Sex safety notes: do NOT use ghee for lube if you're also using a condom. Also, don't use coconut oil for lube too often because it can mess with the "bacterial microbiome" (thanks, Bruce) of one's vagina.
Note on Natasha's self-talk: to be clear, my documentation of this talk and interpretation of the character is NOT an endorsement of or agreement with her conclusions about herself.
It's nearly thoughtless, the seamless joining and intertwining of their lives over the next day and a half. The smoothness of it surprises both of them when they reflect on it at the end of the first day. They both know that new coexistence is rarely acquired without some friction for even the strongest, healthiest couples. Hell, she's heard stories about Clint and Laura—the sturdiest couple she knows—adjusting to each other's idiosyncrasies when they moved in together over a decade ago. But, at least for the first day and a half she and Bruce are together, there's nothing but smooth sailing.
That initial day, after their decisive morning and frivolous exchange on food, they'd gone to Bruce's à la his electric scooter—his "electric scooter bike," he insisted on calling it at first. At first, he started to say "motorcycle," until she reminded him of what she rode. He protested to "moped," so they compromised on calling it his electric scooter. The whole exchange was in good fun, unfolding through well-natured shouts on the bustling, clamorous streets of Balikpapan.
At his house—an extremely modest square of an abode—she naturally drifted to his bedroom and packed an overnight bag for him as he picked out food. On the way back into town, she drove the not-moped/electric scooter while he clung to her. Again, conversing had to happen in yelled bursts. The only thing odd about the whole series of events was, again, the automatic normalcy of it all. Guilt, doubt, and thoughts of Tom didn't strike until evening, when they'd gotten ready for bed together.
Even then, the remorse didn't push them apart, but accomplished the opposite. Mutual sleep came on the tails of reassurances, plans, and soft touches and grazing, companionate kisses. Foreboding and hard as it was, the struggle for them was worth it.
Morning came and the rest of the day—today—unfurled without issue. Bruce had his work outside of the city—which he'd offered to try and reschedule, because of course he did—and she had the ports to go to, the ocean and its voyaging ships to distract her thoughts. When their schedules brought them back together, they grabbed dinner from a restaurant some expats had once recommended to Bruce, bought sweet bakpao for dessert from a street vendor, and headed back to the rental house. On the way there, she caught herself internally referring to the house as "home."
Her feelings on that she stowed away for later processing. One thing at a time; this day with Bruce, tomorrow her flight back to end a man's life as he knows it. Then, after sifting through the pieces, she could redefine home.
But that's all to come. Right now, this evening and tomorrow morning, she has this time with Bruce and doesn't intend to let shame or self-loathing intrude and squander it. So, when they descend into a litany of kisses and roaming touches, she puts the sensation of him against her between herself and her mental hauntings. She sinks into him fully. It's not hard to do, given how gingerly he'd kissed her at the start.
That's how the whole make out session started: with Bruce emerging from the bathroom after brushing his teeth, cupping the sides of her face, and kissing her as gently as someone drawing a blanket over their sleeping loved one. Once he kissed her like that, how could she go to sleep and waste the dwindling hours they had together?
That said, she doesn't intend for things to lead to sex, and neither does he. It'd crossed her mind earlier at the port—having sex with him now versus waiting until after. After she leaves Tom.
There's no urgency, no concrete need for her and Bruce to do it now, so she figured they'd wait. But that's a conclusion she arrived at when she and Bruce were apart, before he kissed her like he did, before he incited (and continues to incite) the winding coil that constricts below her belly.
She's not so intoxicated with lust that the reasons why they shouldn't have sex magically disappear. What ultimately trumps those reasons is that them being together isn't about Tom, isn't about anyone else but them. Besides, sex isn't the point of no return—that was crossed when she boarded the flight that brought her here. Sex is about wanting Bruce, wanting more of his hands and body over her, over more of her and her reciprocating that. It's about blissful proximity. For them, it's part of becoming a couple, this physical entwining together.
And it's also about how she just really wants him inside her.
