Max turned around, still half asleep, pulling my body into the half-moon of his own. We lay on a straw mattress in the loft of a barn that had been taken by the resistance here in rural France, and for modesty's sake we had retreated to either sides of it; a difficult task, now made more challenging by the pilot's movements.
He took a deep inhale, his face nestled into the back of my neck, and exhaled warm breath onto my tingling skin. Now, with me in his arms, his nightmares were retreating into the dark recess of his subconscious.
We had slept beside each other for four nights now. That was how long it had been since we had found each other on a backroad from the border, him separated from his grounded plane and me... well, I had kept myself separate from everything in order to remain undetected. Every night he had been wracked with awful nightmares; this was the first he had touched me in his sleep.
I knew that this respite from undoubtedly horrid images should be protected, but an itch inside of me yearned for his hands, now securely fastened at my waist, to animate themselves and explore my body. He had removed his cotton undershirt to sleep better in the heat, and in the dappled moonlight of the barn I could make out the sinews beneath his bare skin.
"You hardly know him", my brain hissed to itself, cannibalistic in it's determination to stifle the urges. "And he's not even awake so he doesn't know what he's doing"-
Yet, I tilted my pelvis back ever so slightly. I sighed, trying to mimic the unintentional sounds of someone asleep. The movement made my body arch back into his groin. His body seemed to instinctively tighten around me, welcoming the way the space between us vanished. I felt small, childlike inside his broad, muscular frame.
I tilted my pelvis back yet again, hoping the rhythmic movement might stir some kind of consciousness into his lower half. I moaned, as if I was the one having nightmares now. His arms, once slack against my lithe torso, now stiffened.
That might have done it.
I continued to keep my eyes shut, gripping my arms tighter against his, as if I were protecting myself. The more I created this fiction, the more real it felt. Hadn't I been trying to make myself invisible, protecting myself from enemies this whole time?
"Natalie?" He whispered, his Scottish vowels thick and low in his hoarse semi-consciousness.
I waited a moment, then pretended to rouse myself. I murmured a little.
"Natalie," he said, more gently this time, "I think you're havin' a nightmare."
You're a sneaky bitch, my brain thought- but his arms were so strong, his chest so firm against my back. I hadn't felt this safe since the start of the war. I was alone then... I had been alone for years. I had used men sexually, of course... but not for my own comfort. Not for my own pleasure. Hadn't I known from the moment he smiled from beneath his RAF cap that this could be a different kind of ally?
"You're having a bad dream," he repeated softly, with a tenderness I almost couldn't bear. As if I'd known him for more than two days. As if the thought of me, my safety, and my unreachable subconscious was of the utmost importance to him.
I turned in so I was facing him, curling inwards and tucking my face just below his chin. I would never admit to being frightened by daylight, but in the darkness, I permitted myself this luxury; comfort. I had been frightened for so long, one almost comes to accept it; it was a fear people who did not know wartime would never understand.
One of the pilots arms wrapped around my back and scooped me up, the other wrapping underneath my neck to cradle the nape of my hairline. His fingers were coarse unlike mine which were still soft from handling weapons of a slightly different kind: transistor radios.
"Shhh," he whispered sleepily. "It's alright." His hand was so big that whilst still cupping the back of my head, his thumb could rest against my cheek. It stroked my face calmly, sending chills from the root of my torso up my spine.
My breath caught a little, suspended between us. His other arm was still draped around me, no doubt feeling the change in my body. His body stilled too; he was suddenly holding his breath as well. His thumb, however, maintained its steady rhythm.
I held my breath still, willing it to edge closer towards my parted lips.
And then, it did. I could feel it... His thumb was edging closer and closer towards my lips, and then dared to caress them, catching slowly against my full lower lip as it did.
The moment his thumb caught my lower lip, I exhaled, a light breeze brushing against his skin. His thumb lingered there, against the warm and wet skin inside. He was waiting for me to protest, to push him away.
The silence between us felt electric. I moved one of my legs to negotiate the space between his, hooking myself around him so that our bodies could press together. With my chest now against his, I could feel the air between us thudding with quickening heartbeats.
