#you could never find anyone sweeter than maya | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

harryandmolly · 5 years

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Change of Pace - 5 (November 2003 - 16 years ago)

cowritten by @achinglyshawn

summary: Shawn and Maya meet again 10 years after life got in the way of love

warnings: language, NSFW

wc: 11.6k (we back, y’all)

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Maya has read this same sentence about Dries van Noten at least 14 times.

She’s studying up for an exam in her Fashion as Art class on Friday, the last thing standing between her and her big weekend with Shawn.

Speak of the devil.

He does feel like the devil right now. He’s sitting across from her in the library on their study date and everything about him feels tempting. Maybe it’s the anticipation of their weekend plans, maybe she’s just bored of studying, but she can’t stop fucking thinking about him, looking at him, finding ways to touch him.

This weekend they have actual reservations at an actual restaurant and she has an actual dress picked out and she’s pretty sure it’s an unspoken reality that they’re going to sleep together. They haven’t yet. They’ve done most everything else in terms of the classic baseball bases metaphor, but this feels different. They want it to be the right time. Or… Maya does. They haven’t actually discussed it. And Maya thinks Shawn probably just wants what Maya wants.

She looks up at him again and wets her lips, glancing down at the pencil he’s bouncing between his long, thick fingers. She shifts in her seat and looks back down at her page, destined to read the sentence again.

Shawn can’t sit fucking still. He’s going a little crazy. It’s all he can do to keep his fingers out of his hair as they itch to tug and twirl at his curls. Instead, he taps his pencil and shakes his foot and sings the same Fall Out Boy lyric in his head, over and over.

‘I keep telling myself, I keep telling myself, I’m not the desperate type—‘

He looks up at Maya, just as she seems to be pulling her gaze away from him. His stomach flips. Was she just looking at him? Watching him like he sometimes watches her?

She’s probably just annoyed. He slows the cadence of his tapping.

He should not have agreed to this study date. He’s got reading to do before this weekend— their, like, special weekend— and he’s completely distracted. But then he remembers studying was his idea, and he definitely texted her first yesterday, so this mess is his own damn fault, really.

But still, he should’ve canceled or—

Maya crinkles her nose as she reads, then tucks a finger between her lips to bite at her nail, and Shawn’s distracted from being mad about being distracted.

She’s so pretty. And she likes him. And not just for trading orgasms, probably.

He feels his cheeks heat and he drops his gaze. He needs to calm down. Stop staring. Start studying. Be good. He tries to focus on the words on the page before him, but soon realizes he retained absolutely nothing from the last five pages he skimmed in a distracted trance.

Maya feels his gaze as she’s trying to pretend to read. Maybe he’s losing his mind over there too.

Is he nervous? Is he tired? Is he just distracted? She doesn’t know him well enough yet to be able to tell, despite their spending the majority of their time together lately. She looks up again. His cheeks are pink. His head is bobbing while his eyes rest unfocused on his page. She smiles and lifts her chin.

“Hey you,” she murmurs, letting her eyes bounce around their surroundings to see if she’s disturbing anyone by talking, “Are you… hungry by any chance?”

She flutters her eyelashes to make him laugh and bites her lip because she can’t help it when he looks like this.

Her voice catches his attention, has his head snapping up as the rest of his body freezes. She absolutely paralyzes him, and all she wants is some dinner.

He’s so not hungry at all. The butterflies frantically flitting in his stomach are in the way.

“I could eat,” he whispers back with a gentle smile, one he’s been reserving for her lately. He can’t fathom eating at the moment, but he’ll do whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. Far be it for an idiot kid like him to deny the staggering Maya Lu anything. He doesn’t think he could if he tried.

Shawn practically jumps out of his skin. She raises her eyebrows and watches him clam up before he can calm down and speak to her. His smile sends a shiver up her spine. She returns it warmly and starts packing up the wild slew of books she spread out around her.

He drops his pencil in his Mythology book and closes it.

“What were you thinking?” he inquires softly, dragging his fingers through his hair to lift the curls away from his forehead.

Maya watches him tug at his hair. She swallows and stares, wanting to spend hours running her fingers through it. She thinks she could if he’d let her.

“Uhm, pizza? My place?”

Maya lives off campus in a studio apartment, which makes her location more desirable than the suite he shares with his roommate Geoff. Plus, she lives within delivery distance of the best pizza near campus. She zips her heavy winter coat and reaches for his hand.

It’s not anything they haven’t done before, but the suggestion still makes his heart speed up. She still makes him nervous, just like she has since last year.

He wonders when he’ll get over it. Or if he’ll get over it, at all. Probably not.

“Oh,” he begins, swiping his book into his bag as he stands and wrestles his way into his puffy coat, “So. You don’t want to hang out with Geoff?”

He quirks a brow at her with a careful smirk as he slings his backpack over his shoulder and calmly takes the hand she offers. He winks at her, his thumb slipping casually across her knuckles like holding her hand is no big deal.

(He’s a very good actor.)

He smirks at her slyly while he fishes for a compliment. She takes his bait willingly. She squeezes his hand and snuggles further into her jacket.

“Nope, just want to hang out with you. And pizza.”

To be honest, she’s kind of kidding about the pizza. She’s not even that hungry. She just couldn’t sit across from him like that anymore with books pretending to study when all she wanted to do was study the way he sighs when her lips meet his bare skin.

He manages a sweeter smile as they climb the stairs out the library’s basement. He squeezes her hand, seeking her attention.

“Did you get enough studying done?” he asks as they emerge outside into the snowy Toronto evening, his voice once again at full volume but scratchy from silence.

Snowflakes fall fat and slow from the sky, lazily coating the cold surfaces. Their boots scrunch and squelch beneath them. She drops his hand and instead curls her arm around his, leeching off his body heat.

He lets her soak in his warmth, curling over her as they crunch down the snow-covered sidewalk so he can drop a kiss to the top of her head. Real casual. Just like a boyfriend. Maybe. He should be so lucky.

They haven’t talked about it. He thinks he’ll need more coaching from his mum before he brings it up. Maybe he’ll let Liyah chime in, too. He clears his throat as he straightens up, curling his arm a little tighter around hers.

She closes her eyes. His lips are warm and it reminds her she should’ve worn a hat but she’s kinda glad she didn’t because now she can feel his mouth on her and it just makes her want more.

“Not really,” she confesses, “I just… couldn’t focus anymore.” She glances up at him to gauge his reaction, chewing on her lip.

“Oh,” he hums, the corner of his lips ticking upward as they continue down the road towards her apartment, “What’s got you distracted?”

He sounds innocent enough. He’s definitely fishing, but he figures she might like him well enough to let him get away with it. Maybe he’s being too hopeful, thinking that he distracts her the way she does him, but he’s a bit lovesick, or something, so he can’t help it.

She’s glad her apartment isn’t far. It’s so fucking cold. She spots it through the spitting snow in the distance and narrows her eyes, willing it closer.

“Uhm… oh, I dunno.” She goes pink. She doesn’t really want to admit that she has trouble focusing on anything but him when they’re together. She doesn’t want to be cheesy. She’s not cheesy.

Is she cheesy? He makes her want to be.

As they climb the steps to her building, she frees herself from him to fish out her keys. It also serves as a way to stall for an answer.

“I guess I find you pleasantly distracting.” She opens the door for them with a tiny smile.

His heart swells, then bursts, and he feels like he’s fucking falling. How lame is that? He watches too many rom coms with his sister. He’s told her before to stop letting him pick them, they’re too unrealistic for him to use as a guide to his love life.

He can’t help it. It’s just the way she makes him feel. Maybe it’s too late for him and his romantic soul.

It’s not only romance he wants from her, though. He just likes her company. He likes the way she tells stories. The way it’s never hard to talk to her. The way he feels like he’s known her since before he can remember.

Maybe that’s all romance bullshit, too. But he doesn’t think it is. He thinks maybe Maya is becoming his best friend.

The romance stuff feels like an awesome added bonus.

Shawn nudges her out of the way and takes the door instead, ushering her inside before he follows, wiping off his slush-soaked boots on the doormat. He grins, a little too toothy to be smooth, but it’s uncontrollable.

“Huh,” he hums as he combs the snow from his damp curls, “Is it my charming good looks or my incessant need to fiddle that’s got you so caught up?”