She eases herself into pitching the idea by carving a physical path for herself. While the proposition takes shape from abstract thought to words, her mouth drifts from his, sinking down his jaw, his neck, clavicle-bound. To steady herself, she parts from his skin and breathes. To prelude the question, her hands grip his hips where his shirt meets the waistline of his pants. She utters his name.
The brief interlude between now and whatever happens next begins with the scant space put between them and matched stares. Instinct drives him to check for what's wrong, eyes flicking over the nooks and edges of her face. Of course, there's no worry to find. The feeling behind the question is blatant on her face—it must be, because she's not inhibiting it and, without her saying anything more, he says, "We don't have to…" He trails off, trails a palm down and up her arm for reassurance, as though she's thinking he's anything less than a sure thing.
She murmurs, "I know." And it's more to affirm that with herself rather than him. They don't have to have sex. In fact, they shouldn't—no matter her desire, sex is far from a necessity. But, again, it's not the Rubicon; that point was coming here, was kissing him, was committing to him. Still, this kind of dissonance has never gotten easier for her—committing one wrong to fix another.
Likely detecting the primed minefield in her mind, Bruce chases away volatility and conflict by pressing his lips to the center of her forehead. Despite the guarantee of him, she cups the nape of his neck and encourages him to stay close. Points of no return have always been equivocal to her, which has been fine until now. A constant, low magnitude of shakiness quietly assails her. He is—they are a sure thing. It's just that the persistent, fickle quaking tricks her into doubting the guarantee of it all.
But no—she loves him. She chooses him. She tracked him down and came here for him. She kissed him. She kissed him once then did it again and again. And she wants to keep kissing him now. She wants more of him; she wants him until they're too entwined to break apart, and she wants whatever's beyond that.
All this funnels into the soft question she utters, "Can we?"
He shifts, his brow taking the place of his mouth against her head. "You sure? What about—"
"It's you," she whispers, quiet and precise, her sentiments a package for him and him alone. "It doesn't matter what we do or don't do—it's you." I don't want it to be with anyone but you again. She hopes he can glean that from the space of the unsaid. What she feels is certain, but it'd be nice to feel like it was somehow solidified.
To be completely, unwaveringly positive, he repeats once more, "You're sure?"
With a hand still around the back of his neck, she slips a few fingers into his cropped curls. Her nod is so slight, it's almost a phantom to herself, so she adds, "Only if you want to."
He flushes and flusters a little, not entirely unlike the shy guy she imagines he was in college. "Of course. I mean–I mean, yeah—"
She digs her fingers into his scalp and dives back into him. It might be too rough, too insistent, but he quickly returns what she gives in kind. His weight shifts forward. He grabs her waist and tugs her closer. His mouth opens and kisses her back, hard if not harder than she kisses him, as though trying to engrave this into memory.
As much as she wants to arch into him, she doesn't—not yet. Instead, she tips him back and herself forward, a leg slinging over him so she's in his lap, straddling him. Since this positions her above him, he tilts his face up to meet hers. Throughout, he is firm against her. She curls an arm around him and, then, presses her torso against his. When one of his hands slides up her back in response, a quick, airy moan spills from her before she can check it.
Thank god his shyness doesn't extend to the exploration of her body, because he repeats the motion, more deliberate on the second pass, fingertips sliding down her spine like piano keys. For a blissfully immeasurable span of minutes, they remain like that, kissing and learning the harmonies of each other—the best spots to apply pressure, where they can touch to get a sharp inhale, a whimper, a little moan. The collarbone and the spots under his ears work very well for him. For her, it's her back. Every inch of her skin is at attention, a sexual sort of static, but she melts completely when he tugs at her shoulder blades just so, when his thumbs massage into the spot just above her sacrum.
It's a foreign but welcome sensation, feeling like she can do this—just kissing and feeling him for hours. And who knows, maybe they have been. Maybe it has been hours. She could do just this and be content. Yet, she wants more. She hungers for the rest of him, for him to know the rest of her.
