My thumb skated over the tattoo on his breastbone. Very small; without my glasses I had to get closer to make out the tiny cross inside of a circle. I wondered what it meant, then I wondered if I’d ever have time to ask.
I leaned forward and ran my tongue over one nipple, then the other. They tightened against my lips so I scored them with my teeth.
He grabbed my hair and I stilled, ready to fight for the right to taste him. But instead of pulling me away, his palm cupped my head, urging me on.
I suckled him, the tiny bud of his nipple hard against the roof of my mouth. His free hand smoothed over my back, up my ribs, then settled onto my breast where his thumb teased me into a similar state.
My knees wobbled, so I let them collapse, sliding my cheek down his stomach, rubbing my mouth against the front of his pants. I’d always wanted to open a guy’s zipper with my teeth.
It didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. My teeth ached; the zipper stuck. Too much pressure from the other side.
Impatience flared, and he wrenched the thing open, taking himself in his own hand and jerking his palm over the length just once.
I shoved him out of the way and took him in my mouth. No time to be shy, no time to learn all the nuances. I wanted to experience everything, and I only had one night.
His palm at my neck, he showed me how it was done, throwing his head back, his hips flexing in an ever-increasing rhythm. When he pulled away, I pulled him back. But he lifted me to my feet and kissed me so roughly our teeth clashed.
He was hard and hot against my stomach, wet from my mouth. I gave an involuntary shimmy, and the resulting slide made us both groan.
He tore his lips from mine and pressed our foreheads together. “Where did you learn this stuff?”
“I’m making it up as I go along.”
The soft breath of his laughter brushed my cheek. “I love a woman with an imagination.”
After inching me backward several steps, he put a hand to the center of my chest and shoved. I tumbled onto the bed. He stared at me with a strange expression—as if he’d never seen me before.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re so pretty.”
I snorted. “Don’t bother, Chavez. I’m a sure thing.”
“Bother?” His head tilted; his hair swung free of his shoulders and his earring winked in between the dark strands.
“I’m not pretty. Never have been. I never will be. Don’t care.”
Or at least I didn’t anymore. What would be the point?
The realization was freeing. I didn’t care about my rounded belly, my wide hips, the stretch marks that resembled a road atlas across my butt. None of that mattered anymore. Only this did.
Him. Me. Together just once.
He shucked his pants, then removed mine and joined me on the bed. I lifted my arms. He came into my embrace and brushed his lips across the slope of one breast.
“I know where beauty lives,” he murmured.
His dark fingers drifted over my skin, gentle and sure as he aroused me. He learned what I liked as I did. His clever mouth wandered; his devilish tongue arrowed in on erogenous zones I’d never heard of, as well as those everyone had.
His beard had lengthened past the rough stage and become almost soft. The texture both tickled and tormented, another sensation to add to so many. He teased me to oblivion more than once, and then he teased me to the precipice again.
“I can’t,” I gasped.
“You will.”
His body slid up and over me, nearly into me. I opened for him and he stopped.
“Ahhh!” I smacked his back with my fists and he choked on stifled laughter. The sound rumbled all the way to my toes, making me hum everywhere, making me want to laugh, too. To be laughing now was both a wonder and a gift—a downright miracle.
“This might hurt a little,” he said.
“What did I tell you about talking?”
His smiled deepened, and he kissed me, the way I was starting to crave. Hot, wet, lots of tongue. The man knew what he was doing.
While I was preoccupied with his talent at tickling my tonsils, he drove forward, burying himself inside.
It didn’t hurt. I felt…full. A tiny bit uncomfortable maybe—
I shifted, and something went ping. That hurt a little, but I forgot all about it when the very earth seemed to move. I know that sounds so dumb, but there you go.
Warm and alive he filled me. His body moved to an ancient rhythm—a rhythm echoed in the beat of my blood. I rocked against him; he rocked against me, and for that moment there were only the two of us.
His face was fierce, his eyes dark, intense as they stared into mine. I’d always thought sex an act better performed in the dark, but we’d left on all the lights, enjoying every sight, every sound. I couldn’t help but reach up and touch his cheek.