I kissed him again, and the kiss kept going. His hands learned the shape of my back, the dip of my spine, the place where my ass met my thigh. Mine learned him in return. The geometric line of his sleeve. The soft place at the base of his throat. The slope from his ribs to his hip.
When my hand finally moved between us, I went slow. He was already hard, already wet at the tip, already shaking a little against the wall. The press of my palm against him pulled a small sound out of his throat I tucked into a quiet place behind my ribs.
“Tell me,” I said against his mouth, “if anything’s too much.”
“Nothing’s too much.”
I closed my hand around him. Slow stroke. Watched his face. He bit down on his lower lip and closed his eyes for half a beat before opening them again, finding me, holding him.
“I don’t have lube out here.” My voice rough. “Bedroom.”
“Bedroom.”
I took his hand and led him to the edge of the mattress, and we sat down side by side, like a couple of teenagers who’d only just figured out what they were allowed to do. We both laughed. The laugh was the relief of all the holding back.
He stretched out on his back. I followed him down, half over him, my hip against his. The fairy lights I’d strung along the headboard three years ago threw amber across the wall.
I reached for the drawer. The bottle was where it always lived. I slicked my own palm slowly, watching him watch me, and his breath hitched at the small click of the cap, the wet sound of my hand.
“Yours first.” I tipped some onto his palm. Closed his fingers around it. “Or mine.”
“Both.” His voice was wrecked. “Together.”
I rolled half onto my side. He mirrored me without being asked. Knee to knee, hip to hip, and his slicked hand moved to me at the same moment my slicked hand moved to him. Mirror image. The first stroke was a question. The second was an answer.
His hand was unsure on the first pass, careful, learning. The pressure right, the rhythm wrong. I stilled my own hand on him long enough to murmur into his ear.
“Slower at the head. Yeah. There. Like that.”
He adjusted. The rhythm matched. His thumb dragged across the slick at my tip, and a sound came out of me I hadn’t given anyone in a long time. Not a stage sound. Not a sound I’d practiced. The real one.
“God. Jett.”
“You’re doing it.”
“I’m doing it.”
“You’re doing it perfect.”
His forehead pressed against mine. His breath came in shorter pieces. Iworked him at his own pace, slow, then a little less slow, watching his face for everything he wasn’t saying. The way his mouth went open when I twisted my wrist a certain way. The way his eyes squeezed shut and then opened again found me, like he was making sure I hadn’t gone anywhere.
I’d never spent this much time watching a face. I’d been the one doing things. The one pacing the room. The one in charge of the moment. This was different. This was sharing the room. Trading the power back and forth in the space between our hands.
“I’ve thought about this,” he breathed. “For weeks. Since the gym.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t do my Tuesday workouts. Kept losing the count.”
I laughed, and the sound broke into something else when he tightened his grip. My hips jerked forward into his hand without my permission.
“Tell me what you need.” His voice came against my ear.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“That.”
“Yes. God yes.”