So, whether it's been minutes or hours—and maybe it's been no time at all—she moves things a step forward. At no particular moment, she reaches down for his shirt, divests him of it, and then grabs the hem of her own top.
The first thing he does when he's stripped is not to do the same to her, but to feather his mouth over her chest, where the collar of her shirt meets skin. For a countless multitude of reasons, she loves him. In this moment, if for no other reason, it is for that gentle gesture alone. She gathers his head in her hands, kisses his crown, pulls him up so their lips meet. After a prolonged second, her shirt goes. As soon as the fabric flops onto the floor, her bra follows.
Then there's the problem of pants.
Their timing is unfortunate; just as his hands come around to cup her breasts, she says, more seriously than intended, "Bruce—"
He pulls away like he's burned her. "I'm sorry, I should've—"
"No—no. I mean," for a split second, she considers forgoing what she's about to say. But it's him, they're here, and she's committed to this, so she continues, "My boobs aren't sensitive, so that won't do a lot for me, but—"
"I can not touch them," he offers, hitching a little between words as though second-guessing or checking for permission.
"They're my boobs, Bruce. You can call them what they are," she assures him, grinning at his reservation. "And if that's what gets you going—"
"Um," he interrupts her, then utilizes the ensuing pause to formulate his response, "What…'gets me going' is you. It's you...getting...going." He loses steam in the weirdly phrased insinuation. They both collapse into a round of quiet laughter.
With a residual smile engraved into her cheeks, she shifts off him, off the bed onto the floor, takes his hands and guides him after her. When he follows, one of his feet lands on her bra. An apology instantly shoots out from him, only to be smothered against her mouth. She presses to him, coaxes his arms to settle around her hips. Her palms drift up his torso, land and meld to his shoulders.
Their kiss is long and uninterrupted—an ebbing loop of pressure and soaking in the taste of each other. Only when she needs a cool breath do her hands make their way down to his pants.
When she coasts over his chest, he says, "Hey."
This time, she starts, pausing and looking up to see if she's done something unwanted.
A grin concocted from bashfulness and mischief awaits her. In jest, he silently admonishes, "Those are my boobs."
The laugh that comes to her is louder, more uninhibited. "You're such a dork," she says before kissing him again. The immediate plan is to kiss him, then return to the still-present pants problem, but he shifts her course.
His hands come up to cradle her face. Like sweet, wandering butterflies, he dusts his lips against hers, then over her cheeks, between her brows. It's so tender, loving, and welcome, she discovers why some people cry at moments like this. She doesn't—she just basks in it like sunlight, the catharsis of a rest after an overlong day.
To the bridge of her nose, he murmurs, "I interrupted you."
She reaches up, squeezes his hands, softly jokes, "Don't do it again."
As she goes for his pants, he continues the frivolous exchange, "Or else…?"
The buttons and zipper come undone easily.
She quips, "Or else you're sleeping on the couch."
Beautifully bad with sarcasm, he shrinks back in the slightest. "Wait, really?"
"No." She exhales into a half-chuckle and a kiss, simultaneously hooking onto his belt loops and underwear and shoving them out of the way. He steps out of them, she kicks them away, and both pairs of their hands go for her bottoms. In the rush to get there, they collide. While he unbuttons, she pushes the fabric away. In this scenario, the one benefit to preposterously tight women's jeans is that her underwear slips off with her pants.
Then they're there, bare, just them. She's surprised that, for a few awkward seconds, it feels as though she's never touched anyone as she's about to touch him, as though she's never done this.
That's not the case, of course. And just as her memory, body, and the rest of her mind recalibrate and realign, a realization strikes Bruce. His face performs a circus act of expressions: epiphany, alarm, concern, with a finale of embarrassment.
To ease him into asking, she lifts her palms to his jaw, trailing them over his chest on the way. Her voice floating on the cusp of a light laugh, she prompts him, "What?"
A low, stalling hum preludes the question, "Do you have…"
When he trails off, there's an unspoken expectation put onto her. As much as she likes to believe she understands him, she's not a mind reader. So she volleys the unfinished query back to him, "Do I have…?"