Maya stomps her wet boots against the mat and looks up to see him sweeping a hand through his hair and grinning at her. If she were a few years younger, she’d swoon. As it is, she hums from the back of her throat and plays along, taking his hand again as she leads him up the flights of steps to her apartment.

“I may have noticed some fiddling,” she says dryly, shooting a look at him over her shoulder as they climb, “Maybe you were a little distracted, too?”

This time she keeps his hand in hers, fighting with her coordination to get her locked apartment door open one-handed. They step inside. Maya flips on lights and starts shedding her outer layers. The apartment is warmly lit and cozy. The snow is falling thicker, visible in the street lights outside. She glances at her bed and back at him.

“You… said you were hungry?” Her voice is a little weak at the sight of him snowy-haired and crimson-cheeked in her kitchen.

Shawn follows her lead, peeling his coat from his shoulders and toeing off his boots. He shakes out his hair again, then reaches for his fluffy jumper and pulls it off. His black undershirt gets caught up for a moment before he can tug it back down to meet his jeans.

Maya hopes her eyes don’t widen visibly at the sight of Shawn’s shirt riding up. It gets caught up around his chest and she gets a perfect flash of hard abs and warm, pale skin. It makes her want to lurch toward him and pin him to the bed beneath her.

Oh right. Food. He clears his throat, smiles, and shrugs a little.

“I am if you are. Doesn’t the pizza place deliver here?”

Shawn tries not to look at her bed. He tries to forget what they were doing the last time he was here, because there’s no telling what Maya wants, what’s on her mind. If she wants pizza, then they’ll eat pizza. He ignores the way his stomach lurches and the rattling of his anxious heart.

She blinks. “Right. Pizza.”

The idea of taking the time to order and wait for and eat pizza right now is deeply unappealing. Maya sighs and takes a step toward him, then another. She looks him up and down, letting her eyes drag and catch where they want. Her skin heats up a few degrees. She plants her hands on his hips and raises her eyes to his bravely.

“I don’t want pizza.”

She descends on him like a cat claiming her prey. He doesn’t mind it. He loves the way she looks at him, like she can’t believe he’s really there. It’s the same way he’s been looking at her for about a year now. He feels his cheeks flush beneath her gaze.

Her warm palms on his hips makes his stomach jump with anticipation. His tongue glides along his lower lip as he clears his throat and tilts his head. He reaches out for her, not thinking, just doing, and tangles his fingers in a strand of her dark hair, before tucking it behind her ear.

Maya watches his tongue as he wets his lip. She takes a step closer and slips her fingers into his belt loops, holding firmly as she maneuvers to stand between his legs. Despite the cold outside, he’s so warm. If she weren’t distracted, she’d tuck herself into his body and soak it in. As it is, she has other ideas about how to keep warm with him.

Maya tugs on his belt loops teasingly until the button of his jeans digs into her stomach. She brushes her nose along the firm set of his jaw, exhaling slowly to watch the goosebumps she loves flare up over his skin.

Shawn pants, voice low, “Burgers, then? Or, uh, sushi?”

He’s such an idiot. He doesn’t want any of that. He doesn’t want food at all. But he can’t assume Maya feels the same, can’t assume what the look in her eye means, or why she hooks her fingers through his belt loops and steps even closer to him.

“Don’t want burgers or sushi either,” she murmurs, sliding her hands out to wrap around his hips and trail up delicately under his t-shirt to skim the soft skin of his back.

Her jaw clenches. She’s totally overwhelmed by how badly she wants him right now. She knows the unspoken agreement was to have sex this weekend after a nice meal in nice clothes, but she doesn’t want to wait anymore.

“Shawn…” she hums.

He’s not sure how long he’s supposed to wait before kissing her. He doesn’t want to interrupt the trance she seems to be in, doesn’t want to break the spell that has her pressing even closer so she can wrap her arms around his waist and sneak her fingertips beneath his shirt. He shivers, a charged shock running from the base of his spine to his skull as her hands press into his back. He’s sensitive to her touch, no matter where she touches him.

He nods slowly, dazed. His hands are frozen at his side, though he’s dying to touch her. He lets out a breath and turns his head just so, his nose grazing her temple gently. The gentle plea in her voice makes him think she wants more than just an orgasm. His cock twitches and his eyes fall shut, hands finally finding the will to move, wrapping around her waist.

He can’t assume. Won’t do it.

She has to say it, if she wants it.

“Maya,” he purrs in reply, lips falling to the smooth angle of her cheek. His voice breaks, “Tell me what you want. Whatever it is.”

He’s slow to react, like he’s shocked into a stupor at her touch, even though she finds ways to touch him all the time. Maybe he feels it too, that tonight seems different somehow. Everything in the air around them feels tight with anticipation. She remembers the tension will break if she makes the first move. He offers it to her willingly, even sounds a little desperate for it.

She pulls her hands a little higher up his back, rucking his shirt up with it. She angles her face back toward his, coming up on her toes to tilt their foreheads together.

“Wanna feel you. All of you. And I want you to have all of me.”

After a deep inhale, she steps back and starts plucking at the buttons of her plaid flannel shirt.

Shawn nearly falls over himself when she slips suddenly away from him, just as he’d been planning to kiss her. He blinks, mouth slightly agape as he watches her begin to undress herself.

He feels like he’s never seen her naked before. Like he didn’t just see her naked two days ago, when they had his dorm to themselves and he ate her out on the couch while nearly coming in his boxers.

But this is so, totally different. He swallows, fingers twitching with the urge to free himself from his jeans as she continues flicking buttons, the flannel slipping down her shoulders.

“Are you sure?” he finally chokes, dragging his gaze from her belly button, “Because, you know, there’s the reservation for Saturday and I guess I just thought—“

Shawn doesn’t know how to finish that sentence without saying something totally lame, so it hangs there between them as he watches the pronounced rise and fall of her chest.

Maya lets the shirt drop around her feet. She wasn’t exactly prepared for this outcome with him tonight, so she’s in an old sports bra. She doesn’t think he’ll mind. Having shed her top, she walks back into him again, drawn in by his warmth and that dazed, yet somehow elated look in his eye.

She cups a hand around the back of his neck, letting her soft fingers slip up into the little curls that rest there. She presses her other hand right over his heart, feeling it pound erratically. She likes that he can never hide from her. He doesn’t even try.

“I thought so too,” she admits quietly, blinking up at him, feeling his warm breath on her face. He smells nice, freshly showered. He always smells so nice.

“But I don’t want to wait.” Her final confession is followed by a searing kiss. She dips her tongue into his mouth, whining softly, hoping he’s on board.

Maya steals his thunder, kisses him first. Shawn doesn’t care. She almost knocks him off his feet. His arms wind around her waist, one hand pressing into her spine as she arches her back. He pulls her close, groaning into her mouth as her tongue slips past his lips.

He trips forward, bringing her with him until the backs of her thighs hit the bed. Carefully, Shawn eases her down then climbs over her, knees like bookends on either side of her thighs.

He doesn’t want to stop kissing her, doesn’t want to lose the feeling of her tongue curling around his but he pulls back nonetheless, desperate to get a look at her like this. His hands fall to his thighs as he pants, gazing down at her from beneath hooded lids. His fingers twitch as he studies her flushed face.

Shawn gives his answer by walking her back toward the bed and laying her down gently beneath him as he continues accepting her lush, needy kisses. After a moment, he pulls away to look at her. She runs her fingertips up and down the length of his arms while he takes her in. She preens under his adoring gaze.

“Maya,” he murmurs, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, “I’m so—“ he nearly chokes, “I’m really fucking into you.”

“I’m really fucking into you, too, Shawn,” she assures him a little breathlessly. Usually she’s more articulate, more eager to come up with a sexy quip to make him laugh or make his breath catch in his throat. She doesn’t want that now. She just wants to feel him.

Maya scoops him back into her, sucking on his full, swelling lower lip. She lifts a leg around his hips and manages to flip them so she’s on top, resting on his firm chest as her lips wander from his mouth out to the soft skin of his neck.

She’s able to wrestle them around because he lets her. He grunts, hands falling to the small of her back, just above the swell of her ass. Shawn decides there’s nothing better than this— having Maya on top of him, with her thighs clenched tight around his waist like he’ll float away if she doesn’t keep him pinned.

