It caught him on the exhale. Breath lashed against his teeth as his jaw ground down, a rasp of hot air rushing into his mouth, and he found his grip on her grow stronger as his body involuntarily pulled hers closer. The sharp intake of air bubbled down his throat, a peculiar sensation, and he soon found himself gasping out a pair of short breaths almost identical to the first, on a smaller scale. It was ridiculous. His heartbeat sped up, his muscles tightened, even his thoughts seemed to pass away for a moment or two as he tried to get a grip on his self-control. The knowledge that he had her under control, at least physically, faded abruptly and he found himself wondering, in an all-too-familiar way, where he was and what he was doing.

Something in him made the clarification that it had nothing to do with what had happened to him before.

He looked down at the woman in his arms, shifted, and became suddenly very, very aware of where her body touched his. The awareness made him uncomfortable. The reaction his body took to that awareness was entirely different, and he felt suddenly embarrassed as almost every part of his body stiffened. The more gender-conscious parts of his anatomy were at the forefront of that stiffening process. It was embarrassing. He had no idea why it was embarrassing, but he could feel his face flush scarlet with the knowledge of what had just happened.

__________________
[Graphics by Me.]

[The signature links to Aleksandr Sokoll.]
["I believe in sleeping." ~ Bruce Lee]