His nervous fidgeting manifests onto her, his fingers cupping her elbows and lightly worrying at her hidden bones. He finishes the question as though dropping an obscenity in a church, "Lube?"
In light of the realization—and what they're lacking—she actually swears, "Oh shit."
Their bodies are in a position as awkward and abrupt as they both feel. Hands flutter and falter with sudden uncertainty. Eyes shoot down to the nudity neither of them are sure what to do with. They don't sit, don't break the proximity to each other; somehow, doing so would feel like defeat.
As she starts contemplating the satisfaction of just oral sex and fingering, Bruce pipes up, "Give me a minute."
It's a strange thing to say out of the blue and, while she's sure the context is there in his beautiful mind, she quirks a curious brow at him.
What she's met with is him clasping her face, hastily planting his mouth on hers—his trajectory's slightly off and he kisses more of her top lip and philtrum—and he says, "I'll be right back." Completely nude, he hustles over to the bedroom door and disappears.
There's not even two seconds to process the whirlwind he just became, because he reappears almost instantly. The adrenaline has dwindled slightly, so he returns less of a whirlwind and more of a modest gust. He goes for his boxers, avoids eye contact as he tugs them back on, then jogs back out. Amidst the rush, she glimpses the little grin on his face. She doesn't feel any guilt for laughing at the wonderful ridiculousness of him. She also doesn't have any qualms with waiting for his return while fully naked, so she sits on the bed's edge and does just that.
Following some rustling and cabinet-banging downstairs, he makes his valiant return with jars of coconut oil and a buttery, yellow substance. The latter takes her aback, so it's not with the most sultry or seductive look she greets him.
In response to her perplexity, he says, "We don't have to use it if you're uncomfortable—"
"No, it's just," she straightens, smirks, "I've never used coconut oil or…"
He traces her gaze to the jar of yellow, looks back at her, back to the jar. Clarity then comes. "Ghee."
"Never used ghee as lube before," she finishes.
He doesn't move from the doorway. Instead, he fidgets with the jars and his words, "We don't—it's—it's just that these should be benign to the bacterial microbiome of your vagina."
If there was no risk of seeming like she was laughing at him, she would've let herself chuckle. But they're new, they're delicate, so she suppresses the urge and just smiles wide.
He returns the expression and, this time, there's diminished sheepishness, which warms the hearth of her heart.
"No good?" He asks.
"No, it's fine. Just," she gestures with her head, "bring the coconut oil over here."
Ever so promptly, he does. The ghee gets deposited on the bedside table, the coconut oil beside her. As he's bent at the waist, hovering above her, her hands return to him, sliding up his neck. Her fingers dutifully coax him back to her lips, his body atop hers.
Before they connect, she can't resist a quick quip, "And maybe don't mention the 'bacterial microbiome' of my vagina while you're fucking me."
Close enough to feel the exhale of his words on her skin, he murmurs, "Not so good at the dirty talk, huh?"
More tired of not kissing him, being so close without that full-body touch, she grins, utters, "You're fine." They lay back, her coaxing him atop her, which requires minimal effort on her part. On that descent, they kiss.
When her back's flush with the mattress, he wanders downward from her mouth. Light brushes of his lips serve as trail markers on the expanse of skin between her neck and hips. Just as he noses into her nether hair, she helps herself to one more joke, "You can talk about the microbiome of my vagina all you want when we're not having sex."
Laughter spills over from both of them. The top of his forehead knocks gently against her pubic bone before lifting so he can look at her. Not that she expected anything admonishing or upset, but the ubiquity of unspoken yet overt adoration in every centimeter of his expression subdues her chuckling. He follows her, laughter dwindling into a simple grin. In that passing moment, there's a final, unspoken check-in. Him: You're still sure? Her: Absolutely. For good measure, she strokes the hair above his ear. With that settled, he goes down on her.
