The bedroom was darker than the living room.
Stanley backed Lena toward the bed. Her hands were still on him, pulling at his shirt, impatient. They tumbled onto the mattress, a tangle of limbs and heavy breathing.
-Wait, Stanley said.
He sat back. He reached for the hem of her sweater.
-Let me see you.
Lena hesitated. The instinct to hide, to armor up. Then she nodded.
He pulled the sweater over her head. She was wearing a simple black bra, lace against pale skin. He unclasped it. It fell away.
She lay back against the pillows, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She looked like a marble statue in the shadows, but she was warm.
Stanley moved down.
He gripped her ankles and pulled her toward the edge of the bed. Lena gasped, her hands gripping the sheets.
-Stanley?
-Hush, he said.
He knelt on the floor between her legs.
He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her jeans. He peeled them down, inch by inch, revealing the softness of her thighs, the curve of her hips.
She was trembling.
-I... I don't usually... she stammered. The control was slipping.
-You don't have to do anything, Stanley said. Just exist.
He lowered his head.
When his mouth touched her, she gasped, then cried out. A sharp, shocked sound that cut through the darkness.
Stanley worked slowly and deliberately, memorizing her shape and taste, tracing her essence.
Lena's hips bucked off the mattress. Her hands found his hair, gripping tight, and pushing him closer.
-Oh god, she whispered. Stanley. Please.
He felt her unraveling against his mouth. The tension in her thighs squeezing his head, the way her breath caught. She was drowning and so was he.
He picked up the pace. He felt the shudder start deep inside her.
-I can't... I can't hold it, she panicked.
-Don't, he growled against her skin. Let go.
And she did.
Her body bowed, rigid and shaking, a cry tearing from her throat, a pure, raw feeling.
Stanley held her through the aftershocks, tasting the evidence of her surrender, until she collapsed back onto the pillows, breathless and undone.
