I stroke his hair. “I think I will.”

“Then I’m sorry.”

“What are you—ah, what are you sorry for?”

He’s making room for himself between my legs, spreading them open, touching me there purposefully, exploringly, urgently, like he’s looking for answers. Do I want this? Am I ready? Am I wet enough? Yes. Yes. I don’t know.

“Because I’m never going to let you go.”

I moan. His erection brushes against my stomach, and I reach down for him. I want to feel him, too. I want to touch him. But the second my hand closes around him through his pants, he seems to stutter. His expression blanks and then he inhales sharply. He is hard. He’s really hard.

“Stop,” he orders, choked.

I obey. But say, “Honesty? I’d like to keep going.”

He’s not sure whether to believe me. But he lets me push us on our sides, and when I slide my fingers past his waistband, he’s still, motionless but for the movement in his throat.

“You don’t like this?” I ask.

“I do,” he rasps.

“You seem . . .”

“It’s new for me, too.”

I laugh softly. “Hand jobs?”

“Being with someone that I . . .” He doesn’t finish. My fingers wrap around him, and his eyes drop shut. He seems to fall backward. Into himself. “Fuck.”

I pump up and down, but it’s weird, clumsy, with his pants on. He’s too distracted by my touch, and I have to tug at the waistband several times before he understands that I want him to pull them down.

“Can you tell me? How do you like this?” I ask, adjusting my grip. I need two hands. Yes, it’ll be better with two hands. Still an awkward position, but also intimate, how close we are. Nice. I smell him deep in my nostrils and he’s good. So good.

“I like it too much, Elsie.”

“No, I—” I shake my head against his chest. “Tell me how you do this. When you’re alone.”

“This is—fuck, it’s good. Just . . . slow for now. Steady. And if you—the head—yes. Yes, there.”

“What else?”

I hear him swallow. “Your voice.”

“I . . . What?”

“Just speak.”

“I’m not . . .” Laughter bubbles out of me. “I don’t think I can do dirty talk.”

“You can go with nematics. You can count to ten. I don’t care, just—”

“I . . . I could talk about George’s offer. How I’ve been seriously considering. If I accepted, we’d be working together. I’d be at MIT with you next year. I’d earn a livable amount of money, so maybe we could go to lunch together sometimes. I’d buy—”

He makes a deep, guttural sound. His hand moves down between our bodies, and I think he’s about to shoo me away, but his head dips forward and his fingers tighten around his balls, then fist around mine. “I want to fuck you,” he says into my hair. “Please, let me fuck you.”

I simply nod.

It’s beautiful, having him on top of me. He’s so wide and heavy, I’d have expected feeling constrained, unpleasantly held down, but there’s none of that. I wrap my arms around his neck, tip my chin up to kiss him, let him press me into the mattress and deliciously contain me.

And then, when his stomach slides across mine, I get a stab of panic.

“Wait.”

He stops instantly. Looks down at me, watchful.

“If it’s not good, we’re going to work on it. Right?”

He laughs against my lips. “It’s already the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“But if—”

“Yeah.” He eases my legs open, or maybe they spread all on their own. His cock pushes against my abdomen first and then slides down the wet mess of my folds, slots against my entrance. “We will.”

It suddenly seems improbable that this is going to work. He’s much bigger than J.J., and even though I was aware of this before, at some abstract, theoretical level, the practical implications are now glaringly obvious. This is a physical impossibility. That, or it’s going to hurt like hell. And this is the part of sex I’ve always liked the least—someone pushing inside me, and me struggling to adjust, to keep up, to accept. I imagine it will be the same, and for a split second I wonder if I could bear it, not liking this. With Jack.

It’s new, worrying about my own enjoyment. I’m contemplating it, vaguely dumbfounded, when something changes.

Jack presses into me.

The head of his cock slides inside, just one or two inches.

My body contracts around him in a small spasm.

I let out a choked cry, and he slurs something that sounds like “Fuck” against my cheek. I arch into him as air rushes out of my lungs, trying to get closer, trying to chase that feeling.

This is—nice. Really, really nice. Unprecedentedly nice. Maybe I’m just wet enough, maybe I’m more relaxed than ever, but he’s not even halfway inside and I’m fluttering around him, the tingling of an orgasm already deep inside my belly.

“Holy fuck,” Jack rasps, and helps me go after whatever this is. His hand slips between us, thumb pressing against my clit, and I tighten even more around him, a reedy whimper coming out of my throat, mixing with his loud groan.

My head whites out. I’m confused. Dizzy. I don’t think I came, but this is good in a way I cannot even begin to parse. This feels right, and my body knows, because it welcomes Jack inside like I’m where he belongs.

So maybe you like to be full.

Yes. Yes. It appears that I do like to be full.

“Is it all in?”

He shakes his head. I consider laughing in his face, telling him that he’s lying, but he’s in no shape to do so. His eyes are glassy. The arm he’s propped himself up on is shaking on the side of my head, like the effort to pace himself is somewhere above the realm of what’s human.

“You’re . . . big.”

He nods, like he knows and it doesn’t matter. My nipples are hard pebbles against the expanse of his chest, and the contact is exquisite. I could come just from this—rubbing myself against him.

I let out a reedy laugh. “Is this what sex feels like for normal people?” I ask, moving my hips, circling, tipping back and forth, just to see where this could end up going. The possibilities are tantalizing.

“No one has felt like this in all of history,” he tells me, voice deep and shaky, and then he’s kissing me hard, his tongue licking inside my mouth, and after a few seconds of that I’m softer, I’m open, I’m lost, and it takes only two upward thrusts, one forceful and the other almost accidental. Then I’m taking him right to the hilt, feeling his sack flush against me, and it feels like something dreamt, something meant to be.

“Fuck,” he murmurs again, but I barely hear him. I focus on my own body, the way it’s stretched full. I feel Jack in the bones of my skull, in the tips of my toes, and everywhere in between. I thrum, flutter gently around him, and even though I’ve never been this close to anyone else, it’s still not enough. He must know, because he gathers me off the mattress in his arms. I am completely, utterly surrounded by him, by the perfect tension of this moment, and Jack begins to push in and out of me, in and out, delicious rhythm and drawn-out friction.

I cannot take it. It’s too brilliantly, stupidly good. My head lolls back against his pillow, and his lips find my jaw, nip my chin, bite my neck. “I’m going to fuck you everywhere, Elsie.” He licks the hollow of my throat. “Between today and the day we die, I’m going to fuck you everywhere.”

I nod. Let him know that he can. There is a tight, liquid pool blooming inside my stomach, twitches of pleasure making their way down my limbs, surging up my spine. I reach for Jack again, pull him to me for the kisses I want, but it doesn’t work. We’re too raw, too new at this, too desperate to catch every drop of this. Our lips press together, then they pause, forgotten by both of us.

“Can you come like this?” he asks, his breath a hot wash against my ear.

I’m drifting away. I’ll never hear his voice and not think of this. Of the deep, rough bite of it sinking inside my brain. Of the whispered Yes and This way and Perfect and—