Page 111 of White Wolf

She tugged at his shirt, trying to pull it out of his waistband. “Will you,” she gasped against his mouth. “I’ve never seen a man without his shirt, and you feel so good.” One hand made a pass across his chest again, found the hard button of a nipple and pressed.

“Yeah. Alright.” He felt a laugh catch in his throat. He should have known she’d be bold. “You have to stop kissing me first.”

She made a sound of protest, but pulled back. A little. Hands still clenched in the fabric of his shirt as he fumbled open the buttons and pulled the tails out of his trousers. Her hands came up to help push it over his shoulders, and then she was touching bare skin.

The breath left his lungs like he’d been electrocuted.

She sent him a questioning look.

“No, it’s good.” He was panting as he let the shirt fall to the floor and reached to pull her back to him. “It’s good, don’t stop.”

She didn’t. She traced his collarbones out to his shoulders, trailed fingertips down his arms, the bulge of his biceps, the raised veins in his forearms. To the knobs on his wrists. And back up, across his chest, nails tickling down the grooves between his abs so that he clenched up, trying not to be ticklish.

Katya bit her lip as she watched the play of muscle, and Nikita was so hard it hurt.

“You’re beautiful,” she said, awed, eyes coming back to his.

He twitched a crooked smile. “I think that’s my line.”

“Well, you are.” She pressed both palms to his stomach, and he wondered if she could feel the way his heart was beating there…and lower.

He cupped her face and pulled her into another kiss, this one almost pleading. Clinging lips and searching tongues.

Please love me. Please want me.

Her fingers plucked at the button of his trousers. He didn’t help her, wanting her to take it at her pace, explore in the way that she was comfortable with.

The buttons came open one after the next, until his trousers slid down off his hips; he’d lost weight too, he realized, suddenly self-conscious of it. He’d love to blame it on the war, but it was just him, his jumpy stomach, his unwillingness to eat. And how dare he feel that way when Katya was bony-hipped from necessity? From lack of food and too many miles hiked in the woods?

But her hands kept moving, gentle and undemanding, not recoiling in disgust, as she pushed his shorts down, palms cupping his ass, briefly, on her way down.

Awkwardly, blushing a little, he toed off his boots and stepped out of the tangle of fabric, and then he was naked in front of her.

She took her time looking, hands sliding around to the front, her touch more curious than anything else. Maybe appreciative. She’d been used by men – abused by them – but had never had the chance to inspect one at her leisure. Again, he felt like he owed her this, that she deserved the chance to understand.

She pressed her forefinger to his navel, a fleeting touch that left him sucking in his stomach in helpless reaction. She smiled in response and trailed the finger down, following the trail of dark hair that led to the wiry thatch at his groin. She scratched her nails through it, and he made a helpless, wounded sound in response, cock jerking.

Then she wrapped her hand around him, and everything whited out a moment. A blinding jolt of sensation that rendered him blind, deaf, and stupid.

She stood up on her toes and kissed him again, smiling against his mouth. “You should see your face right now.”

He had no idea what his response was, but it made her laugh, and he thought that was the best thing he could have done.

~*~

She wasn’t lying to him: hewasbeautiful. A statue cut from marble, stark, and clean, and too thin in places, tense with hard muscle in others.

She thought it fitting: he looked cold – all the time, yes, with his removed stares and his guarded half-smiles – and here now, too, pale as fresh cream. But she already knew there was a warmth in his heart, the way he cared for his men, and when she touched him his skin was warm, too. Not a political machine, not a monster, but a man. One who’d stripped naked for her, made himself vulnerable, let her touch him while knowing she could crush him.

But oh, she didn’t want to crush him.

She stroked him, several slow pulls, root to tip, fascinated by the velvet texture of his skin here, the way he twitched in her hand. She felt a little cruel for torturing him like this, but she couldn’t believe the way he was letting her. Whatever lingering doubts she’d held about getting close to him were rapidly melting away in the face of his patience and trust.

She tightened her hand, a gentle squeeze, and he made a sound like he was in pain. She started to pull back, but his hand closed over hers, keeping her there, and he leaned in close, too close to see his face clearly, lips brushing hers, the want vibrating between their mouths.

“Can I touch you?” he asked, voice ragged.

She shivered. It was cold and lonely not to be touched in return. “Yes. Please.”

---