He worked through the left shoulder first, his thumbs pressing into the muscle there and holding, feeling it resist and then slowly give way under the sustained pressure. Grace made small sounds into the mat with each specific point he found, the sounds of someone experiencing the specific relief that only arrived when something that had been held too long was finally being addressed.
He moved down the center line of her spine next, his palms flat, working slowly downward, feeling the tension sitting in layers along it, some of it recent and some of it older, the kind of tension that had been added to week after week without anything being removed.
"That’s been there a while," he said.
"I know," she said into the mat.
He worked on it until he felt it change under his hands, the muscle softening slightly, the resistance dropping from something fixed to something that was at least willing to negotiate.
Then he got to the lower right.
He pressed in and she made a sound that was louder than the ones before it, her hand finding the edge of the mat and gripping.
"Sorry," he said.
"Don’t apologize just keep going," she said.
He kept going, working the point carefully, feeling the layers of it, the concentrated tightness that had been sitting there the longest of all of it. Her breathing changed as he worked, slowing and deepening, her body gradually deciding that whatever was happening was safe enough to release into.
He worked for another ten minutes.
Then he sat back on his heels and looked at her back, at the space above her head, at the two hearts still sitting there filled and present.
"Alright," he said. "Turn over."
’Didn’t finish the right side,’ he thought. ’Like usual she should be feeling better though.’
She lifted her head from the mat. "You’re done?"
"Almost," he said. "There’s one more area."
She turned over onto her back and looked up at him from the mat and immediately looked down at herself and then back at him with the expression she wore when she was deciding whether to say something.
Her nipples were visible, dark and swollen against the thin fabric of her bra, the result of forty minutes of being face down on a heated mat with someone’s hands working across her back.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
"It’s fine," he said.
"I didn’t say anything," she said.
"You were about to," he said.
She pressed her lips together and looked at the ceiling.
He reached forward and unclipped the bra at the front and she let him, her arms staying at her sides, and it fell open and he set it aside and looked at her properly.
Her boobs sat full and pale in the afternoon light coming through the window, her nipples hard and dark, the flush of the massage sitting across her chest in a warm pink that had spread from her collarbones downward.
He put one hand flat on her sternum, feeling her breathing, and then moved it slowly across to her chest.
She exhaled.
He took his time.
His hands moved across her boobs slowly, no urgency behind any of it, pressing and releasing, his thumbs finding her nipples and moving across them with deliberate slowness, watching her face the whole time, reading what landed where.
"Mm," she said.
He kept going, both hands working, feeling her breathing change beneath them, watching the flush on her chest deepen.
Then he lowered his head.
He pressed his mouth to one of them, his lips closing around her nipple, his tongue pressing flat against it.
"Oh," she said, her hand going immediately to the back of his head.
He worked slowly, his mouth soft and deliberate, his tongue moving in small circles, his hands still on her chest, and she lay on the mat beneath him and made sounds that arrived before she decided on them, each one honest and present in the quiet of the apartment.
"Mm," she said. "Oh god."
He moved to the other one and did the same, his lips finding it, his tongue pressing, his hand staying on the first, his thumb moving in the same slow circle his mouth had just been making.
Her hand in his hair tightened.
"Oh," she said. "Oh. Liam."
He kept going, moving between them, back and forth, unhurried, his mouth and his hands working together, feeling her body respond to each specific thing, her back lifting slightly off the mat on the deeper pressure, her hand pressing his head down with more insistence.
"Mm," she said. "Oh god. That’s."
He pulled back and looked at her.
Her lips were parted, her chest rising and falling faster, her amber eyes carrying the specific quality they carried when she had stopped managing anything.
He moved lower.
His mouth found her stomach and pressed there, moving across it, his hands sliding down her sides to her waist, his lips working downward with the same unhurried patience he had brought to everything else.
She understood where he was going and her hand stayed in his hair and her other hand found the edge of the mat.
He reached her underwear and looked up at her from where he was.
She looked back down at him.
He pulled the underwear down slowly and she lifted her hips to help him without being asked and he set it aside and looked at her for a moment, at all of her in the afternoon light, fully present and entirely real.
Then he lowered his head.
His mouth found her and she arched immediately, her back coming clean off the mat, the sound that left her going directly into the quiet of the apartment with nothing to stop it.
"Oh," she said. "Oh god."
He worked slowly, his tongue pressing flat and then specific, learning the geography of her reaction with the same methodical attention he had brought to her back, finding what produced what and staying on the things that produced the most.
"Mm," she said. "Oh. Oh Liam."
Her hand pressed the back of his head down and he went with it, the pressure increasing, his tongue finding a specific point and holding there while everything else he was doing continued around it.
"Oh," she said. "Oh god. Right there. Don’t move."
He didn’t move.
He held exactly where he was and let everything build at the pace it had chosen for itself, feeling her thighs pressing against the sides of his face, her hand in his hair going from pressing to gripping, her sounds climbing with each passing minute.
"Mm," she said. "Oh. Oh. I’m going to."
He stayed right where he was.
"Oh god," she said. "Oh. Oh Liam. Oh."
She came, her whole body pulling together, her back arching, her hand pressing his head down hard, a long sound leaving her into the apartment that Daisy registered from somewhere by lifting her head and then putting it back down.
He held her through all of it, his mouth staying where it was, feeling every wave until the last one passed and she went loose and still and breathing hard against the mat.
He sat back and looked at her.
She was lying flat, her chest rising and falling, her hand still loosely in his hair from where it had been gripping, the afternoon light across her, her amber eyes half open looking at the ceiling.
He moved over her.
She felt him and her hands found his arms and she looked at him from below with the expression that had nothing composed left in it anywhere.
He pushed in slowly.
"Oh," she said. Her eyes closed. Her hands pressed into his arms.
He started moving.
Long and deliberate, his weight over her, feeling the warmth of her around him, her legs coming up and crossing at his back, pulling him deeper.
"Mm," she said. "Oh god."
He drove forward.
"Haa," she said. "Oh. Oh right there."
He stayed right there and built the pace from it steadily, his hands on either side of her on the mat, her sounds coming with each stroke, honest and continuous, the afternoon light sitting warm across both of them and the apartment quiet around them and Daisy asleep somewhere entirely unbothered by any of it.
"Oh," she said. "Oh Liam. Oh god."
Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta.
Her hands moved from his arms to his back, pressing flat against his shoulder blades, her legs pulling him closer with each stroke, her whole body working with the rhythm rather than waiting for it.
"Mm," she said. "Haa. Oh. Don’t stop."
He drove forward harder.
"Oh," she said. "Oh god. Oh."
Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta.
She came a second time, her arms pulling him down against her, her whole body tightening around him, a long broken sound leaving her into the room.
He followed her, his jaw tight, a low rough sound leaving him as everything released at once, her legs still crossed at his back and her arms still around him.
They stayed still.
Both of them breathing.
The mat beneath them. The afternoon light. Daisy’s tail moving once somewhere across the room in her sleep, registering something pleasant in whatever she was dreaming about.
Grace turned her head and looked at him.
"How’s the back," he said.
She looked at the ceiling.
"Ask me tomorrow," she said.
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