Compliments by Mari K. Cicero Page A

foot as I am now. I’m uber aware of Hawk’s body echoing my footfalls. We don’t speak, and I don’t look back to him.
    I pause at the door to fish my key out of my pocket, and try to file it into the lock. Nerves and anticipation mingle, making it difficult for me to concentrate. Hawk stands behind me. His breath planes across the back of my neck as his index fingers hook around the belt loops of my jeans, tugging and drawing us together.
    “Hurry.”
    A second later, his mouth is on me. He nuzzles the tender spot of flesh where my neck and shoulders meet. The sensation that spreads through me as the tip of his tongue flicks the bottom of my earlobe overwhelms. I lose both my coordination and my ability to breathe. Somehow I’m able to finally find the keyhole without the aid of my eyes.
    I hear the door close behind us, but all I see, all I hear and all I taste, is Hawk. His lips find mine as both of us drop our bags to the side. I almost stumble over mine as I pace backwards, leading us instinctively to the bed. Just in time to save me, his hands brace on my arms, holding me up. Though just a studio, the size of my only room is pretty generous, far bigger than any of the undergraduate dorms I’ve ever lived in. It takes us six steps to reach the edge of my bed, where I surrender to the need to be horizontal and under him. Even though he assured me we wouldn’t be sleeping together, my flesh awakens when he falls atop me and uses every one of those lean, strong arm muscles to pull my body into just the right position.
    “What, no tour?” he asks between kisses.
    “It’s pretty much a WYSIWYG unit,” I answer, drawing him back to me.
    The hard, pulsing kisses we start out with mellow into long, deep, languid affairs where we explore each other’s reactions as well as our own. I admire how he can become so consumed that I don’t think he has the capacity to be anything else at that moment but the man kissing me. His hands stay frustratingly chaste, however, for the longest time. Propped up on his left elbow over me and using his right to either lace his fingers through my hair or pull my head up slightly, my own hands seem awkward and superfluous. Eventually I move my hands around to his back, slowly feeling the languorous movement as he angles above me, to me, above me, to me … The bright and weathered hues inked across his biceps shimmer in my periphery vision, arcing and rolling with the movement of the muscles beneath the skin. When my fingertips brush over the tops of his back pants pockets, boldness seizes me. I plunge my hands into the pockets, but I’m careful not to pull him closer. Already, I can feel how our proximity is affecting him.
    Unfortunately, even keeping dead hands still, the sensation of my touching his ass does something. While Hawk’s been over me for some time, he’s done a good job of keeping one leg outside mine, so our middles aren’t really in alignment. That changes when he brings his legs together and uses his hips to coax mine open. The second I feel his erection through the denim dividing us, I know we’re both getting to a place where control is sticking out its tongue at us and blowing raspberries. Though the slight shift of his hips is muted, I feel the grind, and I’ve never been good at keeping secret one of my body’s few blessings. I’ve climaxed from not much more than this before, and not wanting things to get too uncomfortable for both of us, I find myself using my grip on his backside to suggestively pull his hips away from mine. My fear that he’ll think I’m not enjoying what he’s doing to me evaporates when he moves back to look at me.
    “Yeah, we should probably not ,” he says.
    I nod. “Not yet.”
    Hawk’s face lights up. “I like the sound of that yet.”
    Eventually, biology puts an end to our activities. Having downed so much tea and coffee, I excuse myself to use the bathroom. When I reemerge a few minutes later, I find Hawk out on the