There was just something about sliding your hands over that dark skin. Something primal and territorial, something that called to the deepest parts of yourself, even though you tried to deny that they even existed. Maybe it was the contrast? Light over dark, your fingers trailing eagerly over smooth skin, over taut muscle, following each curve and dip with equal reverence.

Or was it the sense of breaking a taboo? Pushing the barriers that existed between you away, becoming one in a more fundamental way than you could ever have envisaged when you began this thing. Whatever this is.

Because it's hardly a relationship. Some of the time you're barely even friends, old wrongs coming to the surface far too easily for that belief to lie peacefully with either of you. Self-deception was never a strong suit, or at least that's what you tell yourself.

All you know is that he gives you something you need, allows you something that helps you make it through when the shadows fall heaviest. Something real, tangible, and horribly addictive.

He doesn't move under your exploring touch, only the warmth of his body betraying that he lives, monumental self-control all turned to the effort of keeping still. You don't look one another in the eye, don't kiss, don't even talk. You moved beyond that, moved out of the realm where any of that casual intimacy would have been possible or desirable, moved out to another level altogether.

Your roaming hands have reached the base of his spine and they rest there for a moment, letting you pretend that you have a choice about this. That you could, even now, push yourself away from what he offers, leave him here, walk away. And it is a pretense. You could no more leave here than choose not to breathe.

You trail your fingers down the dark crevice, searching. You're rough with him despite the lube you're using, rougher than you'd consider being with anyone else if you gave the matter thought. As if that makes the matter better somehow, as if the very roughness lets you separate yourself from what you do, safe in the knowledge that it isn't you. Safe in that lie.

But who else could it be that does this? Who else would he allow to do this?

You feel him jerk a little as your fingers brush his prostate, that self-control slipping a little momentarily. A hissed breath from him signals that he's back on top, emotions under control once more, and when you test this resolve with another movement of your questing fingers, he doesn't react at all.

You need this. All your thoughts are wrapped around it, the memories of every time you've done this piling onto you, crushing you, wrapping themselves around and choking you till you're sure that you'll suffocate. That heat, that tightness, that's all you remember about this. Not the blood that's been shed at times, the guilt you've felt, the unspoken accusation you would have seen if you'd looked him in the eye. Which, of course, you never did.

You're undecided now, uncertain what route to take. You want to be inside him so badly, yet your treacherous memory is reminding you how his mouth felt on you. You're hard, aching to slip inside and take what lies before you, yet another part of you desires that heated suction, wants those lips to pull you as close to the edge as you dare to go before you slam into him and take what you need.

Damn.

You pull back, fingers slipping from him easily, your other hand, the one splayed on his back, you use to push yourself up and back from him, feet slipping back till they hit the floor. No need for words, not between the two of you. You watch his muscles flex as he moves, admiring, till he's kneeling before you, ready. Just looking at his mouth makes you harder, though you would have found that difficult to believe a moment before.

He doesn't meet your eyes, kneeling there for a moment, thighs splayed, capable hands resting open, palm up. Hands that could probably snap you in half if you tried anything he didn't want you to, hands that so often feature in your lustful dreams as well.

No need for words. He doesn't even bother to look at you, just raises his head and takes you in, even the first slick touch of his tongue making you tremble a little, pulling you closer to the abyss than experience had taught you that he could.

You have no idea what to do with your hands - once before you'd tried to grip his head, to force the pace, control what he was giving you, till your sweat-slick fingers were sliding across his skin, each movement redolent with futility. Now you just let your hands hang, fingers clenching the air instead. Like you want to hold on, hold yourself back, deny the speed at which you're rushing towards the edge even as he takes you there.

You feel everything build and you have to speak for the first time.

"Enough."

You sway when his mouth leaves you, the air running cold over your skin, and you long to be somewhere else; somewhere heated, somewhere you can lose yourself. You'll fall, throwing yourself from a great height, and no-one needs to be there to catch you.

By the time your eyes are open again, he's moved from where he was, and your memory supplies what your eyes just missed - him slipping back onto the bed, arranging himself there like a sacrifice.

In one movement you're behind him, another sees you inside. You lose yourself, shoving into him with more force than you'd planned, biting your lip as you try to coordinate your wayward desire into some kind of rhythm.

Quickly, even quicker than you'd anticipated, everything rushes upon you, a tidal wave that sweeps you away even as you try to hold it back. You tumble over the edge and welcome darkness wraps itself around you, all-encompassing.

When you prise your eyelids open again, you're yourself once more, control returning with each breath, awareness too. You're still inside him, face pressed to the broad dark expanse of his back, arms wrapped around him. You move; that isn't how things stand between you. That isn't what you want.

This time, unlike the others, as you push yourself away, slipping from him with reluctance, this time he looks at you as you leave. Your eyes meet, but you have no idea what that is you see there in that darkness. Because that isn't how it's ever been, that isn't part of who you both are. That look leaves you unsettled, unsure, out of your depth.

You'd thought that you were the one in charge here, that you were the one who decides it all; suddenly, you're not so sure.