It almost doesn’t feel real, just like so many of their moments together. He spent so long fantasizing about the ‘what ifs’ with her that things now are sometimes, like, totally surreal.

Shawn doesn’t fight her or look at all disoriented lying beneath her. He’s content to gently, carefully explore the skin she’s already given him rather than trying desperately to look and touch more. It makes her smile against his jugular and plant a kiss over his racing pulse.

With a vocal sigh, his head falls back, sinking into the pillow as she presses hot, teasing kisses to his throat. His hands wander across her bare back until he nudges the edge of her sports bra with his needy fingertips.

Slowly, he slips beneath the elastic band to revel in the hidden skin between her shoulder blades. There’s a ringing in his ears as he feels the notches in her spine and ruts his hips up against hers, turning his head to get his mouth on her wherever he can. His lips find her temple, so that’s what he goes with, kisses her there before trailing to her ear.

From here, Maya can admire the firm, soft skin of his neck and shoulder, tucking her fingers against the collar of his shirt to run her nose over an old hickey turning green from one of their escapades last week. She leaves another mark overtop of it, noticing when she begins to stray how heavy her breathing has become and how much her heart rate has risen.

“You drive me fucking crazy,” she chuckles incredulously, pulling back to plant her hands on either side of his head and gaze down at him, her lips heavy and swollen from her assault on his neck. She eases onto one hand and trails the other up from the button of his jeans to skim the hem of his t-shirt until it’s rucked up slightly over his belly button.

Shawn barks a laugh, shaking his head as she pants above him.

“You have no idea, Lu,” he says as his laughter subsides, blinking at her as she nudges his shirt up his clenching abdomen.

She grins, dropping onto her forearms and shifting down his body to tongue at it, leaving a biting kiss before she decides to settle there and leave another secret mark.

Her grin his maddening, has his heart jumping erratically in his chest. No matter what Maya thinks, Shawn knows she drives him so much crazier than he could ever drive her. She’s fucking intoxicating. His muscles do a similar dance to his heart’s when she starts mouthing at his navel and the sensitive skin beneath.

“Shit,” he breathes, one desperate hand tangling in her wild hair as she settles between his thighs.

Maya hums appreciatively at the feel of his heavy, hot hand in her hair. He doesn’t seek to guide her or force her further down. She flutters her eyes up to watch him while she bites and tongues at his abdomen, sucking rhythmically until his skin is so hot and red beneath her tongue that she’s sure a big purple splotch will develop in a few hours.

Maya flips some hair out of her eyes and pushes his shirt up to his armpits, helping him lift it off entirely for her to toss away next to hers. She plants a few more hungry, wet kisses on his sculpted chest before she makes her way back to his mouth, groaning in satisfaction at the taste of him.

She knows what she wants from him, and it’s so fucking hot. It’s as if she’s ravenous for him, feral almost as she drops open-mouthed kisses across his torso, making his cock throb in his far too constraining jeans.

Finally, she reaches his mouth and licks her way between his lips. He holds her there, takes a bit of initiative himself and pushes up onto an elbow as his other hand cradles the back of her head.

Maya settles again, this time with one of his thighs between hers for a little friction. In her thin leggings, she can feel the outline of his straining dick in his jeans as she experimentally grinds down against him, gasping into his mouth. His firm thigh is exactly the pressure relief she was looking for.

When she relaxes into him, hips rutting as she grinds herself into his cock, Shawn almost comes on the fucking spot. He hisses against her lips, nose knocking hers as his hips buck. Heels digging into the bed, he tries to calm down. His hand falls from her head so he can anchor himself to her waist, fingertips pressing into the soft skin at the small of her back.

“May— Maya, Jesus,” he growls into her mouth, “Feels good? You feel so fucking good.”

His reverberating groan vibrates her lips. She digs her teeth into his lower lip, tugging it and releasing with a pop.

“Feels amazing,” she confesses, grinding down hard and slow on his leg, “Bet your fingers on my clit would feel even better.”

Maya doesn’t shy away from giving him guidance. He seems to want it, seems to be on easier footing around her when she’s telling him what she needs. It’s sweet, that he cares so much. It’s also really sexy being the one in charge.

Maya doesn’t talk dirty. Maya tells him what she wants bluntly and honestly and it’s hotter than any contrived dirty talk he could imagine. He groans, nodding eagerly at her suggestion because, yes, yes, he can totally make her feel good like that.

Maya rolls off Shawn, beckoning him on top of her. She squirms, eager to feel him give her what she wants. She’s already wet enough that he could probably slide right in without any trouble but she wants him to play with her first, ease both their nerves.

He quickly follows her lead, wedging himself between her spread thighs as she settles back into the plush pillows at the head of her bed. Hands cupping her knees, he bites his lip as he looks down at her, at her heaving chest and clenching stomach and the wet spot staining the apex of her thighs. His cock throbs, but he ignores it.

The fabric of her leggings is soft beneath his fingertips. He plucks it, letting it snap back against her skin before he drags his gaze to her face.

“Can you take these off for me, sugar?” he murmurs, plucking the leggings once more. “I don’t think you’re naked enough yet.”

Maya smiles. He’s taken to calling her “sugar” since their first night together after the art show a few weeks ago. Every time he says it she gets a little weak in the knees, even when she’s lying beneath him.

She hums in agreement and squirms until her legs are off to one side of him. She sticks her thumbs between her hips and her leggings, pushing and wriggling until she can kick them off her ankles. She wastes no time swinging a leg over his head with a giggle so her legs are spread for him again.

She lifts her arms to rest up by her thick wave of hair that’s spread out behind her. She lifts her hips teasingly, showing off the cute lace thong she just happens to be wearing.

“Is this naked enough?” she murmurs, her voice low and sweet.

Shawn forces himself not to gape, just like every time Maya undresses in front of him. She always has the cutest panties, and they’re always soaked by the time she gets her pants off. He tries not to let that go to his head, tries not to preen too much, even though he loves how easily he’s able to turn her on.

Her arms raise, her back bows. Shawn feels his cock twitch. His teeth sink into his lower lip as she looks coyly up at him, her gaze hot from beneath her lashes.

He clears his throat, shaking his head.

“Not yet, I don’t think,” he replies, voice scratched with desire. He takes a breath, then murmurs, “Still can’t see enough of you.”

His fingers trip over her ribcage until he reaches the tight band of her sports bra. He pushes beneath, tugging the fabric away from her torso so he can slip the bra over her breasts then along her arms, before tossing it away. He smiles down at her, cups one of her breasts and brings his thumb to her stiff nipple, giving it a little flick.

Maya mewls at the stimulation. Her eyes flutter as she cups her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand where it is, where she wants it. His fingers are rough but he uses them gently, having discovered her sensitivity pretty early on in the time they’ve been fooling around.

“S’a little better,” he nearly purrs, rolling her nipple between his fingers as he lowers himself towards her, his lips finding her sternum with a messy kiss. His eyes flick up to hers as he tongues at the flushed skin between her tits.

Maya smiles, sinking her fingers into the hair at the back of his head. He lavishes the skin that had been covered by the sports bra, appreciating it now that he has full access.

“Think we could get rid of those panties, though. Don’t you want to?”

Maya brings her arms back up over her head. She looks up at him innocently, shrugging as she twirls a lock of hair around her finger.

“If you want them off, you can take them off.”

She spreads her thighs just a little, enough to tempt him, and lifts her hips, waiting.

As he watches her play with her hair and smile at him from her nest in the pillows, Shawn swears to himself that Maya’s gonna kill him one day. That face. He can’t get over it. No one looks at him the way Maya does. And no one else has a face quite like hers.

He’s so fucked. Already. He can hear his stupid friends in the back of his head, laughing and calling him whipped because they’re assholes who still think that’s funny.

Maya’s fingers twitch in her hair. She swallows roughly. She’s suddenly overcome with a wave of something she’s been feeling a lot lately, something that feels a lot like love. No one’s ever looked at her like this. More than that, she’s never really wanted anyone to. Not until him.

She knows very well he thinks she’s sexy. That’s not exactly new to Maya. But this feeling, the adoration she senses through every touch, that’s new. And it’s amazing.

He nips her skin at her demand, then pulls away. His head lifts and he leans back between her knees, arms shrugging beneath her thighs while his hands find her lace-clad hips; all the while he watches her, a fond smirk on his lips.

