He closes the wood stove door and turns around and I'm right there, and neither of us pretends we don't know why I came upstairs.
He kisses me like he has all the time in the world, which should be annoying and isn't. His hands are in my hair and his mouth is warm and unhurried and I forget for a second that I had a plan to play this cool. I didn't have a plan. That's the problem with him — he dissolves the plan before I've finished making it.
"Bedroom," I say, against his mouth.
"Yeah," he says, and walks me there.
He gets my shirt over my head and I get his flannel off his shoulders and then his mouth is on my neck, my collarbone, moving south with a specific and unhurried attention that makes it difficult to think in complete sentences. I arch into it. I'm not subtle about it.
"You're quiet," he says, against my ribs.
"I'mconcentrating," I say.
He laughs, low, and drags his teeth across my stomach, and I stop being witty about it.
His mouth moves lower. His hands pin my hips flat when I try to move and I make a sound that I will not be discussing later. He doesn't rush — he finds what works and stays there, methodical and warm and completely focused in the way he's focused on everything, and I've been trying to hold something back since I walked through his door and I stop trying.
"Right there," I say. "Don't move — don't—"
He doesn't move.
I come loud enough that I'm briefly glad the pub is closed. He holds me through it with his forearms across my hips and keeps going until I push at his shoulder and sayenough,and he comes up and looks at me with an expression that is deeply, infuriatingly smug.
"Don't," I say.
"I didn't say anything."
"You have a face."
"I always have a face," he says, and I pull him down and kiss the smug expression off it.
I get his belt open and wrap my hand around his cock and feel him exhale against my throat, slow and controlled, like he's deciding to let himself have this.
"Tell me what you want," he says.
"You," I say. "Now. I'm not being coy about it."
"Good," he says, "I'm not being coy either," and gets his hand between my thighs.
He takes his time. Two fingers, slow and deliberate, finding what works and returning to it with the same focused patience he brings to everything — and I've been in professional kitchens for years, I do not lose my composure easily, and I am losing my composure completely. I tell him what I want in terms that are considerably more direct than my usual register. He saysgoodagainst my throat, low and genuine, and does exactly what I asked, and then does it harder when I pull at his shoulder, and I come with my face turned into the pillow and a sound I'm not going to examine too closely.
"More," I say, when I can talk. Not a question.
He looks at me. That warm, direct look that has been a problem since the first day. "Yeah," he says. "Turn over."
I turn over. He gets his hand back between my legs from behind and I press my face into the mattress and stop pretending I'm in control of anything. His cock is hard against my hip and I reach back for him and he exhales slow through his teeth.
"Now," I say.
He pushes into me slow — all the way, his mouth at the back of my neck — and I dig my fingers into the sheets and tell him with my hips that he can stop being careful. He gets the message.
He fucks me like someone who pays attention for a living. Sets a deep, steady rhythm and reads every sound I make, his mouth at my ear saying real things —good, right there, I've got you— and one hand sliding around my hip to where I'm already oversensitive from before, and I stop being able to think in complete sentences.
"Don't stop," I say. "Don't — exactly like that — "
He doesn't stop.
I finish with my whole body, loud, his name somewhere in it, legs shaking. He groans into my neck and comes hard a few seconds after, one hand fisted in the sheets beside mine, and we lie there tangled and not moving until our breathing comes back.
