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This was what it was like to feel. To only feel. To not think. To not worry about what he did next. To not worry how he would be received.
Some people felt this way all the time.
He was all right if he only felt that here. With her. It was a gift.
And one he would never take lightly.
He stripped the rest of her clothes away, and she did the same for him. And both of them were brilliantly, gloriously naked in that afternoon sun. He kissed her. Her neck, her collarbone, down the valley of her breasts. Her stomach. He lifted her up from the ground and set her gently on the edge of the couch, where he draped her legs over his shoulders and began to lick into her. Deeply, ravenously.
Her taste haunted his dreams.
He had wanted no one since her.
And while it was not entirely unheard of for him to close off his libido when it was convenient, it had never gone and done so on its own without his permission.
And yet with her...
She was what he wanted. Not sex. No other woman would do. He wanted her.
He licked her until she cried out his name. Until he felt her give up her control. Until he felt her release wash over them both.
And then he moved over her on the couch, lifting her thigh over his hip and claiming her in one smooth stroke.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders.
Pain. Pleasure.
All the layers of humanity.
He began to move, his need utterly blotting out everything else. Her breath in his ear, the press of her breasts against his chest. The tight, wet heat of her body as she enveloped him.
“Polly,” he said. He said her name over and over again like an incantation, a prayer.
And then he felt his release begin to rise inside of him. He held it back as long as he could.
He didn’t want this to end.
He wanted her.
This moment.
Forever.
But then she cried out his name, arching against him, her internal muscles pulsing around him, and he was lost.
He gritted his teeth, buried his face in her neck, and came hard.
“Don’t run from me,” he said, eyes blazing into hers after the storm subsided.
“I won’t,” she said softly.
He moved away from her slowly, and then went into the bathroom to get a damp cloth.
He brought it back, and kept his eyes on hers as he pressed it between her legs.
“Thank you,” she said. “But it was...fine without.”
“I just want to take care of you,” he said. “And I can acknowledge that the way I tried to do that earlier didn’t look like care to you.”