Out of habit, she almost reminds him to start slow, to not just dive in with a finger and pinpoint her clit. The notion skitters away from her when his mouth releases a tide of warm air over her and follows with his tongue, tracing the top of her vulva. While his mouth explores the outline of her, his palms slide along and behind her legs like he's brushing over beach sand. At the soft, pushing request of his hands, her knees bend, feet planting on the bed. She's never felt as malleable as she does right now, with him lightly squeezing her thighs, her hips. His tongue flattens, drags upward in a brief path that ends with a phantom flick near her clit, then repeats the motion.
She's never felt this malleable and they're just getting started. The expanse of her is one he takes ample time to learn. Through his journeying, her breaths deepen into slow, diaphragmatic gasps interwoven with staccato bursts when he goes to suck on her clit or tease her increasingly wet entrance. Licking, sucking, nudging, he lifts her up, up onto some imaginary altar meant for his devotion. She relishes in it, relishes in his lips' lavishing of her clit, the flicking and swiping of his tongue. She wants to tip over this mountain he's placed her on, and she's about to tell him as much when his hands scoop under to scrape at her low back. The gesture shoots pleasant electricity along her spine. She bucks, and he pulls her into his tongue, which nearly tips her over. Then he withdraws.
Past experiences have her assuming he's going to enter her then. Instead, he grabs the coconut oil, twists the cap off, and swipes two fingers in. One of those fingers then dips into her. That elicits an audible exhale from her, her mouth a lax circle—a stark contrast to her one hand fisting the comforter.
His mouth returns to join the finger that starts pulsing inside of her, and there's not much farther to go before she falls.
He sets a pace, sets a pressure, sets a rhythm that snowballs her to the edge. Given the proper amount of time, that alone could make her tip over, but that's not his intention. That much becomes clear when his free hand snakes to her low back again and blunt fingertips scrape across the width of her. In tandem, his tongue flicks a little faster. The conflicting motion of his finger surging inside her versus the horizontal swipe over her back causes him to falter slightly in tempo, but it makes the sensation even better when he picks it back up and releases her into the freefall of an orgasm.
What begins as a tingling splash in her pelvis gushes up into her belly and down toward her toes as Bruce flattens his tongue against her and pulls it away in a languid motion. His finger inside her pushes languorously through her coming, the second loosely teasing her entrance during her ride down.
Again defying her expectations, it seems that, once her quaking stops, he's more than ready to remain where he is and repeat the experience. A second finger slips into her, easy. While she wouldn't protest to more of that, the intention makes her want of him swell. She releases her clenched grip on the bed and transfers her fingers to his head. There, they flutter slightly as they land, as though in disbelief of him, and she utters, voice throaty, "Bruce."
His gaze snaps to hers with question, a silent inquiry into how she's feeling, if he's done anything to hurt her somehow. As if he could, with the kind of devotion he laves over her. When a smirk floats over her slack mouth, the preemptive worry evaporates and he drifts up her body. As soon as he's in the vicinity of her mouth, she tugs him into her kiss. It's wide, open, sloppy and neither of them give a damn. It's bliss encaptured within each other, flavored with the taste of her. Her tongue swirls into his mouth to mingle the subtle salt of her with the musk of him.
They kiss like it's a delicacy they're trying—and failing—to savor slowly. To add to the fervor, she grips his ass—a move that's supposed to encourage him to grind into or, even better, fill her. Instead, he gets onto his knees to make room for the hand that travels down to where she's still tingling and eager. Two fingers reenter her. He asks, "This okay?"
"Mm," she hums, her lips screwing together as she nods. A blink turns into closed eyes and her reveling in the bone-trembling pleasure of being filled with him. She's filled but not full, not yet. There's more and she's greedy for it. Two parts sultry, one part breathy laugh, she says, "It'd be better with you inside me."
"I—oh," as he seeks clarification, she finds where he's hard and strokes. Gulping, he says, "As in—"
"Yeah."
His response is a deep kiss, a firm push of his fingers inside of her, a crooking of the tips in a way that has her gasp, her body jolt. When he removes himself after, she's so bereft at the loss that she nearly forgets about reciprocation. Nearly.
