It had been two weeks since Levi had seen her, the longest time they’d been apart since they’d begun seeing one another. When he’d first got the text, the one saying she was done with their arrangement, his stomach had dropped. They had been clear about the parameters, so it shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did. But staring down at the little bubble on his phone screen he couldn’t help feeling a pang of disappointment.

They had been in this cycle for months now; every time he got too close to her, stared at her for too long, and expressed wanting just a little bit more, she yanked herself away and he was left frustrated and hurt. 

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to convince her to stay over afterward, or to open up to him about her life, because he had. Lying side-by-side, their breathing still laboured, he had wrapped her up in his arms more times than he could count and, in his most persuasive tone, implored her not to leave. Lyra, however, was as stubborn as she was beautiful. And she was beautiful.

Since they’d met her dark hair had grown long and untameable, framing the strong, freckled features that earned her second glances wherever they went. At his full height, he stood around 6’2” and beside him, willowy and confident, the top of her head easily reached his collar. But what had truly tricked him into letting her back into his bed and, he was loath to admit, his heart so many times, were her eyes. 

They were what floated in his mind’s eye at two in the morning when he grasped his hard cock beneath the sheets, intrusive thoughts of the last time she’d been in his bed making his hand feel weak and unsatisfactory.

Ultimately, after deleting and retyping his reply a few dozen times, he decided it didn’t matter. She was done with him and he wasn’t going to try and convince her she wasn’t, it had never worked before anyway.

The uncertainty that he might ever see her again remained at the back of his mind though. They had been friends before, sort of, but nothing had brought them together quite the way the sex had and there was no guarantee she would even want to spend time with him without it. 

When the second message came a week later he found a relief he hadn’t known he’d needed.

What’s up Strauss

He rolled his eyes.

Can I come and collect the books I left at your place sometime?

We can have a drink too if you desperately need the foreplay.

It took them another six days, what felt like an eternity, to find a suitable gap in both of their schedules.

It had been storming for the better part of two days, a relentless slew of rain that occasionally turned to sleet. He watched her get out of her car and jog toward his building, dodging the rivers that had begun to flow down the street.

They laughed at the icy water that was dripping down her back, hastening into the lift where he helped free her from her wet jacket. In another world, it occurred to him, he wouldn’t stop there. He’d kiss her neck from behind and tease her out of her sweater on the way to his bed. But in this one, the small talk about the weather petered out into silence, and her sweater remained, disappointingly, on.

The sun was almost done setting, bathing his hallway in a soft glow. They stood a little apart, neither really sure of what to say. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to pull her close and run his hands under the dress she was wearing. But it seemed too crude an action to convey everything he was feeling.

“You want a drink?” he asked instead, clearing his throat.

Her coat dripped onto the wooden floor from her hands.“Yeah, please. I’m sorry about the mess I’m making.” 

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get you a towel.”

“I can grab one.” They both started off in opposite directions: him toward the kitchen and her toward his bedroom.

“Beer or wine?”

“Beer, do you have-”

“Guinness? Yeah, of course.”

They found each other back in the lounge where she was drying herself.

Finally, he looked at her. Her damp hair had already started curling around her arms and cheeks, flushed from the run-in, he couldn’t stop his gaze from dropping to her plump, quivering bottom lip. His cock twitched in his jeans, he handed her the beer he’d cracked and turned away quickly to take a large swig of his own.

“So, how’ve you been?”

“Good, mostly. Trying to settle into the end of the year. You? What’ve you been up to lately, getting yourself into trouble?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, you know I always am,” she said airily, circling the room and idly examining his books and the nicknacks that hadn’t been there the last time she’d visited. “Did you miss me?” Her tone was playful.

“Do you want me to say I did?”

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

“Last time we spoke you gave me the impression you didn’t really care about my truth.”

She shot him a mischievous smile over the cover of a film she’d plucked from his shelf. “You know how temperamental I can be, sometimes I don’t even know what I want.” 

So that was why she was here. 

She’d known he’d be too upset for her to convince him, without some degree of grovelling, to agree to sex and that there was almost zero chance he’d be able to refuse her in person. He cursed himself silently and put down his beer.

“What, would you like me to decide for you?” He stood up and approached her, taking the film from her hand and setting it down on the table behind her, which he now backed her into, resting his hands on the dark wood on either side of her hips. A wave of her scent hit him, the perfume she wore mixing pleasantly with her shampoo.

“I really just wanted to hear how you felt.” She feigned innocence.

“You know how I feel, I wasn’t the one who said I wanted to stop seeing you. You know exactly how I feel.”

She reached out and fingered the hem of his shirt, her smile fading. “So you did miss me?”

Reaching a hand down he ran it along the skin of her legs, raising her skirt, his fingers lightly dipping between them to tease the inside of her thighs. She gasped when his fingers brushed her clit over the lace of her panties.