“Yes, ma’am,” he rasps, smirk growing as he turns his head, mouth pressing into the soft skin of her inner thigh. His fingers crook and slip into the band of her panties, his thumbs massaging her hip bones as he slowly pulls the lace from the warmth of her body. He goes slowly, keeps his lips firmly on her thigh and slides his hands down her hips, bringing her panties with him.

She watches him admire her as he pulls the thin film of lace down until she kicks them off her ankles. His lips on her thigh make her squirm. She beckons to him, wanting to feel his lips on hers again. She sinks a hand into his hair and runs the other up and down his spine, her fingertips skimming over the bumps to make him shiver.

Maya murmurs comfortably into his mouth. She’s almost forgotten that she’s completely naked and waiting for him to touch her but as he leans over her to kiss her, she can feel how hard he is against her thigh.

His jeans are nearly suffocating at this point, but he doesn’t let it bother him. Maya pulls him in for a needy kiss and he melts into her easily, distracted from her new-found nudity by the welcoming warmth of her lips.

“Baby,” he mutters into her mouth, his hands wandering along her bare sides until he reaches her thighs once more. He pleads, “Let me touch you.”

He sounds a little more desperate than he intended to, but his fingers are twitching and he wants to see how easily he can make her gasp with them pressed to her pussy. His palms slide across her firm quad muscles until he reaches the insides of her thighs. He sucks her lower lip into his mouth just as he nudges her legs apart, spreading her open so he can re-settle himself between her thighs.

His hand coasts along her slick skin until he reaches her wetness. He cups her fully, pressing the calloused heel of his hand against her clit and grinding down, growling low in his throat as she soaks him, her juices dripping onto his fingers.

Shawn stays close, keeping his mouth on hers when he finally makes contact. She inhales sharply, sucking the breath from his lungs and pressing her fingers harder into his back. She’s probably leaving marks on his delicate skin. She doesn’t care, he won’t either.

Maya’s head falls back and their lips disconnect. She lets out a low, gentle whine, rocking her hips down into his hand. With his skin up against hers, she can feel how wet she’s gotten for him. She can hear it, too.

“Fuck, that’s good,” she gasps, feeling lightheaded at his alternating pressure. She presses her face into his neck, grazing her teeth over his pulse point. She wants to make him as crazy as he’s making her.

Maya looks down over the firm, hilly plane of his back and notices he’s still in his jeans. She lays a warm, open-mouthed kiss on his jaw and pushes him back slightly, reluctantly. She smiles up at him, skimming her fingers down his stomach to pluck and push at his button and zipper.

“Take these off for me?” she requests, “Want you comfy too.”

Shawn’s distracted, busy grinding his hand into her pussy and rocking over her clit at varying pressures when he realizes her fingers are busy on his jeans. His cock twitches, as if to say pay attention, idiot, so he does, just in time to hear Maya ask him to get naked with her.

He looks away from his hand on her cunt, blinks up at her with his lips parted, breath coming out in soft pants as he nods.

“Yeah— shit, Maya, thanks— thank you—“

Thank you? He’s an idiot, but it’s out there, and he can’t pretend he doesn’t like the feeling of her giving him permission for something.

His voice catches and he clears his throat. He pushes away from her, up on his knees so he can fumble with his jeans, finishing the job Maya started. He then kicks the pants away, careful to avoid kicking Maya and ruining the mood.

Maya does her best to tamp down her stupid smile because she doesn’t want him to get embarrassed or shy, but the fact that he’s thanking her for anything makes her chuckle. He shucks off his jeans as carefully as he can. She wriggles impatiently on the mattress, sighing and chewing on her bottom lip.

His cock strains against the fabric of his lavender Calvin’s, the ones from the pastel pack his mom bought and that he totally forgot he was wearing. He can’t be bothered to care now.

His boxers are purple.

This time she can’t not smile.

Maya lifts her fingers to where the legs of his briefs meet hard, pale thigh. She strokes them gently, trailing up to graze over his twitching cock.

“These are cute,” she says gently, plucking at the material, swallowing when she sees how hard and ready he is for her.

He looks from himself, from the wet spot he’s leaving on his boxer briefs, to Maya’s beautifully flushed face.

He yearns, throat tight, heart erratic. He tries not to blush.

“Can I touch you again?”

He gets her attention again with his soft plea. Maya melts.

She nods vigorously. “Yeah, please baby. Wanna feel your fingers. I fucking love your fingers.”

He breath stutters before he’s able to control it. He can’t help it. He’s hung up on her words. She loves something about him. Maybe just his fingers, and maybe just for orgasms, but even so-- Shawn has to dig his fingernails into his palm to stop himself from smiling too much.

Still. His grin is uncontrolled, if only for a moment.

“Yeah? I guess--” he pauses, quiets his smile to something coy as he examines his fingers, “--Guess they’re pretty good fingers. All that guitar and piano, maybe.”

If Maya weren’t so desperate to get them back on her wet skin, she’d show him just how much she loves his fingers by sucking on them. But he’s radiating testosterone-driven heat all over her and it’s reminding her just how badly she needs to be fucked, so she resists the urge.

He doesn’t give her space to reply, doesn’t give himself the chance to feel like the nervous, bumbling idiot he so clearly is before descending between her legs. He presses his forehead to her abdomen so he can watch as he brings his hands to her wet thighs once more, his fingers slipping towards her swollen pussy lips.

His voice is gruff when he speaks again, the tip of his middle finger sliding across her twitching clit.

“Like that?” He mashes his cheek into her hip bone as he gazes up at her, his curls messy on his forehead. He flicks her clit, then goes back to brushing it gently, just a smooth swipe of his roughly padded finger, back and forth over her stiff little peak.

“Is that how you like it, sugar?”

Shawn likes to focus on his work, lowering to hip height instead of staying attached to her lips and fumbling around like so many other guys she’s been with. She appreciates the attention. And she feels it as soon as he swipes his finger against her soaked folds.

“Oh god, yes!” she sighs, voice raising at the end.

His warm brown eyes seek her approval. She slips her fingers through the curls at the back of his neck, tugging gently to remind him how good he is for her, how he makes her feel like no one else can.

Maybe it’s too early to say it though. She can just… say it without saying it.

Maya keens, rocking her hips slightly. “Wanna give me a little more, baby?”

His eyes flutter shut briefly when her fingers twist in his hair and pull. He lets out a gruff breath, then blinks back up at her.

He wets his lips, flicking her clit quickly before slipping his finger down to prod delicately at her dripping entrance. He murmurs, “I can give you anything you want, Lu.”

Slowly, he sinks the tip of his finger into her tight pussy, curling it up like he knows she likes. He sighs, watching his finger disappear inside of her as her clit twitches. He slides shallowly in and out of her slick channel a few times before burying his finger to the knuckle and bringing his lips to her clit.

He kisses her bud a few times before blinking up at her again, smiling against her wetness. His finger moves faster, but stays tucked deep inside of her.

Maya’s hips shift, accommodating him as he slides his finger in to nudge at her front wall. She hums, low and deep, willing herself to relax so she doesn’t come as soon as he touches her. She flexes and curls the fingers in his hair, watching with bated breath as he drops to press his lips to her hard bud.

His finger sinks into her fully. She groans his name.

“Gonna make you come like this first, okay?”

Maya nods at him, her breathing picking up pace, “Yeah. Please. You feel so good.”

She lifts her leg up to rest over his shoulder, digging her heel into his bare back to urge him on. She closes her eyes and turns her cheek into the pillow, swearing under her breath.

She pulls him in with a firm press of her heel, nearly burying him in her cunt. He groans, his lips pressing firmly around her clit as he sucks at her, his teeth grazing gently.

Shawn is pleased to say he knows exactly how to eat Maya out so she’ll come, so she’ll pull his hair and arch her back and rock her hips desperately until she’s panting and spent, dropping his curls to tug at her own as she whimpers. He nearly comes just thinking about it. He clenches his jaw momentarily and pushes through, instead focusing on the second finger he slips into her pussy.

He scissors both digits to stretch her clenching walls, then curls them inside of her so his knuckles nudge over her g-spot, a spot he’s proud to have found easily on their first night together. He remembers he was fairly eager to search. He’s been eager with her ever since.