He did not remove his thumb from the entrance of my mouth. He was waiting for me to give him a signal to proceed.
I gently brought his thumb between my teeth. It felt both coquettish and primal; the feeling of something fragile, soft, ready to be destroyed.
Yet, his thumb retreated. I might have lost hope there, embarrassed and rejected, were it not for the feeling of his thrust pulsating against my lap. An unmistakable reaction of longing.
I should not have worried; his retreating thumb dragged down my chin and neck slowly, leaving a slightly damp residue behind it that cooled quickly in the night air. Simultaneously his other arm brought me even closer to him, his breathing quickening.
"Natalie," he whispered, betraying a deep sense of longing. I knew he wanted me, then. He wanted me quite desperately.
But I did not want it to be quick. I wanted it to be slow.
I brought my free arm up behind his head so I could drag my fingers from the back of his head to the back of his neck, bringing my face up to meet his. Would he take it from me greedily, as if I were some street woman in a foreign city, an anonymous body that he could hide inside until his grief had retreated?
He seemed to sense this. Instead of greedily launching at my mouth, he held me there.
"I wish I could see your eyes," he whispered urgently. "Your eyes..."
"You can," I promised him. "What do you see?"
I was terrified of his answer, because I knew that so many men had answers readily prepared for questions like this; it didn't matter who was looking at them or who was asking. Intimacy was a game, a war they could win on foreign shores before returning to their squadrons to regale their mates with their conquests. I felt too deeply for that. Losing this moment to a parlour story meant for male amusement would be too painful.
He was silent. Then, in a voice of resignation and sadness:
"I saw a lot of pain."
There was no pretence, no air of manipulation. There was familiarity, however; a sense that he recognised it in me because he felt it himself.
I held his neck here, hit with a wave of grief for us both. I would have pulled him so close that his body merged with mine, if I could. But this hand released him as soon as it held him there, tracing down the skin of his spine until I could pull it inwards towards our stomachs and continue this unbroken line, ever so slowly, around his side and drag it upwards between us against his almost hairless chest.
I felt his heart beating there. His mast continued to throb against me, but it did not cheapen the moment. It intensified it. I knew he wanted me, and that it took everything in him to restrain himself... because he needed me more than he wanted me. He needed me to be here, in whatever way, and he wouldn't do anything to risk it being taken away.
"I need you too." I breathed. He could have me in whatever way he wanted... if that's what he really wanted.
I could feel his face tilting towards mine, slowly, until his breath whispered against my mouth. Our lips were so close, his breath sweet and warm, smelling of the mead we'd drank with the resistance soldiers downstairs.
His lips were soft against mine. I realised then that I had imagined this moment every time I looked at them, plump and full. His wrested with mine, not trying to part them but just enjoying the way they melted into each other.
I was hungrier, it seemed; I gently parted his, daring my tongue to trace within just has his thumb had done only a few moments before. He drank me in. His warm tongue wrapped against mine, sending tingles through every nerve ending available, making me hungrier and hungrier.
He finally broke his stillness. He gave in to his urges and grasped my body firmly. He positioned me on top of him as if I weighed nothing. My groin could not be separated from his, seeking heat and pressure, pressing against his shaft and his lower abdomen as I righted myself on top of him.
Electricity surged inside of me, moving me to sit up away from his intensifying kiss so that I could straighten my arms and brace them on either side of his shoulders to slowly rock the seat of my body against him. I was abreast a wild horse, willing it to pursue.
He groaned quietly, rock-hard beneath me. I continued to work him, wanting to feed the desire I knew was raging inside of him. It became too much to bear; he reached up with one hand and secured it behind my neck, bringing us together so that he could kiss me again, more urgently and messily this time.
I slipped one of my arms down against his chest again, wanting to coax the creature that was aching for mine. He almost snarled inside my mouth as he grabbed that same hand and used his body to deftly spin me to my back, pinning both arms up on either side of my head. I exhaled through a smile, exhilarated by his careful control of my body.
