“No,” she said. She pressed her hand against the buttons of her shirt, the soft skin of her stomach. But then he reached out and touched her hand, his fingertips against her knuckles. Slowly he gathered her hand into his. Linking their fingers together. The skin between his fingers was soft. Warm. And she liked it. Loved it.
“Are you okay?” she asked, half of her pleasure preoccupied by worrying about his discomfort.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“It feels… better to worry about you a little, is that strange?”
“I think that’s what you do, Anne.” He smiled at her. “That’s who you are.”
Her blood was humming in her veins, she felt wild and nervous. She felt like she was glowing. Like her hair was about to stand on end. He reached out and touched her hair, patting it down.
“It’s a mess," she breathed. Turning her head to the side.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “I’ve always felt fondly toward your hair.”
“Stop.”
“You don’t believe me?”
I want to. I want to believe you but I haven't been prepared for these compliments. My soul rejects them out of habit.
His fingers touched her face.
His thumb touched the corner of her lip.
All her nerves changed—they turned on themselves, revealing something else. Something…hungry.
His thumb was calloused and he ran it over her lip again, a fuller touch. A wider touch. From the corner, across the top to the other corner. Her heart was pounding. She was sucking in breaths. His eyes were watching his thumb and her mouth, and she was watching him.
“I'd like to kiss you,” he said.
“Yes.” It was a breath. A whisper. Yes. Yes. To everything. To all of it. Whatever he wanted, she would be agreeable to.
He stepped in closer, then reeled her in with their linked hands. Until the very edges of their clothes touched. That was all—the buttons of her shirt, the loose edge of his vest became acquainted.
Slowly, he bent. She held her breath, anguished and afire. And then his dry lips touched hers, and she felt keenly aware of his breath against her cheek, the smell of shaving soap clinging to his skin. The fullness of his lips. Her hands clenched against his, a spasm she couldn’t quite control.
His did the same, and for a moment she felt him about to push her away. His indecision was obvious, and she didn't know what to do.
Stop, she thought. This is too difficult. Too painful.
But then, all at once, the moment was over and the kiss was no longer awkward. They were no longer strangers. This was Steven. Her friend. He did not step closer, and neither did she, but his lips relaxed against hers and moved. He tilted his head, seeking a deeper connection. He opened his mouth, and the wet touch of his tongue against her lips made her jump back.
“That’s…odd.”
“That’s how it’s done. You don’t like it?”
“The ah… evidence was inconclusive.”
His smile was so lovely. “Let’s try it again.”
This time when he kissed her, she was ready. His tongue touched the corner of her lips and she opened her mouth to him. There was deeper contact, her mouth opened wider and her tongue touched his. She held her breath, absorbing every sensation. Tasting him. Him.
She liked it. Quite a bit.
She leaned into him and he froze. The kiss stopped.
As quick as she could, she pulled away from him, stepped back. The kiss over. ‘I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s me.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
I do, he thought. I want to stop.
The shaking under his skin felt like the entire earth moving, and he wanted it to stop.
I’m scared.
I’m scared that I’ll fail.
I’m scared that I won’t.
She stepped back, and he could see her face, the sweetness, the opening to wonder—it was closing down. She was closing down. Fierce Annie.
“I don’t want to stop either,” he said.
“You…” You’re lying. That’s what she was about to say. And he was.
He reached for her again. He put his hand to her waist, feeling the tension and heat of her. It's okay, he told himself. It's Anne. My friend.
When he pulled her toward him, she came, but only so far. There was an inch between them, and she clenched her hands in fists so she wouldn’t touch him again.
“I won’t… I won’t touch you again.” Was that right? Was that what he needed? Was that what she needed?
“Okay,” he said, accepting her terms.
He was being torn apart.
“Kiss me,” she breathed.
Yes, he thought. Tell me. Lead me.
He kissed her until she was breathless. Until they were both panting into each other’s mouth, until the tension pulled and tightened inside of him to a point he could hardly stand.
She was moaning, pressing hard against that distance between them. But never crossing it.
He could feel the press of her body in that inch. The ghost of it against him. He could imagine her curves, the lithe muscles. But it was only their lips, and his hand at her waist, that touched.
Do it, he told himself, though he was scared. And being scared made him angry.
Do it!
He slipped his hand from her waist to her breast.
She jumped. They both held their breath.
Stop me, he thought.
Don’t stop me.
He could feel her relaxing against his hand, both of them like wild animals getting gentled. Tamed. Taming each other.
When she was relaxed again, he brushed his thumb over her nipple and she jumped. He did it again. And then again. Both of them getting used to it. He did it again and she moaned.
Yes, he thought. And through the murk of his fear and his aversions he felt… excitement. A bright flicker of it.
His fingers left her breast to find the buttons of her shirt. One by one he began to undo them. She, still kissing him, began to undo the buttons at her wrists. She shrugged out of her shirt, letting it fall onto the ground behind her.
