “Sasha—Sasha, take this off—”
He does as she asks, grabbing the collar of his sweater, pulling it off along with his shirt. Before it’s fully off, Lili is kissing him again, straddlinghis lap—wanting his bare skin against hers, maybe too eager—but before the thought can spiral into too much, Aleksandr turns them, lifting her easily to fall against the bed.
The sheets are still disturbed from earlier, what she’d grasped when he’d hurt her, but now he’s touching her, and kissing her, in the places she loves best. Her vision blurs with the lathe of his tongue at the hollow under her ear, that spot he knows—he still knows—makes her lightheaded; thin skin, fast blood. They should talk further, she knows, questions hanging in the air, what does this mean—
His hand slides down her stomach. She stiffens when his fingers brush her underwear.
Is this all you’re good for?
Aleksandr immediately stops, resting his hand against her stomach.
“We don’t have to—”
She shakes her head, tugging off her underwear.
Those aren’t the memories she wants of him in her body.
She grasps his hand, drawing it between her legs. The part of her skin, wet against his fingers. “You don’t have to be gentle,” she whispers, “but just—please be kind, to me.”
Heartbreak rises in his eyes, again. But it’s followed—clear, fast—by determination and intent, rather than anger. Against her, his fingers start to move. “You tell me when to stop,” he murmurs, kissing the corner of her mouth. “You tell me when to stop, and I will—”
“Don’t,” she breathes. She grips his wrist tighter. “Don’t—don’t stop.”
Slowly, he touches her slowly, finding a rhythm that makes her feel feverish. It dissolves her earlier wince, making her toes curl, and melts a growing release of warmth through her, dissolving her crippling fear that this is a last time, rather than a first.
A finger—then two—slips inside of her.
Lili moans, hips stuttering against his hand. He exhales against her collarbone, warm.
“There?” he says, but his smile—faint, but felt—makes it clear he knows.
She nods, breathless. She knows how to breathe. It’s one of the earliest things a body learns how to do, but these last few weeks, she’s had to tell herself constantly:Breathe, Lili. Breathe.With him now, braced over her, it’s both the easiest and the hardest thing, to keep breathing.
“God, look at this cunt,” he murmurs, as his fingers move. Looking down at her, he takes in the break of her gasps, pushing her into a knee-shaking feeling, a glow across her skin.
He brushes against something sweeter, a sharp fracture of brightness. She inhales, surprised; Aleksandr catches it, a smile. He leans down to kiss her skin, before he starts to move down her body.
Heated, his mouth lingers against her stomach before he moves lower. A sudden sob wrenches from her sore throat. It’s startling, how her body opens for him, as his tongue moves against her—slow, deep motions, as his fingers keep pace, inside of her.
“Sasha—more, please—more—”
Aleksandr slings her legs over his shoulders, tugging her down closer to him. The bedsheets tangle under her, snag of her hair caught under her back, but she doesn’t care about that fizzle of pain because he starts moving faster, a crook of his fingers inside of her. Pleasure suffuses throughout her—both slow and sudden, like time is slipping past liquid, clear enough to see each second, warm enough for it all to feel like one melting, indistinct glow—on this bed, in this home, with this man—Aleksandr—chasing pleasure inside of her, carved out in places only he’s reached, really—only him. The combination of his fingers and mouth exhausts her with heat, a seam of brightness coming apart. She feels Aleksandr’s groan against her as she comes, and God, if that isn’t something sacred to her, something meaningful.
As the pleasure recedes—settling into the openness of her hips, a clearness in her chest—hitches of breath catch in the air. Lili realizes that she’s crying, again.
“Sorry,sorry,” she gasps, swiping at her wet cheeks. “Sorry, I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to—”
Leaning over her again, Aleksandr grasps her face. His fingers are gentle—wet with her—as his mouth finds hers. The smile she sees, right before he kisses her, is both sad and fond.
