Empirical
The night was long, even as it had only really begun when it was half-over. He lay, pressed against her side, with his chin propped up on his right hand. His left hand rested warmly on her stomach, reveling in the depth and rise of her breath. The reality of her existence.
Her clothes were scattered haphazardously on the floor, pushed and tossed aside, and definitely not missed. His shirt was gone, too, and he still wore his jeans, but they were unzipped and riding low on his hips. A welcome relief to not be pressed so hard against the biting teeth of the zipper, but they were not coming off. That was not a line he was going to cross until she initiated the touch herself.
But gods, he wanted her! His hand did a sort of skimming-glide up her stomach, feeling the smooth softness of her skin, the firm lines of her strength. He teased around the underside of her breast, then let his fingers trace a slow line over the full swell. She sighed in her sleep, and her nipples tightened. With warm eyes, he swirled his index finger in slow circles around the areola, the curious place where the sweet fairness of her skin darkened to a dusky pink.
So beautiful...
He leaned slowly forward and kissed the inner curve of her breast, just a bare brush of lips, a bare breath. Then tilted his chin slightly to watch her body ripple gently in reaction.
A sweet sigh, as his lashes rested heavily over content eyes, as his own body trembled in pleasure at seeing her react to him. Even subconsciously. He had been plucking delicately at her senses for awhile now, touches and kisses, humming with pleasure and mirth when he found the places, the caresses that moved her.
Tilting his head further, he closed his eyes as the ends of his hair tickled across her collar-bone, purring a deep sound in his throat when she mewled, when her legs shifted, sliding sensuously in the tangled sheets.
His hand slid to the left of her shoulder, bracing and tightening in the bedding, pushing up, he slowly lifted his leg across her, and rose up on his hands and knees.
He stared down at her, tangled hair falling over his eyes as his head hung low. His breath came slow and soft through parted lips, and he held himself still and lazy above her for several long minutes, imprinting the image of her so soft and giving beneathe him.
On the edge of his awareness, he knew this was a moment out of time. Morning would come too quickly, and everything would be different. He would love to believe that this was resolved, but the fact that it had happened so quickly, that she had come to such a place in her own thinking, without him even really suspecting...that told him more clearly than words that this possibility, already formed and realized, was still very new to her.
She hasn't had time...she hasn't had time to sort out these emotions; she hasn't had time to...conquer her conscience?
He didn't feel guilt. He didn't feel fear or anxiety dragging his heels down. What did it mean, that his conscience was silent? Was this acceptance? Or was selfishness on his part?
A slight frown furrowed his eyebrows, but he quickly pushed these thoughts away. He had thought enough. For months now. Analyzing and over-analyzing, and holding his emotions back with the very dregs of his will. She had been the one to breach this barrier between them, she had opened this door. Now it was his turn to walk through. It was his turn to act. The motivations behind his acceptance didn't matter anymore, not when she felt the same way, not when he had finally...tasted her.
A shudder ran through his body, a sweet jolt that pooled low in the base of his spine. He slowly licked his lips, his eyes closing on their own as he remembered the unique aroma and flavour of her desire, the warmth of her against his lips, the wet smoothness of her skin, like soaked-silk stretched over strength. And how fragile she was in his hands, shaking with the touches of his fingers, rising and falling into the movement of his lips.
And her voice. No words spoken, but her sighs and moans a language all their own, speaking to his body in ways that even he couldn't understand.
His hands tightened to either side of her shoulders, his head hanging lower as his breath grew more shallow in memory.
He wanted everything, he wanted to do everything, but he knew it was too soon. She had reached for him, but there had been hesitance in her hands, there had been just the breath of denial to her gasps. She hadn't reached out to embrace him properly, hadn't reached out her lips to his and offered kisses.
She hadn't once opened her eyes. He understood the meaning behind her reluctance, and that there was even promise in her unease, but it still twinged in the back of his mind like a bruise.
He wanted her to see him, and accept him, and even choose him...despite the inherent wrongness of their feelings.
Or maybe he should say the perceived wrongness of his feelings? As they did not feel wrong to him. And when he was completely honest, they never had.
They had only felt overwhelming and inescapable.
Does she feel the same? Does she feel everything as deeply as I do? Like she's drowning, and there's no escape? And that what's beneathe us is so dark...but comforting...like we would sink into warmth if we would just stop fighting.
I stopped fighting long ago...
Is she ready to stop...?
A dark fierceness filled him, even as it only skated on the surface of his gentleness and love.
I'll show her. I'll show her the strength of these emotions. We can dance for as long as she wants, however long she needs to deal with everything, but I'm not going to just sit idly by anymore. She will be mine, and not in halfs like this.
Not reaching with one hand, while pushing away with the other. Not only outside of her inhibitions or in her distraction. Mine.
