"What's wrong?" he asked softly. "I mean…you know. Apart from the obvious." He, too, was trying to smile and not quite succeeding.
"Nothing," I said, in a voice thick from crying. Well, that was convincing.
"Really," he said. "Why don't I believe you?"
I laughed a little, through my tears. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm really sorry."
"Please don't apologize."
I shook my head. "Not for that. I'm sorry for…letting things get too personal." I sniffed. "You know what I mean."
"Please don't apologize for that, either," he said. "I shouldn't have…I never should have…" He hesitated. "I'm sorry," he finished, finally.
"Maybe neither one of us really has anything to be sorry for," I said.
"Maybe," he said, with a spark in his eye that made my fingertips tingle.
"It was stupid, right?" I said, blinking the last of the tears away. "Saying we wouldn't let things get personal? Of course it's going to get personal. It's only natural. There's no harm in that, is there?" I cleared my throat. "I mean, as long as we keep our heads on straight."
"Can we?" He looked…skeptical. And, at the very same time, he looked like he didn't really want to be.
I shrugged a little. "Does it matter?"
He looked at me, his lips parted just slightly. Like he wanted to say something, but he didn't know how.
"Are you sure?" he said, finally. "Are you…absolutely sure?"
I went up on tiptoes and pressed my lips against his.
At that moment, it was like something snapped inside of him. More so than when I'd kissed him before - now I realized he'd been holding himself back even then. I could feel it in his body pressed against mine, in his touch.
I realized he was moving, propelling me backwards, until I felt myself pushed against the wall while his mouth devoured mine. He let go of my face and grabbed my wrists, hard - almost to the point of hurting - raising my arms up against the wall too, pinning my hands above my head. I felt deliciously helpless. Something inside me, a heat that had been growing since the first time I'd laid eyes on him, grew and grew. My blood felt molten in my veins. If he didn't touch something other than my wrists soon, I was going to explode.
He pressed his knee between my thighs.
I moaned, feeling myself swell against the hard muscle of his leg. He finally let my wrists go. I grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him impossibly closer.
Just when I thought he couldn't kiss me any deeper, he found a way. When he finally pulled back, we were both panting, and I thought back to the night in my empty apartment and I was suddenly very afraid.
But he only smiled and took my hand, pulling me into the bedroom.
He stopped at the foot of the bed to kiss me again. I couldn't remember the last time I'd just kissed someone for such a long time - or maybe it had just been a few minutes, I couldn't tell anymore. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the dining room seemed, by turns, to be going very very fast, and then very very slow.
When he finally stopped, again, my lips felt bruised. Every breath seemed to short, like I'd never catch it and completely fill my lungs again.
His mouth quirked up into a half-smile.
"Relax," he said. "Breathe."
Was it that obvious?
I tried, but it wasn't easy. My heart felt like it was trying to escape from my ribcage. Every part of my body was tingling, aching for his touch. All I felt was urgency and need.
"I can't," I whimpered, hating how pathetic I sounded.
"Yes, you can," he said, gently. "Focus on your desire. Be with it. And just breathe."
I closed my eyes. Finally, I felt myself begin to un-tense my muscles. I refocused on the throbbing feeling in my core instead of trying to shrink away from its intensity. When I opened my eyes again, I was finally able to take a long, deep breath.
"There you are," Daniel said, smiling, brushing his fingers against my flushed chest. "It's very important, in moments like this, to remember how to breathe."
Just the light touch of his fingertips on my skin was enough to make me part my lips and exhale with pleasure. I'd never felt anything like this before. When he reached down and raised my shirt up over my head, the mere slide of the fabric against my skin was enough to make me shudder.
I'd never imagined it could feel like this. I must have been a ball of tension and nerves every other time I'd had sex, because this was unprecedented. I'd never realized. As simple as it was, I'd never tried to just breathe before.
He seemed inordinately pleased with himself, judging by the expression on his face. I almost wanted to laugh, but at the same time, I didn't.
"It's deceptively simple, I know," he said. "You've never heard that before?"
"What? To just breathe?" I gasped as he rested his hand on my breast, pressing against the taut nipple. "No. I guess not."
He brushed my hair behind my ear. "Stick with me," he said. "I'll teach you all sorts of things."
"That’s very magnanimous of you."
"Oh," he breathed, inches away from my lips. "It'll be my pleasure."
He kissed me again, just a brush of his mouth, strangely chaste. Then, he reached behind my back and unfastened my bra. He pulled it off and tossed it aside.
His eyes raked over my body and I almost felt it like a physical touch. Finally, his fingers settled on the button of my shorts, and undid it.
They fell to the floor. I stepped out of them, feeling strangely without shame, standing there in the middle of an obscenely expensive hotel room in my panties.
