Chapter 288: Virgin Mia R18
He kissed her and she kissed him back and somewhere in the middle of it her hands found the lapels of his jacket and pushed.
He let her.
The jacket fell to the floor behind him with the soft sound of expensive fabric hitting expensive carpet and then her hands were on his chest through his shirt and she was breathing differently now, the evaluating quality in her eyes gone entirely, replaced by something that had been waiting under the surface since the hotel corridor months ago.
"Sean," she said against his mouth.
"Yeah."
"I don’t know what I’m doing."
The words came out practical. The way she said everything. A fact stated plainly.
He pulled back just enough to look at her. Her hands were still on his chest. Her cheeks were flushed the color they got when something had surprised her.
"I know," he said.
"I should have told you earlier," she said. "At dinner. Or in the car. But I didn’t know how to say it without it becoming a whole conversation that changed the shape of the evening."
"It doesn’t change anything," he said.
"It changes some things," she said. "Logistically."
He almost smiled. "We’ll figure out the logistics."
"I’ve done other things," she said. "Just not." She gestured vaguely at the bed behind her.
"I understand."
She looked at him with the sharp dark eyes and there was something in them now that was vulnerability held tightly in place by the specific composure she’d built over years of being prepared for everything. "I want to," she said. "That’s not the question. I’ve wanted to for months. I just." She exhaled. "I don’t want to be bad at it."
"You won’t be," he said.
"You don’t know that."
"I know you," he said. "You’re good at everything you decide to do."
"This is different," she said.
"It’s not," he said. "It’s just new."
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then she reached up and touched his face with one hand, the gesture softer than the one she’d used in the elevator earlier, and something in her expression shifted.
"You’re going to have to guide me," she said quietly.
"I will," he said.
"And be patient."
"I’m always patient," he said.
She pressed her lips together. "I know. It’s slightly annoying."
"You mentioned," he said.
The almost-smile flickered at the corner of her mouth and then he kissed her again and this time when her hands moved they were slower, more deliberate, learning the shape of his shoulders through the shirt.
He undid the buttons of her blouse one at a time.
She didn’t stop him. She didn’t look away either, which he hadn’t expected. She watched his hands work with the evaluating expression back in place, cataloging the sensation of being undressed by someone else for the first time.
"You’re very calm," she said.
"Someone has to be," he said.
"Is that a strategy," she said. "Staying calm so the other person doesn’t panic."
"Is it working," he said.
"I’m not panicking," she said. "I’m observing."
"Same thing sometimes," he said.
She let out a breath that was almost a laugh and then the blouse was open and he pushed it off her shoulders and let it fall.
Her bra was simple. Black. Practical the way everything she chose was practical but the lace edge of it suggested a decision made with some awareness that tonight might require something beyond utilitarian cotton.
"Tell me if anything feels wrong," he said.
"I will," she said.
"Actually tell me," he said. "Not the version where you tough it out."
She looked at him. "I’ll tell you."
He reached behind her and unhooked the bra and she inhaled once, sharp, but didn’t move to cover herself.
"Okay," she said to the air between them. "That’s. Yes."
He looked at her. "You’re beautiful."
Her cheeks went dark. "You don’t have to."
"I know," he said. "I’m saying it because it’s true."
She held his eyes for a moment and then looked away toward the window and the city beyond it, her arms at her sides but her shoulders slightly forward the way someone stood when they were still getting used to being seen.
He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face back toward him.
"Look at me," he said.
She did.
"How does this work," she said quietly. "The guiding thing."
"We go slow," he said. "I touch you first. You tell me what you like. What you don’t. No guessing."
"That’s very systematic," she said.
"You like systematic," he said.
She looked at him with the expression that meant she was filing something for later. "I do," she said. "I do like systematic."
He led her to the bed and she sat on the edge of it and looked up at him with her bare chest and her hair still down and the city behind her through the window making her silhouette into something that would have looked deliberate if it weren’t completely accidental.
He knelt in front of her.
She watched him with the evaluating eyes but the hands in her lap were gripping each other.
"Nervous," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Good nervous or bad nervous."
"The kind where I want the thing but my body hasn’t caught up yet," she said.
"We’ll fix that," he said.
He undid her pants and she lifted her hips to let him slide them off and then she was in just her underwear and the expression on her face was the one she had when she’d been given a problem she hadn’t anticipated and was solving it in real time.
He put his hands on her knees and looked up at her.
"I’m going to touch you now," he said.
"Okay," she said.
He ran his hands up her thighs and she watched them move with the attention she gave everything and when his fingers reached the edge of her underwear she inhaled once through her nose and held it.
He slid them off.