more rhythmic, more insistent, her breathing quick. A revelation, a first: somehow satisfying Nora with what amounted to a dry hump against his leg was already the best sex he’d ever had. But if you could only—
Once the thought intruded, it was so vivid he had to pull his mouth from her breast, to rest his damp forehead against the flushed skin of her chest. He was speaking before he could stop it, before he could regain his focus. “Nora,” he whispered, a plea. “Let me taste it.”
She made a small noise, part gasp, part grunt, and his thigh got wetter. If she came from this, he certainly wouldn’t blame her, and he definitely wouldn’t be far behind. She hadn’t even touched his cock yet and he was close. Edge-of-a-cliff close. He breathed in, smelling her sex, his mouth fairly watering for it.
“Not yet,” she said again, and then she moved off of him, crawling toward her nightstand and pulling out a still-sealed box of condoms.
“I want this first,” she said, so bold and gorgeous, and thank God she let him take the box from her; thank God she let him rip it open and grit his teeth and put one on himself, because he wouldn’t have survived her touch, not right that second. But what she did do was almost as arousing, her body easing onto its side, her elbow propping her up, her eyes on his hand, on the hardness between his legs. She watched him roll the condom on like she’d never paid attention to a man doing this particular task before.
When he was done he moved to lie beside her, waiting for her to tell him, to show him, what she wanted. Given what they’d been doing he half expected her to push him over, to straddle him so that they could pick up where they’d left off, but instead she gripped his shoulders and rolled onto her back, and he didn’t know how it could be so perfectly done, how this first time they could line up like this—her legs spread beneath him, her sex rubbing so exactly right against his.
Focus, he told himself, bending to kiss her, to whisper against her mouth and ask if she was sure. She gave it to him three ways: her nod, her yes, her hand on his ass, guiding him toward her. But the second he pushed inside her—the barest inch—he had to drop his head to the mattress with a groan and reach back for her gripping hand. He would not last with her touch like that, urging him on, and he had to make this last, to make it so good for her. So he made another silent demand, catching up that hand first and then her other, intertwining their fingers and raising their pressed-together palms above her head.
“Yes,” she said, before he could ask if it was okay. “Yes, like that.”
So, like that. Like that he pushed all the way inside her, her clutching heat breath-stealing. Like that he gave his first, slow thrust, and he closed his eyes, wondering if he’d actually seen stars. Like that he knew he’d never felt anything close to this—Nora beneath him, breathing out her pleasure and rolling her hips to intensify it, her grasp around his fingers tightening as they found the perfect pace together, as he went deeper.
Like that he knew he would never be the same.
But he couldn’t think of that now, not with Nora getting closer and closer. At some point, they’d lost their shared patience for keeping their hands out of it; when his focus came back, she had one on his back and one on his ass; he had one pressed flat on the bed and the other on the back of her thigh, holding her open for the thrusts that had gotten harder, more insistent. He bit the inside of his cheek, not making the demand he wanted, not telling her to come, but as it turned out he didn’t need to, because Nora’s hips sped up beneath him, her nails scratching perfectly against his back as she bit down on her lip to quiet her moaning cry.
Don’t come, he commanded himself, wanting to see her all the way through it, wanting to feel fully every clutching pulse along his length. But it had been so long; he had waited so long to feel this with her, since the very—
“Will,” she said, lifting her head to lick up the side of his