Page 89 of Soft Flannel Hank

Hank smiled so broadly that his face felt like it was cracking. He hadn’t smiled like that since before Anna had left. And even when Anna had been there for that year, he didn’t think he’d smiled like that. He’d been too guarded. Too afraid of spooking her or saying the wrong thing and driving her away the way he’d driven Marnie—

No.He could almost imagine Nadja vehemently cutting off that statement. And for the first time, he heard it. He heard the insecurity. Heard the way his utter lack of self-worth sounded outside of his brain.You did not drive her away. She made a choice to leave and you made a choice to stay.

And like dominoes that had fallen, their trail clear against a dark background, he could see how every choice he’d ever made had led him to this bed, to this moment where Esther sat up long enough to pull her hoodie over her head. He reached for her as she lay back down and felt the soft cotton of her bra against his hands.

“You sleep in a bra?” he asked, surprised. Every woman he’d ever known had made a dramatic point about taking their bra off as soon as they got home.

“I’m too horny to sleep without it,” Esther said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

She moaned, as if embarrassed, and buried her face in his bare chest. “I’m really sensitive, okay? So I have to sleep in a bra because if I don’t, every single time my shirt brushes against my boobs it gets me all worked up.”

“That sensitive?” Hank asked, feeling his cock jump at the image of dragging a T-shirt against Esther’s nipples until she was writhing underneath him, of sucking on them through the soft cotton.

“Yes,” she said in a breathy voice.

He grunted and pushed her until she was on her back and he lay half over her.

He bent his head and softly captured her mouth, holding his body mostly off of hers. But Esther clung to him, pulling, and, with a sigh into her mouth, he settled firmly against her. He skimmed a hand up the outside of her thigh.

Hank wondered what her magic felt like when he kissed her. If she felt like he did, like she was on fire with no desire to douse it as the feelings ebbed and flowed through her like a riptide.

He trailed his lips across her cheek and kissed her jaw, the sensitive space beneath her ear, down her neck, to the hollow at the base of her throat. He kissed down her sternum and imagined marking each rib with his lips until he moved, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses around her nipple. He never made contact with it, teasing her with featherlight strokes of lip and tongue, worshipping her with his mouth until he passed over the peak.

“Please,” Esther whispered, her fingers digging into his scalp.

And Hank couldn’t deny her. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to deny her anything again as long as he lived. With quickness, he closed his mouth around the straining tip and sucked hard, his tongue laving around it.

“Oh, god, Hank,” she cried out, writing beneath him. “That’s so good.”

Hank raised his gaze, wishing he could see her, as he dragged his tongue over her nipple before pulling away. She moaned in protest but gasped when his lips kissed a trail over to her other breast, continuing the same way as before. He sucked and nipped with tongue and teeth and he kneaded the first breast again before he pinched her nipple between his rough, thick fingers.

He was so focused on her soft cries that he almost didn’t hear her question. “What do you want, Hank?” she asked in a breathless whisper.

He paused, lifting his head like a wolf scenting something on the breeze, and looked at where he knew her face was. Was it not obvious? But then he remembered the first time they’d been together. When she’d fucked him senseless in his recliner. She’d asked him the same question that night.What do you want, Hank?

You, he’d said. And it had been true. She was all he wanted then. She was all he wanted now.

“Do you want me to fuck you?”she had asked him, and he’d nearly died on the spot.

“What doyouwant, Esther?” Hank asked now, kissing her neck and moving slowly back to her lips.

“You,” she replied, grabbing his cheeks in her hands and pulling him in for a kiss, but he resisted, holding himself away.

Hank wondered if she remembered that night in the same technicolor clarity that he did. Every breath. Every sigh. Every thrust and moan. Every whimper. Every single beat of his battered heart.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Esther?” he murmured against her lips.

“More than I can remember ever wanting anything,” she said and sighed as he answered by sucking hard on her neck.

She remembered.She remembered, and he was lost all over again.

He dipped his head and took her nipple in his mouth again, pinching and rolling the other with his fingers, laying on her and yet not on her, his body covering half of her while he pressed his aching cock against her thigh. He removed his hand from her breast and used it to push down her sweatpants, taking her panties with them. She kicked her legs until they were off and then she was bare underneath him. He sucked hard and she bucked, arching her back and pushing her head into the pillow behind her.

He felt her fingers slide into his hair before they grabbed tightly and pulled. He reached and took one of her hands, bringing it to the dewy heat at the apex of her thighs.

“Touch yourself,” he murmured against her breast.