dark quiet of Nora’s bedroom and want her to tell him every single thing she wanted him to do, exactly how she wanted him to do it.
And Nora—perfect, particular Nora—she gave him exactly what he craved.
As soon as he crossed the threshold she set her hands back on his chest, guiding him to the foot of her bed before pressing his shoulders down.
“Stay there,” she said, smiling as she stepped out of reach of his grasping hands, all at once pulling her shirt and already-unhooked bra over her head. She stood, backlit by the light that spilled into the hallway from the bathroom, and he thought he’d never seen something as beautiful as that—every curve and angle of Nora’s body shown to him, mostly in silhouette, with small, intimate details coming clearer as his eyes adjusted. When she hooked her thumbs at the sides of her underwear and pushed them down, he thought he might’ve stopped breathing, seeing the movement of her body while she bared herself to him. All those blurry images from before got sharper, more distinct: his tongue licking across the rosy tip of her nipple, his teeth set against the slope of her shoulder, his thumbs smoothing their way up the inside of her thighs.
“Not yet,” she said, another whispered command, and only then did he realize he’d been reaching for her. He pulled his hands back, setting his palms flat on the bed and trying not to clutch too obviously at her comforter. But then she reached up and took down her hair, and he stopped trying; he took two whole fistfuls of her bedding as he watched it fall over her shoulders, her breasts, the full, straight length of it hitting right at the top of her rib cage.
“Nora,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”
She stepped between the V of his thighs and reached up, gently pulling his glasses from his face, and when she moved to set them down on the dresser behind her, he made a demand of his own, catching at her hips roughly and stilling her. “Stay close,” he said, low and serious, because it felt so serious.
He did not want to lose sight of her. Not even for a second.
She made quick work of coming back to him, setting her hands against the stubbled skin along his jaw before bending to kiss him, and the next thing he knew they were both on the bed, Nora’s warm, soft skin running the length of him. It took all his concentration to let her explore first: her mouth on his neck, down the center of his chest, across his abdomen as she worked the button and zipper on his jeans. He could tell something about the way she moved over him, the way she straddled him, the way she touched and tasted him—it was an assertion, a claiming, the demands she was making as much about herself as they were about him.
I can give her that, he thought, clenching his jaw tightly as she took down his jeans and boxer briefs and socks all at once, as she climbed back over him, the damp heat between her legs pressed against one of his thighs. He breathed out his frantic impatience, his desperation to tug at her again, to set her where he wanted her. He breathed in his focus, and for the first time in his life it felt truly easy, truly natural to sharpen his attention.
It was easy because it was all for her.
To give her this, whatever she wanted. Whatever kept making this feel like a first for her.
She lifted his hands from where they rested in readiness on her waist, moving them up, giving him permission, and when he cupped her breasts in his palms she moaned, dropping her head back, and oh, fuck, when she did that, the ends of her hair grazed against his thigh, his knee, his shin—all places, apparently, that had a direct line to his balls. He levered himself up, his hands on her not enough, and set his mouth to work—soft kisses first, a teasing stroke of his tongue along the edge of her nipple, and when she rocked her hips and clutched at the back of his head he gave her more, sucking at one breast while groping the other roughly, moving his free hand to that fall of hair, giving her the tight, tense hold he already knew she liked.
He did it for so long that the movements of her hips got