Free Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Title

was still fully clothed.
    â€œHelen,” he said urgently into her mouth. He backed her up against the wall and trapped her there, pulling her arms up over her head. It was the only wall in the house not covered in bookcases or artwork. It was her new favorite wall. “Are we really doing this?”
    It was a question, she was sure, but it didn’t really sound like a question. It sounded like a desperate man pleading, and she melted into a puddle of burning desire. “Hell yes,” she said, and then he growled—Henry growled!—and attacked her mouth and ground his pelvis into hers and Helen couldn’t catch her breath but she suddenly felt like breathing was severely overrated.
    While he ground and groaned and Helen panted—she was breathing, after all—his hands let hers go and explored all over her body, touching, squeezing, until she realized she had been wrong before. She hadn’t been a puddle. She had been a damn iceberg compared to how hot she felt now. She should stop and think and capture the five senses for writing purposes, but instead she clawed at his clothes, pulling his shirt untucked from his pants, pawing at his bow tie until he shoved her hands away and pulled it off himself. She was about to complain that he should let her do that, and that it wasn’t fair that he was wearing so many clothes, but before she could remember about words and forming sentences as the best way to communicate with another human being, Henry was naked.
    Oh lord, Henry was naked.
    Now she was definitely a puddle. She was halfway to a sinkhole.
    Henry was gorgeous.
    She knew all about the chest and the shoulders and the abs. But having seen them before and seeing them now, combined with the legs and the hips and all the rest was just . . . He definitely wasn’t built like Hawk, who she imagined would be bulky, the kind of bulky that wouldn’t really fit into regular clothes. But seeing Henry in all of his glory—and it was glorious—in front of her, she was reconsidering Hawk’s physique.
    Helen wanted to just stand there, leaning against the wall to support her puddle-body, and memorize Henry. The way the hair on his chest tapered down to a trail. The way his abs flexed with every deep breath he took. The way the muscles in his legs tensed as he walked toward her.
    And then she couldn’t admire him because she was grabbed and spun around, her bare breasts pressed against the wall, Henry pressed against her back.
    â€œDid you like what you saw?” he whispered in her ear, his hand working its way between the wall and her panties.
    â€œNnn-hnn,” she said. Or at least she made a vague groan of assent.
    â€œWhat do you want, Helen?”
    His other hand pulled her away from the wall far enough that it could cup her breast. She arched into his hand, her butt arching into his hips. He hissed and bit her earlobe.
    â€œWhat, Helen? Tell me.”
    She should tell him. She should use words. That was the whole point of this exercise, right? Words?
    â€œThis?” he asked, pushing his hips forward.
    Yup, she thought, and hoped that she had also said it out loud. She was pretty sure she hadn’t, though, because he didn’t give it to her. Instead, his hand found its way into her panties.
    â€œThis?” he asked, and she was pretty sure his fingers were the only thing holding her up off the floor.
    â€œChrist, Helen,” he said, and he squeezed her everywhere. She squeezed her eyes shut and was just gearing up to turn around and tell him to quit fucking around and fuck her already, but then the pressure of Henry on her back was gone. She turned her head to find him going through his pants. Condom, she thought, and made a vague, whimpering motion at her bedside table, but Henry was too fast for her and he pulled the wrapper apart with his teeth and she whimpered again and then Henry was back at her back, then back at her front as he turned her