‘Ask me,’ I say, my voice rough. ‘Tell me what you need.’
A whimper. Then, ‘You.’
It’s as much as she can manage, that’s clear, so I don’t push it. Instead I drop my mouth to her neck, grazing my teeth over the jump of her pulse and further up, until I can mutter ‘Show me’ into her ear.
She curls into my touch in response, a shuddering breath coming from her before warm fingers land on my chest and drag slowly down, lower and lower, dipping below the elastic of my boxers until they finally, deliciously, close around my erection.
Fuck.
My head tilts back of its own accord, and when her hand starts to move around me, I’m a goner.
‘And these,’ she rasps, snapping the elastic of the waistband against me with the slightest curve of a smile. ‘Off. Now.’
I push away from her and step out of them in a heartbeat.
We come back together in a rush– all skin and teeth and rolling hips, tumbling together onto the rumpled sheets. She’s restless against me, the delicious friction of her body on mine working me up into a frenzy too. I want to wait, to make this moment last as long as possible, but I need her. Now.
God, I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.
‘Condom?’ she asks between kisses, and I nod. I actually don’t know if it’s a necessity given my, um,condition, but I haven’t got the mental capacity to work through that right now.Instead I reach over to the bedside table. If I’m right, there should be a stash in there.
I shift my weight until I’m over the edge of the bed and pull the drawer open with such ferocity that it slides right out and crashes to the floor. Regardless, I’m delighted to find a small packet of condoms in Peggy’s standard Airbnb emergency kit, and I send a silent thank you to her while I wrestle the box open, holding one foil packet aloft in triumph. Lucy watches me from beneath heavy eyelids as I open the packet with my teeth and roll it on.
She swings a leg over me before I can move off my back, and I don’t argue. The view is spectacular from this angle. I can see every detail of her body, the expression of anticipation on her face as she hovers over me, waiting.
Her fingers trace the skin of my chest for a moment, following the trail of the octopus tentacle that wraps around my ribcage. I haven’t told her the significance of it, but from the reverent way that she touches it, it’s like she knows.
And then she lowers herself onto me one exquisite inch at a time, and everything else ceases to exist. There’s only her, and me, and this connection that I’ve felt a hundred times but somehow never felt at all before this moment.
When she starts to move, the small circles of her hips feel instinctive, not practised, like she was always supposed to do this with me. Like some kind of fated lovers’ bullshit– two missing puzzle pieces finally clicking into place. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not bullshit after all.
It’s slow and teasing, until it’s not, and when I slip a hand down between her legs, her movements turn frantic, grinding down onto me, moaning and pleading as she chases her release.
When she starts to speak, I’m done for. It’s only fragments, words and syllables building like music into the hottest fucking crescendo I’ve ever known.
Bram—
Fu—
There—
Bram—
Oh—
I’m gonna?—
BRAM!
I’m trying to keep my cool, but it’s an impossibility with this goddess of a woman writhing on top of me. Every sound that tumbles out of her, every slap of her skin against mine, pushes me closer and closer to a cliff face, and I know I’m not coming back from that fall.
I want her.
Now.
Always.
It’s a small thought at first, but it grows with every movement until it’s a thundering pulse that matches the buck of my hips as I drive into her. And then I’m falling, gripping her waist for dear life with her name on my lips like it alone has the power to save me.