His Hand Didn't Wait

His Hand Didn't Wait
Crane’s fingers hooked into my waistband and tugged—down over my hips, my thighs, the fabric bunching at my knees before I kicked it free. The air hit my skin and I shivered, though the room wasn’t cold. Then his palm slid under my shirt, pushing the cotton up my stomach.

“This too,” he murmured. “Off.”

I lifted my arms. He peeled the T-shirt over my head and tossed it somewhere behind him. The sound it made hitting the floor was soft and final.

For a moment he just looked at me. His eyes traced the line of my collarbone, the slope of my shoulders, the place where my ribs gave way to my stomach. There was nothing clinical about it. The way he looked at me was the way you look at something you’ve been waiting to touch for weeks.

“God,” he breathed. “You’re so beautiful.”

He didn’t finish. Instead he leaned down and pressed his mouth to the hollow of my throat.

A sound escaped me. Something between a sigh and a whimper. His lips were warm and slightly chapped, and they moved against my pulse point with a slowness that felt almost devotional. He kissed the notch between my collarbones. Then lower, to the center of my chest, where my heart was pounding hard enough that I was sure he could feel it against his mouth.

“Crane.”

He didn’t answer. Just kept moving downward—lips parting against my sternum, tongue flicking out to taste the salt on my skin. My hands found his shoulders. Gripped. My thumbs pressed into the hollows beneath his shoulder blades.

His mouth traced the ridge of my ribs, one by one, like he was counting them. The scrape of his stubble left faint pink trails that cooled in the air after he passed. My stomach tensed when he reached my navel. Dipped his tongue inside. Lingered.

“You have no idea,” he said against my skin, “how much I’ve thought about this.”

“Tell me.”

A low laugh. “I’d rather show you.”

His hand closed around my cock—not a stroke, just a hold, grounding and steady—and then his mouth followed, warm and wet and so familiar it made my chest ache.

I had been hard for what felt like hours. Since the moment I’d first seen the shape of him through his shorts. And now, with his lips sealed around me and his tongue working that same ridge he knew I loved, the pleasure sharpened into something almost unbearable.

My head fell back. “Oh, fuck.”

He hummed. The vibration rattled up my spine.

But then—too soon, far too soon—he pulled away. I lifted my head to protest and saw him reaching for the bedside drawer. The one on his side. The one that held the small translucent bottle we hadn’t touched in three weeks.

My breath caught.

“Yeah?” he asked, pausing with his fingers on the drawer pull. His eyes met mine. A question.

“Yeah.” My voice came out rough. “Yeah, I want—”

“I know what you want.”

The drawer slid open. The click of the cap. The slick sound of gel being squeezed onto his fingers. He warmed it in his palm before he touched me—always, always he did that, because the first time we’d done this he’d used it cold and I’d yelped and he’d never forgotten.

His hand settled on my thigh. Pressed gently outward.

“Relax,” he said.

I tried. My body didn’t get the message. Every muscle was humming with the anticipation of his touch, and when his finger circled my entrance—just circled, not pressing, feather-light—my hips jerked off the mattress.

“Easy.” His other hand found my hip. Pinned me down. “I’ve got you.”

The first finger slid in.

I made a sound I didn’t recognize. High and tight in my throat, half grunt, half moan. He paused, letting me adjust, his thumb rubbing small circles on the jut of my hipbone.

“Okay?”

I nodded. Words were far away.

He moved. Slow, shallow strokes at first, barely more than a rhythm, his finger curling just slightly on each withdrawal. The stretch was familiar and foreign all at once—three weeks had made my body forget, but it was remembering now, opening for him like a door swinging back on its hinges.

“Another,” I managed.

He gave it to me. Two fingers now, scissoring gently, and I could hear the slick sound of them working inside me. Obscene. Perfect. My hands fisted in the sheets.

“Crane—” A whimper. I wasn’t proud of it. “More.”