“You have me,” he murmurs.
Unsteady but sure, she finds Aleksandr’s forearm under her sweater. She presses his grip tighter into her skin—into bruises, she knows—and rocks her hips forward.
Understanding, he starts to guide her, a slow rhythm that makes her toes curl—letting some of the aching in her thighs relax, but tightening that pressure inside of her, building it into unbearable light—heavy, a shimmer of pleasure.
There’s a tremble through her, like releasing strain she’d been holdingin her body for years. Surrender, survival. Things that are hers, and in his arms, she feels both vulnerable and safe enough to look at them. She feels the instinct to harden and shield, but perhaps for the first time, Lili wonders if strength waits for her in letting go, in welcoming kindness rather than brutality.
She leans into it. It terrifies her, unknown and bleached white, but she—she wants to trust something.
Wants to trust him, and it’s a quiet whisper inside her, growing stronger.
As Lili falls forward, forehead against his, gasping at the building warmth inside her—soft in the shiver of pain, release rather than suffering—Aleksandr keeps the rhythm of her hips going, knows how to move her in a way that makes her feel bliss in the arches of her feet, under her fingernails, the base of her spine.
Brightness begins to break. Clean, she feels clean—growing lighter, weightless but meaningful.
But in his shoulders, there’s tension. Under her hands, she can feel his restraint.
“Aleksandr,” she breathes. “Aleksandr—I want you to come, too.”
A furrow in his brow. “I don’t have to—”
But she sinks down further, pressing their bodies closer. She feels it—in the tightness of his jaw, the shudder in her own body—when he’s fully inside of her, finally, and she kisses him.
“Please,” she murmurs, against his lips.“Please—”
Her words expire into a moan, as her movement over him, the deepening stretch of him inside of her, pushes that pleasure further. It starts to wash away her ability to speak, to think, to do anything but want—but she wants this—wants him with her.
“Alright,” Aleksandr murmurs. Slowly, he starts to move her hips a little faster, a little harder; not enough to hurt her, but just enough to make breathing steadily more difficult, the tightness coiling at the base of her spine warping into still more. Lili wraps her arms around his shoulders, grasping for something—forhim—as it builds, breaks—
“Aleksa—I’m close, I’m—Sasha, I—”
And he knows—he knows.
Pleasure empties her mind, a slow, burning movement through her that makes her bones melt, her breath fail, and it makes things so simple—thislight, his kiss against her neck, a tremble that races out over her skin, a soft cry that catches in her throat, sore but healing, and there’s this glimpse of a chance—slim, but there—for space inside of her that allows both hurt and happiness, and she canbreathe, she canbreathe—and Aleksandr exhales hard, gripping her closer, and it makes her body tighten, him finding pleasure in her, the feeling of him finishing inside of her, and she buries her face in his shoulder, and she does not want to let him go.
The rain continues.
They catch their breath.
Slowly, she loosens her tight grip in his hair. Letting her hands drift across his back, she traces patterns over his shoulders. Against her neck, Aleksandr breathes. He kisses her skin, before pulling back to look at her.
She holds his gaze, clear-eyed. A smile starts to warm her lips, before she leans in and presses a kiss to his jaw.
“Those cigarettes in your closet,” she says. “Let’s share one.”
He laughs, light. He traces the slope of her cheekbone, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Doesn’t your generation abhor smoking?”
“Well, we prefer vaping,” she admits. “But I doubt I could get you to try that.”
She laughs at the expression on his face.
While he opens one of the huge casement windows—screech of iron, incoming rush of city sounds—Lili gets the cigarettes. As she clambers onto the ledge beside him, she taps the pack a few times against her palm.
Aleksandr smirks at the motion. “What an expert.”
The open window lets the rain in, the humid storm outside. Lili lets the chillier air wash over her as Aleksandr lights a cigarette—flick of a lighter, slight sizzle of paper. She watches him inhale, taking a long drag. The smoke kicks past his teeth, a momentary furrow of his brow; then a sigh, a long exhale in the direction of the open window, before passing the cigarette to her.