Her timing's not great; as she asks him, he dips his hand back into the coconut oil, "Do you want me to…?"
This time, he understands exactly what she's implying without her having to reach for his member.
"I don't really…" He doesn't shrink away from her, but there is a retreat: an averted glance, a lingering within the jar of their impromptu lube, a slight collapse of the chest. Abashed by the words, he admits, "Blow jobs aren't really my thing."
"You sure?" She sits up, which sends a spike of residual pleasure low through her but, no, that can wait. She wants to ensure he's okay and comfortable first.
When she touches him, her palm floating up to his shoulder, he returns to her from some dark corner of his self-flagellating mind and nods. His forehead drops to her shoulder, giving the issue closure. He inhales her, holds his lips reverently at the junction between shoulder and neck. It's a speechless thanks, and she responds with a cradling hand on his face, ushering him into a cushioned kiss—an unspoken version of, Of course. I love you.
The embrace is a soft net, each of them a composition of strings attuned to the shape of one another. He rises, his upper back curving into a dome that gives way to a swift collapse. He melts into her, allows himself a slight collapse into his elbows so he's closer, heavier on her. She applies gentle but consistent pressure, encouraging him, anchoring him to her, her to him. The end of the kiss comes when she reaches down, finds the coconut oil by feel. She scoops out a portion and strokes his cock with it.
At that point, they break. She pulls away, watching for signs of anything amiss or something particularly pleasurable. He's most of the way to fully solid, and four languid pumps gets him there. During that, his desire to please her persists. He props himself up with one arm while his slick fingers return to her vulva. Not far behind, not far from him, she follows, lifting herself up onto an elbow. Fingers working with an increasing fervor, they thaw each other into puddles and lakes.
Just as they turn each other's breaths heady, they quietly agree to return to their completely horizontal arrangement. With fingers buried in his hair, she kisses him as they sink back and orient themselves for what's to come.
He lowers into the space her legs make for him, her knees knocking apart into a shape that cradles his torso. He fills the planes and corners of her with reverence at every turn, kissing her mouth, her neck, the tops of her shoulders. A palm skates between her breasts, across her ribcage, down her one side in a way that makes her simultaneously feel holy and like no one's ever known her but him. Her own fingers hover near her clit, taking a moment to soak in the sheer glow of this, of the quick, breathless moments before he enters her.
The odds that he knows she's basking are slim but, somehow, he adds to the lovely transience by saying, "I love you." If her heart actually skips, he'd be able to feel it, because his head's on her left breast, and she can feel his grin before he turns it up to her. He presses a kiss to the center of her chest, then, and murmurs, "I don't think I said that before."
"It's okay." She squeezes the back of his head and adds, "Show me."
As he reaches down and checks on the slickness of him, she crooks her fingers and grazes them over her clit. The light pressure combined with thoughts of how he lavished her are enough to make her shudder from the belly down. Sparks chase the pleasure right back up as Bruce slides into her.
In the adjustment period, they settle into each other. He drops to his elbows, she slides a leg along his before tucking it beside his hip. His forehead dips to hers as he surveys the planes of her expression up close, watching for any signs signaling him to stop or go forward.
He's not overly big or wide, and it's not like he's her first lover, but he's there, inside her, the closest he's ever been and nothing can change that. Neither of them can revoke this, which is a type of finality that enkindles further heat in the sheath of her. There's arousal and a type of comfort recondite to her until now. It's a feeling so solid that, were it a physical thing, it would fill the scant space and cracks between their bodies like thick glue. More palpable than that, though, is the simple fact: she's full of him. From the lower heat of her to her heart, she is full of him, and she never has to have it any other way. She never wants it any other way.
Full of that want, full of emotion, full of him, she surges her mouth into his, grips his hips, and clenches below her belly. He requires no more cues, and thrusts.
