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He works me through it without mercy, hand and hips moving until I’m twitching and oversensitive and have to bite down on my own lip to keep from begging him to stop, or not to.
Only when my body goes slack does he pull his hand away and grip my hip hard enough to hold me in place as his pace shortens, deepens, his breath coming faster, the flush across his chest climbing his throat.
“Tell me you want it,” he says.
“I want it.” No hesitation. “Come inside. Let me feel it.”
“Wasn’t planning to pull out,” he says, and grinds deep.
His cock pulses inside me, liquid heat flooding my channel, and the sensation of being pumped full draws a whimper of pleasure from me that I’ll be embarrassed about later.
For a moment, neither of us moves, and his forehead drops to mine, breath ragged between us. “Better?”
I nod, not trusting my voice, and his thumb brushes my cheek, wiping away the evidence of tears I didn’t mean to shed. The gentleness of the gesture undoes me all over again, and I swallow hard to fight down a fresh wave.
With a satisfied rumble, he carefully withdraws, and the drag of his cock leaving my body sends a shiver of aftershock through me.
Orien brushes a strand of hair from my sweaty forehead. “Stay.”
Unable to move even if I wanted to, I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, while Orien disentangles himself and slips from the bed.
Pleasant soreness lingers in places I never realized could ache, and my mind is mercifully quiet.
I should reach for the comforter to cover myself, but the aftermath of pleasure leaves my limbs too heavy to obey.
Orien moves through the room, picking up our discarded clothes and setting them on the dresser rather than the floor. There’s something almost reassuring about the way he doesn’t turn the aftermath into a conversation or demand reassurance that what happened between us was good.
He disappears into the small bathroom attached to the bedroom, and the sound of running water drifts out, followed by the soft click of the medicine cabinet opening and closing.
When he returns, he carries a glass of water in one hand and a damp cloth in the other.
“Here.” He offers me the glass. “You should drink.”
I take it with unsteady hands, and the cool liquid comes as a welcome shock to my raw throat. Orien watches me drink, ensuring I finish it before he takes the empty glass and sets it on the nightstand.
“Turn over,” he says, the words not quite a command.
I do as he asks, rolling onto my stomach, and he settles beside me on the bed, the mattress dipping beneath him. The cool cloth strokes over my back, wiping away the evidence of what we’ve done, and I bite my lip to keep a sound from escaping at the gentleness of the gesture.
No one has ever taken care of me this way. The simple fact of being tended to, of having someone see to my comfort without being asked, brings on a burn of tears that I bury in the comforter.
Orien works his way down my body, wiping away the slick from between my ass cheeks and thighs. There’s no attempt to turn the act of cleaning up into another form of seduction. Only quiet efficiency with the same careful attention he applies to everything he does.
When he finishes, he sets the cloth on the nightstand, pulls up the comforter, and settles beside me on the bed, close enough for the heat of his body to warm my side without touching. He doesn’t reach for me, doesn’t demand conversation or explanation or reassurance that what happened between us meant something.
He just waits, giving me space to process in my own time.
The loft is still around us, the only sound the distant hum of the city outside the window. Snow falls in fat flakes beyond the glass, catching the light from the streetlamp below and turning it to gold.
My lashes drift closed without my permission, exhaustion finally catching up with me now that the adrenaline has faded.
The last few days crash down all at once. In only a few days, I thought I was leaving the Blue Note, never to see Orien again, then the meeting with the family that ended in disappointment, and the drive back to the Blue Note.
It leaves me wrung out and hollow in the best and worst way possible.
I should gather my clothes, call a car, and return to my apartment. I should put distance between myself and the man beside me before what happened between us becomes something I can’t walk away from.
But I can’t bring myself to leave this bed.
