Twenty years of protocol fire at once. Assess the breach. Contain. The words are already lining up, it was the fever, forget it, none of it matters, the walls rising on schedule the way they've risen my whole life.
They get halfway up and stop.
A shuffle-swish sound briefly fills the room as she sits up. Then she is lying beside me on the edge of the old bedroll, tucking herself into my side and staying there. Her head rests on my shoulder, my arm naturally winding itself around her as though it was always meant to do just that. Every synapse in my brain fires at once with questions and heat.
Her hand comes to my chest, fingertips stroking over the scar on my collar bone once before settling into position over my heart which isn’t beating at a steady fifty-two anymore.
“I’ll keep you, Yakob.” she says, and I want to pretend the sentence doesn’t make sense, but I can’t. Because I know her well enough to know that she means everything that comes out of her mouth.
She has absorbed me into the fabric of her life, whether I want to be there or not. I’m now part of Iris Orlova’s galaxy. Some distant star or cold, dry planet…whatever I am, I know there’s no way out. I’ll never be able to resist the gravity of her.
Iris
He smells of nothing. Even after days of washing with a rag and old soap. He has no discernable smell.
I woke somewhere in the middle of his story, but I didn’t have to hear all of it to hear the pain in it.
Now I’m lying beside him, the fabric of a thin T-shirt I’ve been wearing since I got here the only thing between us.
There’s no light, but I don’t need it.
I tilt my head back and kiss his jaw, and he goes completely, entirely still. I kiss him again, moving my mouth closer to his with each contact. There’s no hurry. I don’t want to rush this.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” I say, maneuvering carefully so I’m straddling him. His body is already responding. His abs flickering beneath the palms of my hands, the already hard length pressing against my center.
His hands come to my hips, stroke an upwards motion beneath the T-shirt, lifting it away and pulling it over my head. Then he is cupping my breasts in his hands and the only sound he makes is an exhale that might be restraint, or it might be regret. But he doesn’t tell me to stop.
I lift myself up, just enough to hook one leg out of the boxer shorts I’ve taken to sleeping in, and then the other.
He groans, and I still, waiting to make sure I’ve not hurt him.
“Keep going,” he says into the darkness between us. “Please.”
I work slowly and gently. Pulling him free from his boxers and gently pumping his thick, long length with my hand a few times. He moans again and the sound goes straight to my core.
When I line him up with my entrance, I rub the head up and down my slit a couple of times, letting the pleasure build slowly.
Then I take him in. Inch by inch, sliding down the entire shaft, adjusting my angle as I go. The entire motion is punctuated by a long moan from both of us. One of his hands drops to my hip and squeezes. Staying there, holding me there. I lean back, fighting the urge to hold on to him in case I catch his wound.
“Wait,” he says. “Don’t move. Not yet.”
The strip of moonlight slices across his jaw.
Then his grip on my hip loosens and I begin my movements. Slow at first, getting used to the drag and the stretch, then quicker.
My eyes have begun to adjust to the light and watching him watch me is the biggest turn on of my life.
My own sounds begin to break free from between my lips. Little moans and broken gasps of pleasure as it builds and builds.
“Iris,” he says, both hands on my breasts now, then stroking over my stomach, then back up to tease my nipples. “Fuck—Iris—”
His words are as broken as mine are. Then the wave crests and breaks, and pleasure surges through me, hot and determined.
I break, my voice cracking on a moan as my head falls back and my pelvis takes over in some forgotten, desperate measure to take everything possible, even as my body is overcome with the liquifying pleasure of the orgasm.
I don’t slow down. I can’t. Even when I’m shuddering with aftershocks, I keep going until his body tenses, and releases, and I feel the flood of him leaking between us.
Only once his hands drop to my thighs do I move to lift from him. His still hard shaft twitching as I slide up and off, and move to lie beside him.