He didn't shudder at the strength of that silent promise because there was something so very tender...and even innocent about it. His heart was swelled with such love, such affection, that it felt like something large was expanding and actually lodged in his throat and chest. And he alternately wanted to kiss her all-over, and bury his face into her breasts and weep openly.
Bracing on his right hand, he lifted the left and watched it hover over the tangled spill of gold hair. Then he shifted just enough and watched his fingers slowly trace over the line of her lips, full and yielding, slow breaths warming his fingertips. The dainty angle of her chin, that seemed so much sharper when she was awake. The soft hollow of her throat, that space right between her collarbones that seemed made for kisses.
Then her breasts. Settling back on his side, he returned to his previous activity of gentle touches, lazy caresses, running the edges of his fingers just barely over her nipples and marveling at the different textures of her skin. And the very fact that he was finally touching her.
And it was so very different from how he had imagined. So much...better...
He couldn't leave her side, he just couldn't manage to drag himself out of the bed, but he needed, needed to find his own release. His desire had been throbbing within him all night, a steady pulse of both affection and a deep heat.
What I want...is to be inside her.
His hand shook as it brushed over the edge of her breast, another hard throb of heat tightening his spine.
I want to feel her around me, as deep as I can go. Her heat, her desire, her pleasure. I want to tell her I love her, and watch her eyes widen as I spill myself inside her...
He was so very hard now that he could barely stand it. Laying back down and burying his face in her hair, he took several deep breaths and slowly unclenched the hand he had fisted above her stomach. With another deep breath he pulled in as much of her scent as he could, moaning slightly when he realized it was so completely entwined with his that he couldn't tell them apart.
Then slowly he dragged his open hand across her stomach, then down her side, slowly pulling his hips back just enough so wasn't so fully pushed against her.
His boxers were stretched so very tight, peeking pale cloth through the darker blue of his denim. The jeans slid down just a little further as wiggled his hips slightly, wanting so desperately to take them off, but also knowing that he couldn't. Not yet.
There was a small spot of wetness on his boxers, and he rubbed his thumb in slow circles into it, feeling his breath deepen in his throat as bolts of ice and pleasure began sparking up his nerves. His eyes closed tightly, and he pressed closer into her hair, his whole body twitching as he scratched his thumbnail over the centre of that spot.
( You taste like Aki. And salt... )
His whole body shuddered, another soft moan pulled from his throat as he slowly slid his fingers beneathe the elastic, pushing the cloth down with a practiced arch of his wrist and his breath shifting into a sigh of relief as he was finally freed from his cloth prison. His eyes squeezed down tight as he pressed his forehead closer to her, nearly pressing his nose against her cheek and reveling in the heat and scent of her skin so close to his own.
His fingers curved shakily around his erection, loose, but tightening steadily, fingertips rubbing little paths of stimulation and causing his thighs to tremble, the muscles jumping as if touched with tiny arcs of electricity.
He slowly drew his hand down to the very base of his shaft, took in a deep, full breath of her scent so close, then squeezed hard.
A loud groan filled the dim room as his hip bucked forward reflexively, the sound being echoed only half a second later with a soft 'hah!' as the head of his erection bumped against the hot, naked flesh of her outer thigh.
He didn't want to, but he found his heels digging in slightly to the tangled covers as his spine arched, keeping himself so intimately pressed against her side as a glistening line of moisture wept across her fair-flushed skin. Tiny movements, almost involuntary, rubbed him against her in small circles, spreading his wetness to cool over her skin.
Tilting his head slightly, and peeking open one dark eye, he continued the tiny movements as he watched the skin across her breasts tighten and her fingers twitch.
There was a flush high on her cheekbones, even as she continued to sleep. And her breath, while still deep, quickened just a little.
He would never get tired of seeing her react to him. Even if she was completely unaware of the reaction.
Maybe especially if she was unaware.
Fisting his hand loosely, he drew his hips back and stroked himself, steadily bringing his hand from base to tip, and back again. The movement smoothed over as he spread his pre-cum over his own skin.
It wouldn't be long now, he knew, as he could feel that shiver deep at the base of his spine, his body tightening as ice seemed to pulse through his lower stomach. His hips were thrusting gently now, and he pushed up on his arm, knowing instinctively what he needed for that last little push.
Bracing himself to hover half-over her, and still keeping up his quickening rhythm with his other hand, he leaned forward and closed his lips gently over one nipple, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head when he heard her soft, half-muffled moan. He gasped against her sweet flesh, unsteady pants as he sucked gently, then drew back to swirl his tongue wetly over the hard nub.
Her fingers twitched again, and her legs drew up slightly, thighs squeezing reflexively together.
He heard a sound, this one louder, and he tilted his head up, tongue still playing with her nipple as he peered through his bangs to see her eyes half-open and staring down at him hazily.
tbc...