Ten Minutes

Ten minutes later, the air had shifted again.

Eli had come back to himself slowly, limbs still loose, mind caught somewhere between awe and the soft ache of everything new. He hadn’t spoken much—just lay there, blinking at the ceiling, occasionally glancing at Emily with a look that hovered between reverence and disbelief.

Emily had let him recover. She’d stayed curled beside him, stroking the side of his ribcage with featherlight fingers, humming under her breath. The tension had drained from his body but not the hunger. Not entirely. His breathing had evened out, but his eyes had started to drift again—curious, smoldering, almost daring.

That was when she shifted.

She rose onto her knees with effortless grace, one leg swinging across his hips to straddle him—not with weight, just presence. Her palms rested flat on his chest, warm and grounding, her hair cascading forward as she looked down at him with that same soft authority he was clearly beginning to crave.

“Hey,” she said, voice gentle but decisive. “You ready for more?”

Eli blinked up at her, color already returning to his cheeks. “Y-yeah. I think so.”

She smiled and leaned down to kiss him—not deep, just a press of lips that made his breath catch.

“Good,” she said. “Because I want you to learn something new.”

She shifted back, sitting on her heels between his legs. Her thighs were spread just slightly, enough to tease, and her hands came to rest on her own knees.

“You’ve got another choice,” she said, eyes locked on his. “Do you want to learn how to use your hands on a woman—or your mouth?”

Eli opened his mouth, then shut it again, throat working as he stared.

She smiled wider. “We’ll get to both eventually,” she promised, her voice like honey sliding over heat. “But right now, I want your focus. I want you to choose what you’ll get better at first.”

She reached forward, took one of his hands, brought it to the bare skin of her thigh again, guiding his touch slowly upward.

“Do you want to practice touching me?” she asked softly, watching his face. “Learn how to make me gasp just from your fingers?”

Then, she leaned forward, hands bracing on either side of him, her breath a slow exhale across his chest as her mouth drifted down.

“Or…” Her tongue traced a lazy line just above his navel. “Do you want to learn how to use that pretty mouth on a woman? Find out what it means to actually drive someone crazy with nothing but your tongue?”

She sat back again, hair tousled, her eyes gleaming with playfulness and patience alike.

“Choose,” she murmured. “Hands… or mouth?”

Her thighs shifted open another inch, an open invitation dressed in nothing but skin and promise.

“We’ll get to the other soon enough. But I want your first to be something you wanted.”