Perhaps she overestimates him; strong as he is, sound as he is beneath her fingertips, her mouth— her— here he is a woefully inexperienced hand. She demands his pace quicken and he bends to it, taken by it, breathing gone throaty and sharp like an animal running rabbit, salt sweat clinging to his skin in faint beadwork.

And there, after his muscles tense and his arms fit tight around the span of her ribs as an anchor point to his thrusts, he fails in his given promise.

His face ducks down, buried against her throat, her shoulder, rhythm unforgiving and hard-set— teeth meeting and marking skin as he bites and scores and kisses at whatever he can find before something gives way soon after— white-hot and searing as it travels up his spine, sparking a guttural, shuddering groan only mercifully (faintly) muffled by the press of her body.