#actually dont

Nervous didn’t quite cover it. The first time is always fraught with uncertainty, but this seemed particularly up in the air, like she was being juggled and she had absolutely no idea if he could handle this many things flying through the air at once. She did a little flip in her head. Maybe it was the wine. 

Even still, there was a certain groove to things that she could take solace in. They’d kissed outside the restaurant, and while it had taken her by surprise it had set a tone, pushed things into a rhythm that they’d followed all the way back to her flat. That was an anomaly; usually she would go to his, the royal him, the scattering of men who had been good/bad/mediocre/occasionally mindblowing in her past. But instead it was her key fumbling in the lock, and him stepping after her into the darkness of her porch. 

From there the momentum of the moment took care of things. Whisked them through a few doors, kissing all the while, with clothes cast off them like bits of fuselage chasing a plane crash. They were littering the countryside with flaming bits of metal, one great scar in the earth from doorway to bedroom, passion cleaving the furrow deep. 

Things faltered when she was down to her underwear. Her arms became clipped, kept close to her torso so that her hands could provide ample coverage. He looked slightly surprised, all told, but it didn’t lessen the ferocity of his mouth against hers, or the way his hands seared over her body. 

He unclipped her bra, and she reached for the light, seeking the safety of darkness. She wanted to slip into anonymity, slip into the groove of familiarity, where she didn’t have to worry about how she looked, only enjoy how she felt. Insecurity has a way of becoming amplified through repetition, grown anemic from lack of exposure to the outside world. She didn’t like to be looked at, and she’d managed to make sure she wasn’t. 

She reached for the light, but he stopped her. His hand around her wrist and it felt like a shackle, liberation swapped for imprisonment, throwing her for a loop. She opened her mouth, tried to think of something to say, but his finger was there, pressed against her lips, hushing her. She wanted to scream. Thought about it, but reconsidered. 

Her bra tumbled down her arms, and fell onto the bed. She knelt on the bed, in his lap, and her skin crawled, every anxiety and insecurity manifesting into that singular sensation, so that it felt as though her skin was alive and petulant, rebelling against her. 

And then there were those lips. Against the underside of her right breast, tickling down her ribs. He said nothing, this man, just kept his eyes on her when he could, kept them closed when he couldn’t. A mouth that wandered over her body with a casual attention, quieting that crawling wherever it went. It was like a balm. Earth on fire. 

When he was done, when she’d stopped shaking, he pulled back and looked at her. They stared like that, into one another’s eyes, until she couldn’t bare it any more. Couldn’t quite stand to see that understanding and kindness, the care with which he was regarding her. It felt undeserved, and all she could see reflected in them was her own weakness, that she’d tried to hide from herself, hide herself from him. 

Then there was that hand against her chin, turning her face to look at him again. Only it wasn’t his eyes she was looking at this time, just the overwhelming closeness of him, blurred and present, filling her vision as he kissed her again.