Maya watches his eyes flutter as he goes to work on her, slipping a second finger between her folds. She spreads her wet thighs further to accommodate him, the heel that’s not pressed into his back digging into the mattress to keep herself grounded.

He rocks his knuckles back and forth while his tongue flicks over her twitching nub, and he thinks maybe she’s close, maybe if he gives her a little more--

His teeth snag her clit and he bites down, delicately enough not to overwhelm her, but with enough pressure to send a shock through her system. He groans into her pussy, calming her swollen nerves with broad strokes of his tongue as his fingers move faster in her tight heat.

He flirts with her g-spot at first, blinking up at her with those big, brown eyes, watching closely as he multitasks to bring her to orgasm. He zeroes in, giving her exactly what her body craves even when she doesn’t know what to ask for.

“Oh god, fuck, oh god,” she moans. It’s guttural and gravelly and betrays exactly how fucked she is, and it’s just his mouth and fingers. She shivers, imagining what coming all over his cock is going to feel like.

The ache starts low and hot in her abdomen. It explodes, tingling, rushing through every nerve ending until her limbs contort.

“Shawn, fuck, I’m coming,” she cries, snapping her eyes shut, letting it have her. She growls, tugging harder at his hair, letting her hips buck wildly as he stays attentive and fucks her through it.

Her body sings for him. She lets his ministrations overwhelm her, lets him push her over the edge with each flick of his tongue and curl of his fingers. She gets wetter, if it’s even possible, and her body bows, tensing as her orgasm crashes through her.

Maya tugs his hair in a way that has him ready for more, makes him want to have her coming again and again, with or without his cock, he doesn’t care.

His favorite thing about it all is making her feel good. Oh, and the way she says his name while she comes. It’s a sound he wishes he could capture in a song. He groans into her pussy, appreciative of the breathy growls she emits as she comes down.

“I’m guessing,” he purrs after a moment of cleaning her up with his tongue, “that you kind of liked that.”

He grins up at her, pulling his fingers from her heat and taking his time to clean them up with his tongue, as well.

He’s smug and hungry for her at the same time. Maya watches him in total awe. Her fingers absently run through his hair, following the dips and swerves of his curls. His fingers make a popping sound when he sucks and releases them. It makes her abdomen tense and her thighs threaten to close around his pretty head.

She nods, swallowing to soothe her throat that’s sore from overuse, moaning and whining at him.

“I think,” she pants, the corner of her mouth quirking up, “That I liked that almost as much as you did.”

She’s breathless when she’s finally able to speak. Her words wrap around him like a hot coil, making his cock throb and his skin prickle. She knows how easy he is for her, how much he gets off on getting her off. She’s never hesitant to point it out. Shawn can’t bother to be embarrassed by it.

Now she’s the smug one, dropping her head and squeezing her thighs around his shoulders teasingly. She gazes down at him, watching his chest rise and fall rapidly, watching his cock twitch in his cute purple boxers as he leaks desperately for her. She lifts her eyes back to his.

“Lie down, Shawn.”

He’s quick to listen, ready to do whatever she wants him to. He licks her sweetness from his lips one last time before nodding, pushing himself up so he can move beside her, collapsing on his back into the many fluffy pillows she keeps nested on the bed.

“Am I getting a present?” he muses with an earnest lift of his brows as he tucks his hands behind his head. He keeps them pinned to stop himself from peeling his boxers down and grabbing his dick.

Shawn goes without protest, dropping himself beside her with a heavy flop. Despite her exhaustion from coming so hard, she wastes no time climbing on top of him, her eyes sparkling as she grins down at him.

Maya lowers her face, skimming her nose over his, breathing softly.

“I feel like I am,” she murmurs, letting her knees slide so her torso rests over his. She’s lying on over him, lifting one of his heavy hands to rest over the back of her thigh.

With some of her weight in her knees, she rolls her hips into his, feeling the hard length of him grind into her soaked pussy. She groans with her lips brushing his cheek.

Shawn’s hips twitch with a shock of desperation as she settles on top of him. They’ve been in this position before, albeit so Maya could jerk him off between their bellies after he’d already made her come. He’s familiar with the weight of her thighs across his, with the press of her tits into his chest, the warmth of her breath on his cheek, and yet it feels overwhelmingly foreign as she begins to grind her hips so his cloth-covered cock nudges her cunt.

He groans, digs his fingers into the back of her thigh, sinking down where she placed him. He can’t look at her, instead has his eyes screwed shut as he presses his face into her neck, lips hot on her collarbone.

“So hard for me, Shawn,” she hums, her throat a little raw, “Gonna feel so good inside me, baby.”

“Maya,” he growls, his free hand finding the back of her neck so he can tangle his fingers in the soft hair along the base of her scalp. “God, sugar, you always get me so fucking hard. I don’t--”

He chokes out a soft moan, cutting himself off mid-sentence. I don’t know how long I’ll last sounds embarrassingly childish, especially when there’s a desperately sexy ‘first-time sex’ mood to maintain.

She can feel his cock throbbing between their bodies and hear the desperation in his voice. A part of her wants to slow down, work on relaxing him so he’s not so keyed up that she worries he might come as soon as she gets him fully naked. But Maya doesn’t want to wait anymore. And Shawn being desperate for her is one of her very favorite things.

“I know,” she whispers, grazing her teeth against his jaw. She feels goosebumps break out over his skin and shivers, curling her toes, “Just hold on for me as long as you can.”

Shawn’s going out of his mind while Maya stays cool and collected. She teases his jaw and rasps in his ear, and he wants to give her what she wants. He wants to hold on. To be good like that, for her.

His fingers curl in her hair. He releases a calming breath, turning his head so his nose presses into Maya’s cheek. He murmurs, “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

She likes taking it slow sometimes, teasing him by slipping her fingers just below his waistband and skimming them back up again but she honestly doesn’t think he can take it right now. She lifts her hips enough to pull his boxers down to his ankles and reach for the condoms she keeps in her nightstand.

Magically, he doesn’t whine in anguish when she leaves him. Instead, he focuses on his breathing and the ceiling and pressing his hands into his stomach so he doesn’t start jerking himself off.

She drops her lips to his gently, soothingly, “Are you sure you want this now?”

She has to ask. Maya initiated this. She needs to hear it from him.

His brows raise. He almost fucking laughs into her mouth. Instead, as his hands come to cradle her flushed cheeks, he smiles against her lips and nudges her nose with his.

“I dunno,” he purrs, “I guess I don’t really like you that much, eh?”

Her lips buzz with the vibration of his words. She laughs straight into his mouth. She knows he wasn’t actually trying to trick her into wondering that, but he really can’t even begin to pull it off with the way he’s gazing up at her with her head in his hands.

“No, not that much?” she teases, tearing the condom wrapper and sitting back to take his cock in her hand. She gives it a squeeze before starting to stroke it with purpose.

Shawn gasps, head dropping back and mouth falling open while she works her hand along the length of his cock. He tries not to fuck her fist, focuses instead on clenching his ass and pushing his heels into the mattress.

“You know what I think?” she murmurs after a few moments, slowing her strokes, looking him in the eye a little dangerously, “I think you’re crazy about me. And I already know I’m crazy about you.”

He blinks up at her as she speaks, feels pinned to the bed by the heat in her gaze. He nods, pushing his hands into his hair and tugging a bit.

He croaks, “More than crazy about you, Lu. So much—“

With a smile, she rolls the condom down over his pulsing cock and climbs back over him. When she’s taking hold of him between her legs, positioning him at her entrance, her breath catches. The anticipation is thrilling. She looks up, takes a deep breath and sinks down.

He’s cut off as she slowly sits on his cock, her tight pussy stretching sweetly around him, and he feels as though he’s bursting into flames. Shawn tangles his hands in her hair, pulling her in for a searing kiss, a groan rumbling in his throat. His toes curl, feet slide up the bed so his knees are bent, thighs pressed to Maya’s ass. He stills then, giving his full attention to stroking her scalp and kissing her in a way he thinks might tell her just how hard he’s falling for her.

Maya’s planning on watching his face when she lowers on top of him but her eyes fall shut, forehead wrinkling slightly as she releases a ragged sigh. Before she can mutter a swear or whisper his name reverently or moan, Shawn surges up beneath her and cups her face in his big hands to kiss her.

