Page 83 of A Slipper in the Smoke
“I don’t want to be crude,” she whispered, body arching over the table, “but I want you, Pip. All of you.”
“So… sex?”
Elena laughed. She had not imagined thathewould be the one to sound nervous about it. “Yes. Sex.”
“Excellent,” he said, removing his shirt, “just so we’re clear.”
“Have you got… precautions?”
“Will you judge me for being presumptuous if I say yes?”
Elena laughed. “I will not,” she said. “Responsible men are very attractive.”
Elena stumbled up to help him peel back his clothing, not wanting to separate from his skin, not for a second. How could it be that simplefleshfelt so good, that the warmth of his body licked across her own like fireworks skating across the sky? His mouth came back to her neck, hot and desperate, his whispered words caresses on her throat. She could hardly understand what he was saying, though he might have been speaking another language altogether.
She raked her fingers down his back.
“Gears and garters,” he hissed against her. “Do that again.”
She did, pushing him back to the bed as she did so. He stumbled, turning as they reached the mattress, and landing on top of her. He grinned sheepishly, as if he still couldn’t believe this was happening, and his fingers went to her bodice with trembling hands.
“Sorry,” he said, as he fiddled with her laces, “it’s been a while since I… Well. I don’t do this often.”
“Me neither.”I don’t do this ever.
She helped him peel back her bodice and shirt, then divided from him to remove her trousers alone, and then, barely even thinking, she took her underwear off too.
She stood in the room, half shocked, fully amazed.
She was naked in front of him. He could see every inch of her. All hairs and lumps and bruises and burns. Every scar. Every molecule of her was bare before him.
Pip’s eyes widened. He swallowed, almost painfully, and shifted off the bed to remove his own.
His body was pale and beautiful and ordinary, lean and firm, smooth. All apart from the rather erect penis that blinked at her.
She tried not to laugh. She had little experience with naked men, but she knew that one wasn’t supposed to laugh. They did look very odd though. How did anyone avoid it?
“You can still change your mind,” Pip told her.
Elena drew herself towards him, folding herself around his body. “I am never changing my mind about you.”
Pip let out a quiet moan, as if no matter what she had already done with him—or what she was about to do to him—nothing would bring him more pleasure than the words she’d just uttered.
She eclipsed his mouth with hers and slowly, steadily, they drifted back towards the bed. Pip hovered over her, his body a quiet, trembling cage.
“Are you afraid?” she asked him.
“Nervous, maybe,” he said. “You?”
This might have been the perfect moment to tell him it was her first time, but she couldn’t bring herself to. He might think she wasn’t ready, or be worried about disappointing her, or even have silly, old-fashioned, gentlemanly thoughts about taking her virginity.
There was nothing to take—only something to be gained.
“Not of you,” she assured him, “I’m just—”
“Don’t do this often? Me neither.” He kissed her neck, but the kisses soon descended, down her breasts, her belly, drifting to her thighs. “I love these,” he admitted, as he lifted one of her legs to wrap around his neck. “I’ve been doing my best not to stare at them for a very long time.”
“You can stare,” Elena told him. “You have my full permission to stare.”