Her skin was pale and cool, freckled.
“You’re so pretty,” he sighed, his fingers tracing the flute of her collarbone, the shadowy dip of her skin beneath it.
She was shaking, just a little.
“Your skirt,” he breathed. The words were not yet out of his mouth and she had it unbuttoned and falling to her feet. There were more layers, endless layers of clothing under her clothing, and she shrugged and shook out of them until she was only in her drawers, chemise and stockings.
Naked, undoubtedly as naked as she’d ever been in front of a man, yet he was still fully dressed. She looked down at his clothes, lifted her hands like she might do something about it, but he shifted away. Not enough to end things, but enough to let her know that she couldn’t touch him.
“Lie down,” he said. She backed up until the bed hit the backs of her legs, and she climbed up on it.
“Kiss me again,” she said once she was settled on her back, her head cocked so she could see him.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight pulling her toward his body, a tide she tried to fight, scooting up the mattress. But he braced his arms near her head so he could bend over her and kiss her, and she stopped fighting anything.
She groaned low in her throat.
And it was like doing something right for the first time. Doing something incredibly difficult right, and he wanted to coerce her into making that sound again. And again.
The bright excitement in his blood burned brighter. Hotter. And his fears faded. His aversion seemed to lose its grip on him.
He kissed her again. Harder. She used her teeth against his tongue and he laughed.
“You're exceedingly good at this,” he said.
“I am?”
“You are.”
He bent over her again. More kissing, only now he slipped his hand
over her breast again, and without all the fabric between his hand and her body it felt even better.
“Steven?”
“Yes?”
“Everything...still okay?”
He nodded slowly.
Carefully as if he was waiting for her to stop him, or for some unseen force inside himself to stop him, he pulled the chemise down below her breasts, watching his own hand cover her body.
And then he bent and kissed her breast, the skin near her nipple, and she gasped, her hands lifting to clutch at his back—but she stopped herself in time. He could not help but be relieved. He was moving slowly. Small steps at a time.
“Steven,” she sighed.
He hummed against her skin.
“I…quite like that.”
“I quite like it too.” He licked the hard bead of her nipple and drew it into his mouth. She put her hand over her mouth so she would not cry out, and he could feel the restless roll of her hips, the shifting of her legs. A lifetime ago he would have rolled his body up and over hers, pressed himself into her, satisfying that ache with pressure and contact.
But he couldn’t do that. Not yet. Maybe someday. He’d never thought he’d get here again. Never feel this brightness in his blood. The pounding in his cock. But it was here and it was miraculous.
He wanted to give her something miraculous too.
“There's more,” he said, leaning up to look in her eyes. Her nipple was damp from his mouth. He touched it, drying it with his fingers.
“Thank heavens,” she said, gulping in air.
“It might be…shocking.”
She laughed and then swallowed it. “Lovely. Please shock me.”
“I should have known,” he said. His hair had dried, and it fell over his face. She touched an end with a fingertip. Just that. A glancing touch against an unfeeling part of his body—and he felt it everywhere. Or imagined he did, and that was powerful enough.
“Known… what?” she asked as his hand slipped over her waist, the trembling softness of her belly.
“That this would be fun with you,” he said.
“Is it fun with you…Oh!”
His fingers had found the seam in her drawers, and he rested his hand against her thigh. Hot. Her skin was hot. His skin was hot.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Why…?”
“You’ve stopped breathing.”
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked.
“Only a little.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Take off your shirt.”
He blinked. “Pardon?”
"I won’t touch you,” she promised, striking out blind against the unsaid rules between them. “But I would like to see you.”
His eyebrows were lost beneath his hair.
“You’re looking at me,” she said.
“I am.”
“Please,” she said.
Unable to resist, he removed his hand from her thigh, which was too bad, but he shrugged out of his vest and then his shirt and dropped both on the floor by his feet.
He tried to see his body the way that she would. And not just skin covering bones. Muscles that worked, but couldn’t keep the nightmares away. What hair he had was blond, darker under his arms and on that trail down his belly into the top of his pants. His arms were strong, his shoulders wide.
“You're lovely to look at,” she told him.
“Can I touch you again?” he whispered.
She nodded and he slipped his hand through the seam of her drawers, but she stopped him.
“Just a second,” she whispered and untied the undergarments, lifted her hips and shimmied out of them. They too joined the pile of fine linen on the floor at his feet. “There. Now you can touch me.”
She was naked. Bare. All that skin, the soft brown fur between her legs.
Her leg…
“Don’t,” she said, trying to tuck her leg beneath the blankets. “Don’t look.”
“Anne,” he said, stopping her. He put a hand at her ankle, slipped it up her calf, the soft hair, the soft skin, the twisted muscle and rigid tendons. The awkward bend of her knee.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. But…it’s ugly.”
