I inhaled, held it, and only breathed out again when the tension left Steven’s body behind me. He rolled onto his back and the absence of his hand from my waistband, now not even stilled against the outside of my boxers, knotted my guts in a way I wanted to ignore but couldn’t.
His weight shifted again and when his feet hit the floor I propped myself up on one arm, looked over my shoulder. He sat there, facing away, in silence and not moving. It was after midnight, long after by my estimate, and so it was dark, but slivers of moonlight reached him, highlighting his hair, outlining him in flashes of silver. When his head turned to the side I imagined one of his thick black brows lifting, that studious look of intense scrutiny trying to make its way through the darkness to whatever he imagined he’d see in me.
I might have been breathing again but little else on the inside was calm. My heart beat so fast it bruised me from the inside.
Then Steven pulled at his shorts, and I didn’t know if his tut of frustration was directed at the fabric which seemed to melt away anyway, or me. When he reached for the bedside table, relief dropped me back onto the mattress, rocked me onto one side. Facing away from him.
“You know.” His voice was so low I had to strain to hear it, but he knew I would. He knew I’d pay close attention to everything he said or did. “If I didn’t know you any better…”
Foil tore. Business as usual. No foreplay, no chat-up lines. Let’s just fuck. “I’d be hurt.”
“You? Hurt?” The sound I made was something like a laugh, but didn’t ring true.
“Sure. After all…” Another pause, silence to which I listened attentively, before he broke it with the inevitable twist-and-flip of the lube bottle. “I’m only human. And this…”
The mattress dipped in the middle when he neared me again and as well as relief, there was fear. Steven frightened me whenever he was near. “This refusal to let me look at you?”
“It’s dark anyway.”
“I could put the light on.”
“No.”
“Fine.” His words snapped as sharply as the lid of the bottle seconds before he tossed it aside. I screwed my eyes shut, imagined him stroking the lube onto his cock. If I said yes, I could have watched him. If I’d let him put the light on. If I’d turned over and faced him. If I’d let him fuck me while looking me in the eye.
If I said yes.
A breath shuddered out of him and I knew he’d screwed his eyes shut too, if only momentarily. It was dark, he couldn’t see me, and it made no sense but sometimes we closed our eyes against things we couldn’t see anyway.
“Shorts.”
It took a moment for the word—the command—to register, but he didn’t have to say it again. I struggled out of them, and this became one of the rare occasions my aversion to eye contact shamed me.
“Anyone would think you didn’t want to see me.”
“Are you kidding? I—”
Steven gripped my hip and pulled me against him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His voice dropped even further, if that were possible. “Tell me.”
One arm curled under me, my head cradled in the crook of my elbow. With the other, the one I wanted to reach back and grab him with, I clawed at the sheet. “You know what.”
He settled himself, making contact but not enough. His breath didn’t warm the back of my neck, and his voice fell onto me, so he must have been propped up on one arm. He had a habit of leaning his head on one cupped hand, so that was how I imagined him. The skin, the treasure trail just brushing against my back, was real. So was his other hand, for one second on my hip, then not. “Kit?” He exhaled slowly. “If this is how you want it, then…” His still-lubed fingertip barely circled once before he eased it inside me. I whimpered for half a breath before managing to bite my lip. “Fine.” He waited, probably for me to get used to the sensation, perhaps afraid of causing me discomfort, but the only thing making me uncomfortable was the fact his cock wasn’t inside me yet. “I wish you’d let me look at you.”
“No, I—”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re scared of.”
“I’m not, it’s just, no, don’t—” I bit my lip again to stifle the gasp when he withdrew.
“No?” he asked, the laughter in his voice making the teasing obvious. “Really?”
“Steven, you—”
“You know what? I like it when you say my name. I really do.” He dipped his head enough for the ends of his hair to tickle my shoulder, and I wondered if he was about to kiss me, but no. “I like it when you sound desperate. But put the two together and I’m fucking undone.”
“Jesus, just do it, will you?” I hoped my desperation wouldn’t carry, would just reach him and stop. I didn’t have much self-control left when I was so keen for him to fuck me. If he didn’t get inside me soon, I couldn’t count on not begging. Out loud.
Which might have been what he wanted.
“Do. What?”
“Christ, why do you…just…”
“Hey.” Behind me, his hand moved, back and forth, making it obvious what he was doing every time his skin brushed against mine. Again, Steven dipped his head and this time he dropped a kiss on my shoulder. “Tell me. I want to hear it.”
“And I,” I said through gritted teeth, a barely-restrained growl at the back of my throat,
“just want you to fuck me.”
“Not like that.”
“I’ve already told you I don’t like—”
“I know. I know you don’t like being looked at.” Steven’s voice, on the surface,
