Our game starts before she opens her eyes

Mariana’s naked body rested on her side, pressed against mine, and the first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was how hard I was getting without having decided to. The blame lay with the memory of the night before, still fresh, almost physical. More precisely, with what she had done to me. I would remember that mouth for a long time: so obedient, so willing to obey every order no matter how demanding, without a single complaint.

Her only act of rebellion had been to bite me just a little, right when I had her at the limit, a calculated provocation meant to make me lose patience and punish her. She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew it when she looked up at me with shining eyes, and she knew it later too, when everything ended with a shiver over her chest and both of us left breathless.

We had been at this for months. A game we had negotiated one random early morning, both of us awake, talking it through with a calm that contrasted with what we were describing. She wanted me to take her without warning, to dominate her, to ignore her protests. I wanted exactly that. And we agreed on one word, one we would never use in the heat of the moment, a ridiculous word that, if ever spoken, would stop everything dead in its tracks.

What’s curious is that it took us time to get here. At first Mariana barely dared confess what she really liked, and she would let it slip out only halfway, her face half-hidden in the pillow, as if asking for that were more shameful than actually doing it. It took me a while to understand that her shyness in saying it was part of the same need: the less she named it out loud, the freer she felt afterward to surrender without conditions.

I didn’t have everything figured out either. There were nights when I stopped without her asking, just to look at her and make sure we were still in the same place, that desire hadn’t turned into something else for me. And she was always there, waiting, with that blend of hunger and trust that ended up teaching me to let go of the brake without fear of breaking her. That morning, the memory had already been turning over in my head for a while, and I didn’t plan to waste it.

I had never said it.

I moved closer, careful not to wake her fully. Her breathing was deep and even, the sleep of someone who trusts. My hand stayed on her waist, and I slid it slowly down to her thigh, parting it just a little, making room for what my still-lazy mind was beginning to plot.

I wanted to take her exactly like that, without preamble, while day was only just beginning to hint at itself. My erection wanted out on its own, seeking space between her legs with the help of my hand. Just the rub against her ass and then deeper, where the heat was something else entirely, made me feel I could come if I pushed too far.

It was dawn. Through the crack under the door, a gray light was creeping in, letting me move without being completely blind. I could see the outline of her shoulder, the curve of her back, the way her hair fell across her cheek.

With my fingers I reached the center of her and found she was more awake than her stillness suggested. It was impossible for her to still be asleep. Her breathing had changed rhythm; it had become cautious, restrained, but neither of us broke the silence. That was the unspoken rule: she slept until I decided she no longer would.

Then I pushed.

I entered her slowly but without restraint, all the way to the hilt, and her whole body tightened at once. Her mouth opened to let out something — a cry, a word, I never found out — because my right hand came out from under her pillow and muffled it before it could exist. My erection gave her a brief respite, pulling almost all the way out, only to drive in again a second later.

—Shh —I murmured against the nape of her neck—. Easy.

My left arm crossed her chest and pinned her arms against her body, holding her still. She struggled, or pretended to struggle, with that exact blend of resistance and surrender that drove me insane. Her hips, however, didn’t lie: they adjusted to every thrust, welcomed it, sought it.

Her breathing went wild like never before. From beneath my hand came broken gasps, vibrations more than sounds, which I felt against my palm. I was so aroused the end was already circling me, too close, and I had to force myself to slow the pace so I wouldn’t finish too soon.

I didn’t let up anyway. I didn’t want her regaining control of anything, not her voice or her body, and my hand kept silencing her whimpers, which, even muted, filled the room.

She took me more easily each time. Faster each time. I felt her ass slam against me on every thrust, that fleshy impact reminding me how real all of it was. I could barely hold on. The thrill of dominating her like that, of possessing her to the very edge of our own game, was almost unbearable.

I lowered my head to her shoulder and bit her, not hard, marking my territory in a way she understood better than any word. She smelled of sleep and night, of that concentrated warmth a bed keeps after hours of bodies together. Every time I breathed against her skin I could feel her bristle, and that little shiver of hers pushed me to go deeper, to find the exact point that made her arch against me without being able to help it.

—Settle down —I told her in her ear, my voice rougher than I intended—. It’s just a cock. You know it already.

I was trying to heat her up with words, to provoke her, but with her reactions and those moans that were pure pleasure now, I began to suspect that the only one getting turned on by his own talk was me. She was far ahead.

—No —she seemed to say under my hand, smothered, barely coherent—. Please, no.

She said it with the same mouth that the night before had begged me for the opposite. And we both knew what that “no” meant in the language we had invented just for ourselves. It meant keep going. It meant more.

My mind hovered around that point where I stop thinking. I let go of her arms, and her breasts were suddenly free, offered, too close to ignore.

One slap. And another. And another. Each one answered by a sharper moan than the last. Spanking her like that, feeling the hot skin under my palm, was one of those small, selfish pleasures a man doesn’t admit to. Her face got one too, gentle, more promise than punishment. I was completely unhinged, and she let me be.

She turned just enough to look at me, and I took the chance to pull my hand away from her mouth. What she did then lit me up completely: she spat at me, her eyes locked on mine, daring me. She knew damn well how much I liked that gesture. She knew it and used it as a weapon.

—That’s going to cost you —I warned her.

—I’m counting on it —she answered, breathless, almost smiling.

I thrust again without control, and she was already very close to the edge; I could tell by the tension in her thighs, by how she clenched around me. I covered her mouth again, not because she needed to be silenced, but because we both liked the position, the gesture of dominance. And then her whole body tensed and she came, long and deep, biting down on the hand that covered her.

I welcomed it, because I couldn’t hold back either. While she was still trembling, undone, I drove the last thrusts harder than they were rhythmic and spilled inside her, melting down into emptiness, until my legs grew heavy and the room fell silent again.

***

We stayed like that for a good while, still panting, recovering from the excess. Together, unwilling to pull apart, my lips on her neck, making her jerk in small spasms every time I breathed against her skin. She answered in her own way, still tightening around me from within, milking the little I had left, as if she didn’t want to let me go.

As the minutes passed, the kisses changed nature. They grew slow, bearable, almost shy, that strange tenderness that always arrives after the storm. The violence evaporated and left behind something much softer, something I never quite know how to name and that only appears when we come down from the game.

—You’ve got my handprint on your cheek —I told her, brushing my thumb over it with a care I hadn’t shown ten minutes earlier.

—Good —she murmured, eyes closed—. I want to see it in the mirror later and remember.

I laughed softly against her hair. That was all of her in a nutshell: able to ask to be treated without mercy and, a moment later, curl up wanting to be held. Both things were true. Both were her, and I had learned not to separate them.

—Are you okay? —I asked seriously, without a mask, because no matter how much of a game it was, I always needed to hear the answer from her mouth and not just from her body.

—Better than okay —she said, and finally opened her eyes to look at me—. I wish I could wake up like this every day.

—That could be arranged —I replied.

I said it without taking my lips from hers, and she smiled against my mouth without answering, because she didn’t need to. Outside, the gray of dawn was beginning to tint itself with a warm gold, and through the crack under the door the first true line of sunlight was already entering the day.

We stayed tangled together, in no hurry for anything, letting the caresses die away on their own. There was no better way to start the day, I thought, and no better company to end it. I closed my eyes with her breathing in rhythm with mine and we let ourselves drift off together into a short nap, stolen from the dawn, deeply deserved.