“I missed you, Lyra.” Her whole body shuddered at that and he took advantage of her distraction to slip his fingers into her underwear. “Is that why you’re here? Because you missed me?” He asked lowly. 

She nodded shakily, underneath her dress her pussy was already slick with desire, and her hooded eyes slipped shut as he ran his fingers up and down her entrance. He could have fucked her right there, bent her over the dining table, and lifted her skirt up, god knew he’d been thinking about it since the last time he’d seen her. More actively since she’d walked into his apartment.

He circled her clit with a finger soaked in her arousal before dipping down to touch her lips again, refusing to venture any further. 

Even then he could imagine the feeling of her hair wrapped around his hand, the softness of her ass pressed against him, could hear her cries as he forced himself into her hot depths. But the desire to strip her naked and taste her skin was too overwhelming to ignore, he didn’t want to do that here where all that surrounded them were hard surfaces and the cold, emptiness of his living room.

“I-I’m sorry, you know, for everything.” 

He felt himself start at that. She’d never apologized before, not that he was counting, and the words made him weaken a little. 

“It’s okay.” He pulled his hand away and leant into her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Come on.”

In the bedroom he unbuttoned the infernal cloth that had separated him from her skin, haphazardly stripping in the process. He pressed her down onto his bed and sucked hard at her nipples until she squealed and wriggled away. And then he reached between her legs, parted her lips, and pushed his middle finger into her.

She arched into him, grinding herself on his palm and moaning. “Levi fuck–please–”

Dipping his mouth down to meet his fingers, he sunk two into her rhythmically as he sucked her clit. With his free hand, he ran his palm over her tummy and to her waist. The satiny feeling of her skin had almost been wiped from his memory, how had he forgotten this? How had he managed to successfully put from his mind the sounds she made when he touched her? 

As if to prove his point her moans crescendoed around them as she neared her climax, and he lapped at her clit, curling his fingers slightly inside of her. As her orgasm peaked he pulled away and positioned himself at her entrance, taking advantage of her surprise to partially thrust himself into her hot, silky depths.

He reached up and tilted her chin to meet his gaze.

“Look at me,” he growled.

The head of his cock was splitting her open, filling her steadily. She tensed against him and her face contorted as if she couldn’t take any more, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Do you know how much I think about this?” he breathed, not letting up, his hips pushing into her. His cock inched into her as her pussy adjusted to the intrusion, her legs wrapping around him instinctively.

“Often?” she gasped out.

“Every day, Lyra.” 

Finally, they fit together, his cock bottoming out inside of her, and she cried out. He peppered kisses across her neck and, when he found her mouth, across her lips before deepening the kiss. Their tongues intertwined, a slow contrast to what was happening south.

They parted breathlessly.

“P-please I need to c-cum.” Tears were streaming down the sides of her face and into her hair, she ground her hips desperately up toward his, “I need–”

“Shh shh, I’m going to let you cum,” he whispered into her lips, “promise me you won’t do this to me again, please Ly, I can’t do this again. Promise me and I’ll let you cum.” He kissed her, maintaining the steady pace he’d adopted and shallowly stroking just into the part of her that made her shudder.

“I promise, Levi I-I swear.” 

“Good girl.” His pace increased and he reached a hand down between them to press against her clit as he pounded into her. “Are you close, baby?” He covered her mouth with his before she could reply, his tongue finding hers. But he got his answer from the expression on her face and the feeling of her clenching around him as she moaned.

“Lyra I’m going to cum.” His voice was barely audible on its own, but over her cries it was inaudible. “Lyra–Lyra.”

Her pupils were blown wide, her legs impossibly tight around his waist. He’d expended the last of his reserve trying to warn her and now there was nothing left to do but bury his face in her neck. He came, spurting deep inside of her, his cum overflowing onto her thighs as he thrust into her. Her fingers laced in his hair and she tugged at the strands as her body convulsed with the last of her orgasm.

Between breathless chuckles, he whispered into her hair, “I’m sorry, I tried to pull out.”

Underneath him, she shook with giggles of her own.

He pulled her impossibly closer. 

“It’s okay.” Her voice was just a whisper. “Honestly I’ve wanted you to cum in me for aaages.”

He groaned, pressing his forehead to her collar.

“See, you can’t fucking say shit like that and then turn around and text me to tell me I can’t cum in you at all.”

She laughed at that, stroking down his curls she’d dislodged.

They lay in silence for a while, listening to the sound of the rain beating against the window.

“Are you busy tomorrow?” she asked him, just as he was about to slip into a light sleep. 

“No, why? You wanna come collect your books?” he grumbled into her skin.

She slapped his shoulder lightly. “I was thinking I could stay over and we could do this again before breakfast.”