The kiss starts hot and hard and Maya’s ready to buck her hips, start rowing to keep up the frantic energy. In a few moments, though, he’s holding her close and slowing the kiss in a way that makes Maya calm down a little and pay attention. His fingers are soft and warm against her hair and every movement of his lips is purposeful and gentle.

Maya murmurs happily into his mouth, lifting her fingertips to trace down his throat while she holds herself up above him. Slowly, carefully, she rocks her hips, testing the waters.

“Oh… my god,” Maya breathes, her voice almost breaking into a whine as she sets a slow pace, brushing her nose over his, “Sh-Shawn.”

Perhaps it’s a cliche, but in this moment, Shawn thinks he could die a happy man. Her voice is strung out, desperate with need when she whines his name against his lips. He groans in reply, nodding a little as he scatters kisses across her rosy cheek until he meets his thumb at her temple.

“Jesus, baby,” he breathes, finally letting himself give a little as he rocks his hips up slowly, meeting one of her smooth downward strokes. He presses his forehead to her temple, eyes closed as he grinds his hard cock deep inside of her cunt.

Maya squeezes her eyes shut. With anyone else, she’d probably be embarrassed by how wet she is, how wet they can hear that she is. Except she’s positive she’s never been this wet with anyone before. And she knows even without asking how much Shawn is fucking loving this.

As it is, focusing on that has her nearly shaking already in Shawn’s arms. She distracts herself by moving her face to bury it in his neck, inhaling the sweet, sweaty smell of him, dragging her tongue along the throbbing vein in his neck.

Maya’s nose presses against his rapid pulse one moment, her tongue hot on his skin the next. He growls into her hair, hips rocking as he digs his feet into the bed to get the perfect angle.

He’s not sure she’s ever been this wet for him before, and he’s never heard such obscene sounds coming from between them, not until now. He starts to fuck her a little faster, but his movements stay small, subtle. He doesn’t think he could take much more.

Instead, he bounces her shallowly on his cock and pants against her cheek as he shifts the angle of his hips with every other stroke or so, in search of her favorite little spot. Her pussy drips around his shaft, onto his belly and thighs and makes the glide between them excruciatingly effortless.

“Holy fuck, this is so fucking good,” she stammers, grunting slightly and arching her back when he shifts his hips just right and his cock rubs up against her g-spot with each shallow stroke.

Maya squirms against him, coughing random words of praise into his neck. She’s reeling a little -- she couldn’t have imagined it to be this good. How is this this good the first time?

This is like magic.

She’s honestly not sure she can hang on too long before she comes hard for him. She just has to hold on a little longer. It can’t be over yet. It can’t.

Her voice is wrecked when she speaks. It bounces with each thrust of his cock, and Shawn swears it’s the hottest thing he’s ever heard. Her back bows, her tits pressing into his chest, and then her breath hitches in a way that tells him he’s found what he’s been searching for.

“S’that where you like it, baby?” he hears himself purr confidently into her ear as he grinds the head of his cock against her g-spot, her pussy fluttering around his shaft. He doesn’t recognize the voice, or the confidence, because being around Maya usually feels like climbing up a steep, rocky mountain, exhilarating and thrilling yet dangerous all the same.

But it’s different now, as she clings to him like maybe no one’s ever made her feel this good before, this loved before— not that he loves her or anything, but fuck, he loves the way she feels, the ways she sounds, the way she tastes. And he loves every minute he spends with her, so maybe— Maybe does love her. Or he’s starting to, anyway.

Shawn’s voice hot and smooth in her ear has her clenching so hard around his cock she’s sure she’s gonna come. She fights it off, gritting her teeth against the loudest moan yet.

Maya nods weakly, angling her weight into her knees so she can keep up with his firm, quick strokes. She struggles to breathe with how tight she’s pressed up against him between his sturdy chest and his arms. She doesn’t care. She’d go on like this for hours with him if their bodies would let them.

There’s only so much she can do to keep her orgasm at bay when he’s fucking her like this, like her life depends on it. She feels the hot tingling rise, the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

Maya lifts her head from his neck to look down at him, all glazed eyes and pink cheeks as they rock harder and harder, forcing the headboard into the wall with a loud smack on each stroke.

“Shawn,” she whines, “I’m… I’m gonna come.”

He’s never seen her like this before. She’s never had such a devastatingly blissed out look on her face as the one she’s sporting when she unfurls from his body to look at him. Her needy plea drowns out the obscene sound of the bed ramming the wall each time he his presses inside of her.

Shawn sucks in a breath, curling his toes to stave off his own orgasm as he feels her body echo her warning, her pussy getting wetter, tighter around him as his hips shake beneath her flushed thighs.

“Then come, Maya,” he urges as he reaches for her, pulling her back so he can kiss her, an arm wrapped securely around her waist while he slips his hand between their jerking bodies and finds where they’re connected. His fingers are messy across her twitching clit -- he can’t have much finesse when he’s this close to coming, himself. His cock throbs and he practically buzzes as he fucks her harder, thighs smacking her ass with each upstroke.

The weight of Shawn’s arm around her collapses her into his body. She has no leverage left — it’s down to him to keep them moving. She groans, wriggling around his hand until he can swipe his thumb against her clit frantically.

“Please,” he hears himself beg, lips hot on her ear, “Please come for me, Lu, I-- fuck-- I can’t-- I won’t be able to-- You got me so fucking close, sugar.”

He’s begging for her. It’s the best thing she swears she’s ever heard. It’s so sincere, so full of something their relationship is too new to have yet, but it’s there anyway. She can hear it. She can feel it. And it’s that that pushes her off the perfect cliff.

Maya goes perfectly still, every muscle and tendon tensed and ready for the snap. When it comes, she gasps an inhale and cries an exhale, her mouth dropping open.

It’s never felt like this. She has never, ever come like this. She knows she hasn’t. The thought reaches through the cloud to her as she twitches and writhes against him, milking this feeling for all it’s worth, every torturously perfect second.

He groans, stilling briefly when she comes, shaken by the tight clench of her pussy and her sharp gasp in his ear. She seems utterly consumed by her orgasm, and it engulfs him too. He pulls his hand from her throbbing clit and anchors his arm around her waist atop the other. He takes a breath and focuses on not immediately following her over the same tempting edge.

She’s totally incoherent. The sounds coming from her are not words. They’re barely human. They don’t stop even when her body waves the white flag and her orgasm abates, leaving her warm and wet and slack on his chest, trembling gently as his hips lose rhythm.

Shawn murmurs a gentle moan and begins rocking his hips once more when he feels Maya relax on top of him. He can’t hold on much longer, can’t keep a steady pace as she still spasms gently around him.

Maya opens her eyes. She wets her lips and cups a weak hand around his cheek. She knows she doesn’t have to do anything — she can say the word and he’ll give in to her.

“Shawn,” she breathes, her voice barely audible above the slapping of their wet skin, “Come for me. Wanna watch you come so hard.”

He nods at her plea, looking up at her as he pants and fucks her a little faster, a little harder. His hands slip down to her waist and he digs his heels further into the bed for better leverage. He’s staring at her, panting with his brows furrowed while her palm stays pressed carefully to his cheek and he can’t help but feel like she— like they could really be something real, together, and not just a fleeting college romance.

He’s still staring at her when he comes, just a moment later, cock aching as his hips stutter. His eyes fall shut, unable to maintain his gaze as he rocks messily through it, fingers curling into her hips-- a minor grasp at control as the heat of it burns through him. He’s loud, too. Just a grumble in his throat, at first, but it reaches a fairly vocal groan that would wake any roommates, if she had them.

“Maya,” he pants as he finishes, hips rolling slower and slower until he stills, dropping back down on the bed with her still on top of him.

“Holy fucking shit.”

Shawn holds her fast against him, his arms locked around her waist as he lets himself go. She watches him intently until the moment he comes in a wave of perfect, husky moans and wild bucking his hips. Maya holds on, tightening her grip on his jaw and planting her other hand by his head to keep her balance as he roils beneath her.

She murmurs gently to soothe him and watches in total adoration as he comes down. He grunts her name, making her smile uncontrollably and rub her nose against the sweaty hair at his temple.

They go still. Maya lifts her head to kiss him tenderly, flicking her tongue sweetly at his lower lip and sweeping some hair behind her ear.

