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Axel closed his eyes. “Jesus, that’s—” He lost the ability to speak as I moved my hand, memorizing the heat and shape of him. I couldn’t do more than this, not tonight, but I would want to. Someday soon, I’d be ready.
He was murmuring swear words now, as if those few strokes were torturing him. He put a hand over mine, stopping me, though he didn’t take my hand off him. “Fuck, just give me a second.”
There had never been anything more beautiful than this man braced over me, his perfect body held just so, the ink on his arm moving as his muscles flexed, trying to keep control. He seemed poised on the edge, his breath sawing in and out, his expression drawn as if he was in pain.
“Has it been a while?” I asked after he was unable to speak for a long moment.
“You have no fucking idea,” he gritted out, and he loosened his hand on mine, letting me move again. The selfish, greedy part of me loved it. That he could have anyone he wanted, but there had been no one else. Just like there had been no one else for me.
We were enjoying ourselves, getting some tension out. But it meant something, too. Of course it did. This was Axel.
“Okay, then,” I said, stroking him again, feeling powerful. “This, I want to see.”
“No choice now,” he said, dropping his head and pressing his face against my neck as his hips moved in time with my hand. “You’re going to see it whether you like it or not.”
That edged my confidence higher, because he was so completely mine in that moment. I moved my other hand between us, and when I stroked his balls he made a noise of pure, pleased surprise that was all lust, and then he said my name and a few filthy swear words that turned me on all over again. Then he came hard against my stomach, sounding like he was in agony.
We were both out of breath, and Axel threw himself onto his back next to me. Sweat slicked his chest. “Shit, that was messy,” he said after a moment. “Sorry.”
A shocked almost-laugh barked out of me. My heart wouldn’t slow down. “Did I hear that right? Are you apologizing?”
“For the mess.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek, then rolled off the bed, shoving his pants the rest of the way off and sauntering to the bathroom.
I lay there, not sure which made my heart pound harder—the sight of him walking away naked, or the warmth of my skin where he’d just kissed me.
* * *
After we’d cleaned up,we got under the covers together. A small part of my brain tried to spin, tried to worry about whether this was awkward and what came next. But for once, that part was overshadowed by the parts that were relaxed, happy, and sated.
Axel lay beside me, completely unselfconscious, with his knee over mine under the covers and one arm flung over me, his breath against my skin. Now that I had permission to touch him—at least for tonight—I still couldn’t stop, and my palm explored the smooth, warm skin of his biceps before I stroked down to his taut forearm, then his hand, where my fingers explored the strong bones of the back of his hand and his wrist.
He smelled so good, and I got to breathe him in without pretending I wasn’t doing it.
“What do your tattoos mean?” I asked, getting a close look at them for the first time, the luxury of studying them in the dim light.
“Nothing,” he replied, a little reluctantly. “They mean that I had a few bucks and some time to kill, and I found a design I liked. I’m not very deep. I should probably make something up.”
I ran my fingers along the ink. He didn’t have full sleeves, just designs placed here and there along his skin. A flock of birds in silhouette. Two vines twisted together. A silhouette of pine trees. More images from nature.
“You’re deep,” I argued.
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“You’re welcome. Also, you have incredibly talented hands.”
“I have other talented body parts. Do you want to try them?”
“I’ll think about it. Do I still have the nicest breasts you’ve ever seen?”
“Yes.” The fervent way he said this word, with absolute belief, sliced through me. Axel had probably seen a lot of breasts. This was heady, happiness and terror mixed together. For a second, I lost my breath.
Under my hand, Axel turned his hand palm up, interlacing his fingers with mine. “We’ll figure this out,” he said, his voice deep and drowsy, the voice of a man halfway through a grueling tour, who had just had a really good orgasm in the middle of the night. “Relax. You won’t get any pressure from me.”
How did he do that? How did he know exactly what to say? What we’d just done was almost too much for me, yet it had barely scratched the surface of what we were capable of. I wanted him, wanted to do everything with him, but it wasn’t going to happen tonight. I wasn’t capable of a varied menu of advanced sex acts, even though I was a fully grown woman in bed with a hot rock star. I was capable of this, right now, and that was all.
And Axel knew it. Just like all the other times he knew my limits before I did. Our relationship had changed, but we were still doing this for nearly five more weeks, living in each other’s space while I tried to keep him sober. We would have to navigate our relationship all over again.
But I couldn’t solve it tonight. My body was too happy, not just from the sex but from the high of his body against mine, his arm over me, his palm pressed to mine, his breath deepening next to me. He was drifting into sleep.
