to be fair, this was kind of out of his hands

Her legs are wrapped tightly around his pelvis as he thrusts into her, hard, fast. She breathes out sharp, as though she is in pain, every time his cock drives all the way in. Her breaths have filled the air between them with electric humidity.

“Oh,” he starts to say from deep in his throat but she uncrosses her legs and pushes him away at his shoulders: “Don’t just yet,” she asks him. “Hold on a minute.”

They freeze there in shaking silence, as though he has crept into her and does not want her to notice. A hair blows into her face and she slowly reaches to push it away, then a ripple runs through her ribcage and she sneezes hard all over his chest. His body clenches.

“I’m sorry,” he says not many seconds later.

“No, it’s fine. It’s my fault.”

what the hell? plant a second flag!

Her body, in the early afternoon light streaming through the hotel window, looks to him like something hewn from alabaster: pure and luminescent and exquisitely crafted. She has already slipped off her dress and thrown it over the back of one of those hard anonymous chairs. She slips her finger under one of the shoulder straps of her merlot-red bra and tilts her face quizzically toward his.

He shakes his head, holding her away with his fingertips resting gently on her elbows. Tasting her with his eyes. He considers in this moment the distance between clothed and naked, how easily it is crossed; how momentous.

She, tired of watching him watch her, grabs his hand and pulls him to the bed behind her. She clambers to her knees and reaches behind her to unzip his pants and wriggle them over his hips. Then she falls forward, bracing herself doggy-style on her hands.

He lingers vertical on his knees for a moment, contemplating her marble-smooth thighs, the backs of which are studded with deep purple bruises.

“Jesus,”  he says, gingerly prodding one with his index finger. “What happened to you? Did someone … hit you or something?”

“Oh, those,” she smiles back over her shoulder. “Don’t mind those. You can leave a few of your own, if you’d like.”

i mean, no, i like it a lot, don’t get me wrong

He turns to where she sits beside him, places his hand behind her neck and kissed her, strong and possessive, pinning her wriggling body to the arm of the couch.

She moans softly in the back of her throat, then places her hands onto his chest and pushes him against the back of the couch, swinging her thighs up to straddle him.

He peels off her rust-colored sweater in a single fluid movement, then runs his palms below the hem of her skirt, up her thighs, fingertips hooked under the leg holes of her panties.

She leans forward, kissing his neck, fumbling with the fly of his jeans. After she unbuttons them, she struggles with the zipper, but cannot pull it down. She lets out a kittenish whimper of frustration. He places his hand on the small of her back to stabilize her and tilts up his hips with her on them and shakes them to loosen the jeans.

She coaxes the pants down over his hips and, as he crashes back down to the couch, snakes her hand eagerly into the fly of his boxers.

“Oh,” she says, her face tilting up toward his. “Is this it?”