The beginning is gentle, comprised of a rhythm that quickens from leisurely to a controlled fervor. It's good—enough to make her breathless when paired with the way his lips bear down on hers, a sensual kind of smothering that feels like he's trying to absorb every part of her, from pleasure to pulse. He soaks in every little bit she gives him—her stuttering attempts at breath, gasp-pant hybrids, the multitude of mini craters her fingernails imprint upon his skin when he pushes a little harder into her. He soaks and gives it right back.
It's good and someday, when she's used to this—to him—it will be more than enough to take her to and over the edge. But that day is not now, not when they're making this tangible for the first time. So, when his mouth drops to her neck, her hands reach around for his ass and pull in tandem with her whispered request of, "Harder."
A pause precedes his compliance, in which he inserts the stipulation, "Tell me if it's too much."
"I will—"
Before she can finish, the greater pressure arrives, pushing the rest of her breath out with a blissed unh sound.
As quickly as he increased, he stops again to check in, "Was that—"
Firmly—as firm as a heady exhale can be—she tells him, "Don't stop."
After that, he doesn't. They cling to the closeness of each other with every inch of skin. Bruce only pulls away to renew his place within her, his depth. The fervid pulsing is a call she's eager to echo, and her pelvis gyrates with his. Like a wave folds in on itself and effuses foam, they lean into each other, thrust through the echo chamber of her pleasure until they rediscover her peak and edge. When she topples over that precipice for the second time, she fills her mouth with the flesh of his shoulder, clings to and clenches around him like she would a rope dangled over a rock bluff.
Slowing the pace of his hips to a lulling massage, he joins her in the descent—not climaxing himself, she notices, but still inhaling quickly, shallowly. His tenderness inspires her own. The steely grip she has on his shoulders and back, she alleviates. Her fingers relax from claws into paint brushes she strokes over his skin—the shape of his shoulder blades, the crest and fall of his spine. In the transient, suspended moments of the after, her fingertips roam freely, gently, without leaving ripples of pain or ache. She surprises herself with the simple act of transfusing utter adoration from her hands onto him.
Precious as these seconds are, they don't deaden her continued want of him, for him. They do not turn her from his lack of peak and precipice.
In a murmur that doesn't betray the softness of the space they've created, she says, "Flip over." Meaning for him to maneuver both of their bodies, her muscles prepare for the switch with micro-movements and little tenses. He, however, starts to withdraw from her, and she intercepts him. Still light and on the verge of chuckling, she tells him, "You can flip us at the same time."
A single laugh slips out on his exhale. "You have way too much confidence in my dexterity," he says, wearing a bashful grin that she finds funny and intoxicatingly charming at once.
Smiling, she counters quietly, "The two orgasms I just had would beg to differ." As they share a quick laugh—his sheepish, hers throaty, both vivid and brief like beacons of two lighthouses intersecting—she reinforces her previous hold on him. Locking them into position against each other, she prefaces the move with two quick comments, "Okay. Here." And she flips them over.
Despite the forewarning, a mild alarm strikes him, widening his expression. Thankfully, it doesn't cause him to lock up or give her any resistance; instead, he becomes clay, molding to her body's direction and holding shape, trusting in her impromptu choreography.
Once he's fully under her, she rises from their pocket of body heat, the ambient air in the rest of the bedroom swirling around her like a cold breeze. Never would she consider Indonesia chilly—not even in its coldest month, not with her Slavic background—yet rolls her shoulders now to stave off a shiver. Protesting the loss of warmth and skin, her nipples tighten.
One of Bruce's hands travels toward the nest of her, undoubtedly seeking her clit. Allowing herself a small smile, she intercepts him, ensnares his other hand, and raises his arms above his head, tilting forward as she pins him. "Hold on," she murmurs, voice huskier than intended. Her mouth hovers a centimeter or so above his. Already well-conditioned, his lips part, prepared to meet hers. Instead of a kiss, she teases him, "Gotta even the score."
Confusion stalls his expression, and perhaps the rest of him; his arms stay where they are when she releases them, straightening her spine.
He starts to say, "Even the–"
A sudden circle of her hips dissolves the rest of the question into a clipped moan. Triumphant, she repeats the motion, elucidating, "You haven't cum."
