With Brynjolf, it always feels like the first time.

There's a flux of nerves as his calloused fingertips write braille – cursive – lace along the crook of the neck and down the vertebrae that press outwards of the skin. The sweat boils then gathers in the lines of the hands and onto the crumpled sheets beneath our bodies. I begin to lose trust over my own body; I hardly recognize it and all the things it will do, the things it is capable of. The pressure and the unending need builds between the thighs, the cheeks, the toes, and flushes like hot steel. And Brynjolf – it seems so strange that I know him, that I see him this way now, so freshly exposed; the chills raise the hair along my neck and the fear, ah – it bubbles it the gut, and it drips from my mother's tongue. It settles in my ear, you know, these things. . .they hurt.

And I shake at the slightest noises, the noises I've never tried to hide as the tip of his tongue flickers into my open mouth. I always waver, always stiffen, and the cold, ah – it nips at the knees, wallows at my exposed skin. The drumming in my heart almost makes me faint, and I notice every place where he is not is air – cold, freezing air. But then I take a breath, and a smile graces the edges of my lips – I'm back in that place with the indistinct heat, the lines running over one another and in.

The barriers are gone – and the clothes. He whispers a word in my ear and I slide my guard down like I've never been warned by my mother before. We fumble like schoolchildren before the slick, timid knock of his hips test mine by pressing back and into the quiet consent. The trigger of the lips. An exhale and another exhale, faulty and shaking as I strain against the pull.

The moisture blurs with the sweating at the mouth, the spit falling and I can't speak. And we're mixing, ah – I stop ending at the skin and then Brynjolf is there, too, pressing through me, closer again, so close I swear I'd be lost in a fundamental mass. The knees bend where the elbows went, his body tangling with mine, and I wonder if we'll be able to cleanly untangle again. The first thrust slams the breath back dryly in the throat and I never recall where I go; there's a suspension of edge and time and of fear and the beat of the build. But then I forget it all and double back, lunging at those vital things tumbling out and gaining speed. And the roll – the build and the roll and the build and the grasp for the hem of a daedric prince. The muscles taut. The roll and the build and the sheets in my hands and the heat in my bones –

Close.

I roll my hips with my pulse moving at the pace of two souls swelling to a common ache.

Close.

I try to scream at a pitch that can't be hit.

Close – the build and the build, the build and the sweat and the build and the breath and the build and the beat and the build. Close.

Too close and I rose up on a crest. I break. I rush over death.

The next breath punches at my lungs like birth.

And when it's done, I settle into the smoothness of the last kisses in the places I'd least expect. All that wetness and the mess – I try to wipe us apart, already a little too late, a little too impossible to sort. I have a little redness and a smile – it didn't hurt, it wasn't all that raw.

Then things become tangible again. The tangle of the arms and the sheets, the air and his emerald hues and the light of a torch, soles of our feet warming against one another's calves and his breathy whispers against my neck. A whole world still revolving past us – and I say simple things, thoughts – safe things. Newly common things. I extend my hand and he grasps it and nothing hurts.

But when he pulls back, I remember how much it can, how much it does. And we do it all over again.


A/N : I've been trying to write a smut for two months - you know, one with a sort of real plot and less abstract concentration, but I couldn't manage. So this is what happened. Maybe one day I might even write something that's more than one thousand words. One day.

Please, darling dearests, review - critiques and simple comments are adored. I'd also love some advice on writing smut if you have any to offer. There's so much sexual frustration in me right now and I need to write it and give it all to you - like an Easter gift (;

- I. N.