“No,” he said, slipping his hand around from her knee to the inside of her thigh and then higher. “Nothing about you is ugly.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue, but his hand covered the hair between her legs. His whole palm covered her. His fingertips against the bottom of her belly. The heel of his hand against the dark mystery between her legs.
He leaned forward and pressed kisses to her stomach, against her ribs, to the bottom swell of her breast. But he kept his hand still against her. It was just there. Heavy and warm. She squirmed against him as if to remind him.
But no, he was content to trace each of her ribs with his lips, feathering his thumb against the skin on the insides of her arms. She was twitching and shaking and …waiting. Endlessly, painfully waiting.
And then his thumb, there, slipped forward, inside of her.
She lifted her knees and arched toward him. He shifted sideways, that old instinct still there. Lurking in the shadows. With the nightmares and the ghosts.
No, he thought. No. I want this. I want this woman.
His thumb slipped higher and his palm pushed down and she nearly flew off the bed. “Oh, oh, Steven…”
“Shhhh, Anne, trust me. Just…trust me.”
“I do,” she breathed. She grabbed his wrist, like she needed an anchor, and then she dropped it just as fast. “I’m sorry—”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Grab me.”
She didn’t need to be told twice and she wrapped her fingers around his wrist, holding onto him as hard as she could.
It seemed like a good omen, a sign that this was good. And right. And if it was good and right, it couldn't go wrong.
His hand between her legs, her fingers around his wrist, and he bent over her, pressing his forehead to hers.
“Steven?”
“Yes.”
“I’m…”
“It’s okay,” he whispered into the shell of her ear. “I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m right here.”
Her body pulsed against his touch and she shook against him, her eyes squeezed shut. Her cries were high and scared and then… he felt it happen to her. He saw it. In her body. Her features. Her wide, wild eyes.
A miracle. The miracle.
He’d never seen it like this before, a woman in orgasm. Unobstructed by his own selfish pleasure. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
I want that.
The pureness of that pleasure. The cleanness of it.
When it seemed the storm had passed out of her body, he carefully pulled his fingers out of her, resting them, glistening and slick, against her belly.
His erection pounded against the buttons of his pants, and he pressed that hand against the buttons. Imagining it was her hand. Imagining it was that pink wet part of her.
Imagining he could have it. Imagining what he would do. How he would touch himself. How… maybe she would touch him. His stomach clenched hard at the thought. His balls sucked back up into his body.
That desire, so delicious a minute ago. So ripe. It turned sour. Just a little. Just at the edges.
But sour had a way of turning to rot very fast.
She opened her eyes, blinking at the ceiling. Fast-moving clouds were chasing the sun outside the window so her room was washed in light, and then in the next moment, dark. So fast, she thought. Everything was so fast.
Her heart. The world as it spun.
He pressed a kiss to her lips. Just the corner, but she could taste him, salty now. “Thank you,” she breathed. “That was…amazing. That was…” She didn’t have another word. Or really any words. “Amazing.”
“Exactly.” He laughed.
She leaned forward, kissing him wildly. Kissing him with an open mouth and lots of tongue and her whole heart.
Her whole body. If she could, if he would enjoy it, she would pull him into her arms. She would hold him, stroke his ribs with her lips. She would… She glanced down at his lap.
She knew the anatomy. The penis. The testicles. The vas deferens that carried sperm to the urethra. The dorsal nerve that was key to erections.
Erections.
She glanced down at Steven.
Who had an erection.
And somehow, after all that with her body—the spinning and the tide and the wild thrill—she was ready for it again.
Wanting it again.
“What...happens next?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve done this before, I haven’t. What happens next?”
“You don’t think we’ve done enough?”
He laughed, but she was sober. “I know there’s more…for you.”
He sucked in a deep breath and sat up. “I don’t—”
“Want to?” she asked. “Is that—”
“No. No, I want to.” He kissed her. With his mouth and his tongue and more passion than she’d known was possible. “I just… This was special. I don’t want to ruin that.”
“I don’t think you can ruin this.” She laughed, but then she sobered, because she didn’t know what to do. And she wanted to do something. “I won’t touch you…but will you show me?”
He blinked, his eyes opened wide, and it was a bit of a thrill that she’d surprised him. “Show you?”
“What…what happens for you.”
He glanced away, at the sunlight on the ceiling and the quickly moving shadows. “It doesn’t always—” He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t always work for me since the war.”
She didn’t have any experience with what was supposed to work or not work, but she wanted to try. She wanted him to feel what she felt.
“Show me.”
Slowly, he unbuttoned his pants with shaking hands. His breath lifted his chest with every inhale, and there was something exciting about his fear. His worry. This careful man, with all his walls, was showing her something real and vulnerable. He was showing her himself, and she wanted to see all of it.
His pushed his pants down below his hips, and his penis sprang up from the blond curly hair. Her fingers ached to touch it. So instead she touched her own, the hair between her legs. She was wet now, whatever had happened in her body had made her wet, and her fingers slipped through it.
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