“That was unbelievable,” she breathes, propping herself up to lift her hips away from him. She drops against his side but doesn’t let him go far, curling up beside him to absorb his radiating body heat and feel closer to him. She drops a hand against his chest, brushing her fingers through the light, soft hairs there, already wanting to feel that way with him again as soon as she can.

He’s just relaxing into her gentle kiss when she leans back to murmur in his ear and pull her body from his. She’s nestled into his side by the time he gets his voice to work again.

“You’re unbelievable,” he murmurs as his heavy eyes blink open. It’s the first thing his orgasm-hazy mind can come up with as her fingers on his chest send shivers down his spine.

He looks down, watches the painted purple tips of her fingers scratch across the sparse smattering of hair he feels childishly proud of, and lets his cheek fall against the top of her head as he’s hypnotized by her careful movements.

“That was—“ he starts after a moment, gently, “I mean, it was really okay for you? Cause for me, it— fuck, Maya.”

He ends with a soft, breathless laugh, turning slightly so he can press his lips to the top of her head, a vain attempt to shut himself up.

Maya’s heart gives an extra hard throb in her chest as it starts to regulate. He’s so sweet. He’s too sweet. It’s going to kill her. She might just let him.

“Was more than ok,” she murmurs, dislodging his head from over hers as she props herself up on his chest. She rubs his shoulder gently, “Best first time I’ve ever had, I think.”

It’s honest. Maybe it gives away too much -- she doesn’t want to intimidate him with her experience. But she wants him to know. It’s never like that the first time for her.

Her cheeks burn hot. She turns her face down to nose at his chest. She closes her eyes, sure he can feel her pulse racing against his ribs before she speaks again.

“I think it’s because I really, really, really like you. Like, a lot.”

If Shawn’s not mistaken, Maya almost seems embarrassed. Or at least nervous. His own anxious heart gives a lurch. She says really three times, each time a little more breathless than the last. The sound sends a shiver down his spine.

“I’ve never liked anyone the way I like you.”

He says it without thinking, without considering the vulnerability of it until it’s too late. But it’s there, hanging in the air, and despite everything she’s just said, he feels as though he’s ripped his heart from his chest and is helplessly waiting for her to take it from him.

He cups the back of her head with his hand to distract himself, tangles his fingers in her hair and combs them through her gentle waves.

Maya’s nose pauses right over the dip in his sternum. She lifts her head to look at him, feeling his heavy hand continue sifting through her hair like the motion of it helps calm his anxiety.

Even though she can see the vulnerability written all over his face, he wears it for her anyway. He wants her to see him, all of him, everything he’s feeling for her. She finds she wants all of it and more.

Another deep breath flutters his chest hair. She props herself up so her face is level with his as she looks down at him.

“I know we haven’t really talked about this yet but I’m not dating anyone else right now. Pretty sure you’re not either. So… do you… wanna be my boyfriend?”

It’s a formality at this point. She knows at least her friends are already referring to Shawn as her boyfriend. She wouldn’t be surprised if his were doing the same. But she can see he craves her assurance. She wants to give him whatever he needs.

He flushes at her question, like a naive school girl. Then he grins wide, his teeth on display, just like that same school girl. His heart speeds up in his chest. He’s sure she can feel it.

The truth is, Shawn’s been calling himself her boyfriend in his head for a few weeks now. He’s just kind of chicken shit at mentioning that sort of thing. Needs the right timing and atmosphere and maybe some alcohol to get him out of his head and all. That’s why he asked her on a fancy, special date. It wasn’t only a pretense to finally have sex. It was a way to force himself to finally have some courage and ask her to be his, properly.

And still, she beats him to it. It’s very Maya of her. He thinks he prefers it this way.

“Only if you want to be my girlfriend,” he murmurs, tugging affectionately on one of her particularly wavy tendrils as he continues to play with her hair.

Maya thinks making Shawn blush is her very favorite thing to do. She traces the path of the color in his cheeks, spreading down his neck and chest. His smile is blinding, totally delighted. She can’t help but grin back at him, ducking her head for a warm, firm kiss.

“Yes please,” she says into his mouth, still smiling, feeling a bubble of girlish giggles rising in her chest as she presses into him.

They lie there talking for another hour, tangled up in each other, until Shawn falls heavily asleep beneath her with the sweetest content smile on his face. Maya, in the mood to be big spoon, nudges him onto his side and tucks herself up against him. She falls asleep smiling, too.

---------

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grace-ko · 5 years

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tw: mentions of homophobia, racism and government sanctioned execution

It was raining on that Tuesday in Shanghai, their mother insistent that she could go to work that day, despite her stomach being so big it felt like just a light breeze would knock her over. But she never made it to work, her water breaking just as she stepped out the door, though the heavy rain was enough to make it seem like it was just part of the weather. It happened fast, a neighbor hearing her scream out, helping her to their car. They called Grace’s father from the hospital and he sped through midday traffic to get there in time. To meet their first born, their hope, their light. On that day in 1968, the rain came down hard, but all their parents could remember was the peace they felt the moment they held Grace for the first time.

Born Meixiu Ko, they never imagined life beyond China and the reality they knew. As a young child, they weren’t aware that they didn’t share the same luxuries as kids around them, under the impression that being in Shanghai meant they were as close to “made it” as possible. But it was the early 70s and China was under communist control, anyone seemingly “counter-revolutionary” were to be executed and that wasn’t the kind of future Grace’s parents wanted for them. So in 1972, the Ko’s packed up and took 4 year old Grace all the way from Shanghai, to Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.

In their first few weeks, the Ko’s stayed with a family friend and some of Grace’s first memories were of trying their best to be quiet and cause no trouble. They understood from a young age the horrors that their parents had taken them away from. They had seen the pain on their mother’s face as the plane took off and it took years before they considered what it meant to leave home, to leave a whole country that you knew for somewhere so foreign. But like always, they made it work. Grace’s father eventually got a job as a custodian at a local high school and by the time they turned five, Grace’s mother had gone to work as a secretary for an accountant that had an office near Wall Street. And together, they created a life for Grace that was full of love, a deep kind of love that Grace has always done their best to never take for granted.

And Grace was known for being a well behaved, “quiet” kid. As they learned English, they found solace in the books that taught them the language, the tv shows they’d get to watch for an hour a night, the culture that seemed so foreign to them yet so familiar. It helped that Jackson Heights was popular for asian immigrants and though they were thousands of miles from Shanghai, they always felt a close connection to their home, to the life their parents had left behind. But they were settled with the life they had. The routines with their parents, their ability to pull all of their attention whenever they got a good grade or perfected one of their mother’s recipes. They enjoyed the fall evenings out on the front stoop as their parents drank tea and watched them bike up and down the street, sure they would always catch their father sneaking a bottle of alcohol out of his shirt pocket to pour into their cups, their little giggles enough to let Grace know that one day they wanted a love like that.

Of course their childhood wasn’t all peaches and cream, but to their memory, the goodness that their parents gave them overshadowed the negativity the world threw at them. There was the inherent racism that came along with being asian in a country that was in turmoil. Reagan was formally apologizing for the Japanese interment camps in the late 80s, Vincent Chin’s death had trickled all the way from Detroit to New York City and it was the first time in their life that they had started to see their community come together in different ways. The Vietnam War that had started before they were born, ended when they were 7 and they could still recall that day in April and the conversations being had at home about how they had left a country that was now fighting against the very country they lived in.

And then there was the fact that they were a young woman growing up in a world that was just starting to treat women as more than something to make a man shine. But despite it all, Grace managed to find their comfort zone and stayed in. From an early age, their love of books always led them to the library. They felt like their library card was the key to the city and Mrs. Ko would often come to pick up Grace at the library and find them surrounded by piles of books, begging her to let them take it all home. But it wouldn’t be until high school that Grace would ever consider writing, at least as a means of art, of expression or anything that was more honest that the words that came out of their mouth. They were happy but they also sensed that there was more, more than Jackson Heights, more than just having a crush on the boy that lived down the road, more than the same four friends they had for what felt like forever.

Then, just as they were about to start high school, Daniel was born. Daniel their baby brother, their first best friend, their favorite person in the world. As the first child in the family to be a full American citizen, Grace watched as Daniel experienced the world so differently from the way they had. He never questioned his Americaness, having no ties or memories of China. They watched as he made friends with everyone, always impressive, always with a smile and Grace couldn’t resent him, only admire the work that had gone in to giving him a life like that. And in a way, Grace believed that the universe had given them Daniel as motivation, as proof that they had a purpose. And being Daniel’s big sister was a challenge Grace had never backed down from.