Permitting him a chance to respond, she pauses atop him, much to her vagina's lament. She throbs. A craving for more movement creates a phantom pulse within her.
A little breathless, Bruce stammers, "It's not–it's not a competition. I mean, orgasm doesn't have to be the goal—"
"But do you want to?" The question is genuine, her voice an unlocked door ready to swing open and release him should that be what he wants.
He blinks at her. She imagines the same, beautifully dumbstruck look has appeared when observing an anomaly in data, or when receiving an excellent but unexpected question from a lab partner. "Do I want to?" He repeats, some of him stalling, the rest of the question rhetorical.
Different responses rise to his mouth, shape his lips, and recede without a sound. As he grasps at his version of an appropriate response, her waist keeps him tethered to this room, this act, to them. His arms lower mindlessly and settle with a soft grip on her ribcage. A compulsion to fidget causes his fingers to massage her muscles and skin. Anxiety, she suspects.
An undirected answer meanders out, "Well…I…" A low, hissing sigh completes the sentiment as she rotates her hips over him again. The light fingers on her curl into blunt ends, anchoring to her ribs, clutching, not pushing away.
Encircling his wrists in her hands, she asks, "Can I take that as a yes?"
His body responds first, and quickly—a nod, his fingertips squeezing slightly, his pelvis squirming a bit underneath her, seeking more movement. Next, his mouth moves, starts to form an affirmative response, but she resumes circling atop him and all coherent morphemes of language skitter away from him. She'd chuckle, were she not indulging, succumbing to the bliss of her gyrations.
For an unspecified number of suspended minutes, she rides him, motions drawing moans from him that goad her on. Her palms flatten against his torso, her arms supporting beams for herself, his chest a landing pad and magnet that steadies her. With reverberations from his pleasured sounds and his cock, he feeds her bodily. Even with him buried inside her, it feels like there could be no such thing as being too full of him.
As gripping spasms drive her to a transient, incoherent state, she notices him lagging behind her. The sweat and stuttering breaths make it clear he's enjoying himself, but he's also nowhere close to where she wants him: fucked mindless.
Her hips stop swirling and rocking long enough for her to pull him up into a seated position. Behind her, his legs adjust, knees probably bending and feet flattening against the mattress. She licks through a line of perspiration's salt up his neck to his ear, where she rests her brow against his temple and whispers, "Better?"
So there's something to evaluate for a response, she restarts her movements, switching to a hasty rock-and-lift momentum. His wordless reply defines instant gratification for her, his head dropping to her shoulder, nodding then sucking the damp, slick skin there. His fingers curve into dull but delicious hooks into her lower back. Rising, ascending again, she clings to him, bowing and doing her best to release her own noises of bliss into his ear.
It doesn't take long after that.
Frantic from sensation, his lips fumble up her throat, her jaw, until ensnaring her own mouth. Clumsily, they kiss, gasping into each other, tongues grazing, until he retreats slightly to utter, "Nat, I–I'm gonna—"
As though starving, she drags his mouth back to hers. Against him, she hums affirmation, permission, encouragement.
Then he crests his peak. Spilling into her, he twitches and spasms and she rides him through. The heat of his irregular breaths cover her cheeks and stoke the flames on her kiss-swollen lips. It feels and sounds as though he's resisting the urge to pant and grunt, which coaxes her on, chasing after his zenith with her own. She wants him uninhibited with her.
When the softening of him begins, a hand rushes to her clit, to aid her pursuit. Again, it doesn't take much for her to topple over a third time, skin charged electric from their lovemaking.
Once she's evened out and steady—as steady as she can be after three orgasms and an enthusiastic ride—she buries her fingers into his salted, dark curls and nuzzles her mouth against his skull, dropping kisses. It's unclear to her, where such a tender gesture manifests from, but she heeds its compulsion. She holds her to him as she's never held anyone before, cherishing him like a lost religion.
Before dismounting and turning in for bed, which she probably should've done a while ago, considering her flight tomorrow, she murmurs into him, "I love you, too."