"Don't forget to breathe," he said, teasingly, kneeling down slowly on the carpet. I had to concentrate, as his own hot breath tickled skin. It brushed across my lower stomach, my hipbones, and lower -
His fingers slid under the fabric of my panties and pulled them down, slowly.
His face was inches from my sex. I was losing focus. Breathe. Just breathe.
He leaned closer and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss on my hip.
I moaned a little. I knew exactly what I wanted him to do, but at the same time, I was afraid if he really did it, I'd scream, or collapse, or both. My knees already felt weak. When his tongue flicked out and traced the crease between my thigh and my mound, mere inches from where I most wanted it, I shivered and heard myself begging.
"Please," I whispered.
He looked up at me and smiled.
"All you had to do was ask."
At the first lap of his tongue, I pitched forward, grabbing his shoulder for support. He held on to my h*ps and pulled back. "Shhh, shhh," he said. "I've got you. Just breathe."
I kept leaning on him, taking long, shuddering breaths like he'd told me to. When I was able to let go of his shoulder and stand on my own again, he leaned in and continued his ministrations.
This time I was able to keep my balance, although every muscle in my body twitched and shivered at the exquisite feeling of him. Because I was focusing so closely on not falling over, the sensations somehow hit me more slowly, crawling through my nerves instead of slamming into me, the way pleasure normally did. I was filled with a delicious ache. I let my head fall back, my eyes closing as I let out a long, shaky moan.
My fingers rested against the top of his head, scratching lightly at his scalp. He hummed against my swollen flesh. Rather than an ever-rising, unstoppable build towards cli**x, I was feeling something different. Deeper. The feelings ebbed and flowed, but even the ebbs made my toes curl into the carpet with pure bliss.
He picked up his pace, slightly, which I hadn't even realized I wanted; but as soon as he did, I moaned again, rocking forward. But this time I kept my balance. I managed to keep my feet flat on the floor, taking in the pleasure instead of letting it overcome me. I felt like I was glowing from the inside.
When I came, it was something that rose up from deep inside of me, stronger than anything I'd ever felt before. But I never lost myself in it. I stood strong in it, like a sailor tied to the mast of a ship, letting the feelings wash over me until I couldn't hold them all inside any longer.
Then, I screamed.
When he stood up, wiping his face with one hand, I was still upright, somehow. Still standing. My legs ached, but at the same time, I couldn't remember ever feeling this good.
With a sudden movement, he picked me up, bridal-style, and carried me over to the bed, dropping me on the mattress with a devilish grin. I fell, laughing, in a heap.
"Now," he said, looming over me on the mattress, like I'd dreamed of so many times. "Wasn't that a good time?"
I nodded, biting my lip. "Want me to return the favor?"
His eyebrow quirked. "What do you think?"
I laughed, reaching down to cup the straining hardness under his jeans. "Yes? No? Maybe?"
He rolled off of me and stretched out on his back, giving me full access. As much as I wanted to undress him slowly, to drink in every inch of him, I also felt compelled to focus on the part of him that seemed to need my attention most urgently. I unzipped his jeans and yanked them out of the way, dragging his underwear down with them. My breath caught a little in my throat.
But at the same time, my mouth was watering.
I leaned down and licked the whole length of him, finally taking everything I could fit into my mouth and caressing him with my tongue. He sighed and arched his back, his eyes half-closing. I wondered if he'd imagined this. Of course he had. How many times, I wondered? Was it his favorite fantasy? In his imagination, how did he like me best?
I bobbed my head up and down, trying to keep my eyes on his, watching every little twitch of every muscle in his face. I didn't want to miss a moment of this.
He warned me before it was over - very gentlemanly - but I didn't mind taking it all in. He was my husband, after all.
We lay silently together for a while after that, with nothing but the sound of each other's heartbeats. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't sure if it was wise to say anything at all. I certainly didn't plan to get back from the honeymoon and pretend this never happened, but I had a sneaking suspicion he might expect me to. Or worse - he'd want to be friends with benefits throughout the duration of our marriage, only to end everything after the divorce?
Wait - was that a bad thing?
Wasn't that exactly what I'd expected, when I let myself give in to this? Okay, so maybe I'd wished we could ever be a real couple. I was finally willing to admit that to myself. But I'd known it was never going to happen. I'd gone into this understanding that the best possible outcome involved the very thing I was now afraid of.
I could have Daniel for one year, or I could have him for less. Those were the only possible options.
The knowledge of this weighed heavily on my mind while we ate our room service dinner, quietly, in front of the T.V. I wondered if Daniel was thinking similar thoughts - trying to figure out how he was going to cut me loose without causing too much of a fuss.
No, that wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, but it was all I could think.
I lay awake for a long time that night. Even though I was far enough on my own side of the bed that I barely knew he was there; but at the same time, I was acutely aware that he was really inches away from me. I finally fell asleep after what felt like hours of staring into the unfamiliar darkness of the room.