For Grace, high school was a blur of helping their parents with the baby, trying to be more social, having their first crush on a girl, discovering their love for writing in their junior year after a particularly magnificent English teacher and spending far too much time dreaming about how hot Linda Hamilton was in Terminator. There were a few crazy parties, some bad dates, a few late nights on the subway with their best friends they had found through the local rec centers after school program. There were a few fights with their parents, growing pains and a growing realization that college seemed like the most life changing thing in the world. They’d be the first in their family to go and though they wanted desperately to leave New York, with Daniel being six at the time and their parents still working, they applied to in state schools only.

In the Fall of 1986, Grace started at Pace University on their Manhattan Campus. With a major in journalism and a minor in east asian studies, they were determined to keep their tie to their home while also embarking on new adventures in the place they had come to know as home for so many years. Despite not having the most formal campus experience, Grace enjoyed the luxury of having all of New York City be their campus and they saw the city in a way they never did when they were growing up in Jackson Heights. They met activists, poets, fellow writers, democrats, republicans, communists, anarchists and an endless list of more. They went to parts of the city they never knew existed, made friends with drag queens and eventually met the first group of queer people they had ever really encountered. Their first kiss with a woman happened in an empty 7 train car as the sun came up and they were positive they had never experienced anything sweeter.

Upon graduation from Pace, they worked the graveyard shift in the offices of CBS News and had a part time gig at the local library. 4 months after graduation, while they were starting the process of applying to graduate school, Mrs. Ko gave birth to a baby girl. And Grace had never met a challenge quite as fierce as their sister Maya. Being two decades older than your youngest sibling was not something Grace envisioned, though Daniel always make jokes that it was just a testament to how much their parents loved each other, And in 1991, Grace left to Syracuse University to pursue their masters. It was the furthest away they had ever been from home since coming to the US and it was still in the same state. But the distance and the campus experience was transformative for Grace. It pushed them and one of the first achievements mentioned whenever Grace is introduced at an event is that they published their first book during the summer before their second year of graduate school.

But while it’s one of Grace’s most proud moments, it’s also their most shameful. Their first book, titled The Journey: From Shanghai to Jackson Heights is a memoir, in which the year that Grace spent at home with a newborn baby, working, applying to school, dealing with a pre-teen Daniel, is portrayed as one of the most stressful of their young life. A portrayal that Maya has just started to forgive Grace for. But Grace never expected their first book to get the attention it did but their publisher would always say that it was their writing. It wasn’t just the story, it was the way they wrote it that brought people in and Grace realized for the first time in their life, that their voice was something worth sharing.

When Grace returned to New York in 1993 after graduating from graduate school, they moved into a small one bedroom apartment in the west village while working for the New York Times. Their memoir had gotten them plenty of attention and enough to get them in front of journalists who despite their clear biases, couldn’t help but admit that Grace Ko was a damn good writer. But they still spent a lot of that time visiting home often, getting to know Maya as she grew up, hoping that when she was old enough to understand, she’d read the book one day and find it as something funny to laugh about. (That would later not be the case.)

After two years at the New York Times, Grace entered a PhD program at Columbia University. At 27 years old, Grace felt like they were most at home when they were learning, writing, working on anything that told a story. It was all Grace wanted to do. To tell good stories, to tell stories about people like their parents, like the teachers they had met in high school, like the people they had left behind in China. Many of the pieces Grace wrote for the New York Times gave more voice to the asian american community than it ever had before and it was something they felt passionate about. And it was during this time in their PhD program that Grace found their love for teaching which would eventually lead to them being a professor at Hunter College, Bronx Community College, Sarah Lawrence College and eventually Columbia University.

It was also in 1995 when Grace met Alana Silvers during their first week of their PhD program. At this point Grace had been with men and women and realized they didn’t really prefer one over the other but rather that they just enjoyed the company of people who moved them. But they hadn’t come out to anyone in their family and they hadn’t anticipated entering into a relationship that would end up being so long term. And it wasn’t, at first. Even though Grace was clearly in love and enamored with Alana’s personality, her writing, her everything, Grace was still hesitant to dedicate themselves to someone when their career was just starting. So they were on and off for the first two years but lots of subpar nights with other people was enough to make Grace realized that Alana was it for them, the one they wanted a future with.

So in 1998 when they were both teaching and writing, Grace working on their second book, Alana working on her first, they moved into a two bedroom apartment in Brooklyn and started to build a life and love like Grace had always dreamed of, one like their parents had. Grace still visited home often and eventually came out to their parents, especially once Daniel figured out that Alana and Grace weren’t just “roommates” when he asked to stay over and realized the second room in the two bedroom was more of a guest room than his sister’s room. And it was tough at first, their parents unable to wrap their head around it. It was Daniel who was their saving grace, seemingly before his time in the way he embraced Alana as another big sister with such ease. It was Maya, however, who just couldn’t get past it. And the older they got, the more the distance grew.

In 2002, at the age of 34, after a lot of conversation, some arguments with their parents, Grace and Alana decided to go ahead with having a child with the help of one of their close male friends. Motherhood had always been something Grace wanted but never expected would happen the way it did. They didn’t imagine they’d be raising a child with a woman, that they’d constantly have to answer questions about who the father was and if Alana was their babysitter. But they protected themselves with their love for each other, their determination to give their child a good life. Allen Ko was born on a sun filled Friday in the middle of the day, Grace’s water breaking an hour after Alana had left the house for her morning lecture. For years, Allen would be known to Alana’s students as the reason they all got to leave class almost as soon as it started.

Grace’s 30s were a blur of diapers, daycare, giving birth to a daughter, no work/life balance, a hectic but beautiful marriage and a fight with her sister that would ultimately result in a silence between them that has lasted over ten years. When Maya was 14 and Grace was 36, Nina had just been born and Maya was old enough to finally read Grace’s first two books. The second was fiction and about anything but their family but there were clear influences of their own experience. To say the least, Maya disagreed with the experience they shared and despite that fact that she already felt weird about Grace being with a woman, the books caused Maya to throw such a tantrum that they ended up having a screaming match in front of their parents house in Jackson Heights.

It put a strain on their relationship with their parents since Maya was still at home, though they called their mother twice a week to check in, three when they were feeling extra lonely. And they never stopped their kids from going to see their grandparents but they refused to see their sister and Maya was happy to refuse as well.

Grace eventually stepped away from teaching and dedicated most of their time to their kids and writing. They eventually bought a house in Westchester County with a huge backyard and plenty of space for the kids to grow up. But four years after Alana and Grace decided to have their third and final child, Alana’s father fell ill and was offered a position at the University of North Carolina. It was horrible timing and Grace felt selfish for saying how much they hated the idea but moving back to Alana’s hometown felt like the opposite of an upgrade. Of course the town was cute, Grace had visited plenty of times with Alana but it wasn’t the place they wanted to raise their kids or live their life. Not to mention it was states away from their own family and they had never been that far away from them before. But ultimately, they gave in and they packed up their beautiful home (one which Grace still cries over) in New York and made the move to Edens Town in 2012, a year after officially getting married once same sex marriage was legalized in New York State.

In 2013, Grace published their third and most recent book, a fictional story about a family from the New York suburbs who moves back to Shanghai when the father’s parents get sick. It was a New York Times Best Seller and highly acclaimed as Grace’s best novel to date. So much so that Grace is filled with fear that they’ll never be able to top it.

In the seven years that Grace has been in Edens Town, they’ve become involved with their kids schools, done a few pieces for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Vulture and various other magazines and newspapers. They’ve built up their social media following, still gives lectures and guest talks and is a frequent contributor on CNN and MSNBC, especially on issues related to Chinese politics and the Chinese-American experience.

If Grace had to put a time on it, Grace would say their relationship with Alana started to deteriorate a year after their move to Alana’s hometown. Everything changed, and the passion and love that had once been there, ultimately resulted in a divorce that Grace isn’t sure they’ll ever recover from. A 50 year old single mom is not who they imagined they’d end up being, but they suppose they have always dealt with difficulty the only way they knew how, with their head held high and the power of their ancestors behind them.

#about grace #bio #homophobia tw #racism tw #violence tw

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