Raffo gently rested Ruth in the center of the bed, his body resting between her legs that were latched to his hips. His hands trailed up and down the sides of her withering body and a throaty whimper pushed its way into his mouth, resulting in a guttural groan of his own. Ruth moved her hand against his torso in an effort to get close to him, but his hiss of pain caught her off guard.

Ruth tore her lips from Raffo's just in time to catch his wince. Before he could stop her from doing so, she pushed him over so that she could be on top and nudged his shirt up his body, looking for the source of his distress.

It wasn't hard to miss.

A violet bruise the size of a fist was imprinted on the right side of his toned stomach and by the way that it hadn't yellowed yet, she knew it had to be fairly fresh. As in the last few days fresh, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why that was there in the first place.

Panicked and ridden with guilt, Ruth looked up at a calm Raffo, whose hand was already reaching for her cheek despite the brief moment of horror. In his eyes, she read that it was okay, even though it most definitely wasn't okay. None of those horrors were okay, and it took everything in Ruth not to freak out and go find that selfish prick who thought it was okay to put his hand on her Raffo.

She paused at that.

Did she really just think 'her' Raffo?

Ruth shook her head silently and leaned down towards the tender spot.

"Can I?" she murmured, her mouth a hair away from his skin.

"Yes," Raffo allowed, his voice full of too many emotions to catch. Nervousness, uncertainty, pleasure—all of the above.

Ruth puckered her lips against his warm skin in a soft kiss. He sucked in a sharp breath of air at the contact, his stomach dipping into the muscles that were pushed forward in hard lines. She peppered loving kisses along the bruise and the taut skin surrounding it as she rubbed her thumb tenderly against his unbruised side.

That night, Ruth wanted to love his body into oblivion. It was going to be about them. No Roger, no Mirana, no Terry or Jana. Just them. For just a night, the world could stand still while they ravished each other in a much needed bubble of pleasure.

Raffo trembled beneath her crawling lips. She didn't stop her eager curiosity until she was running her lips along the waistband of his sweatpants that were tented at the center of his desire. The tip of her tongue swirled and dipped beneath the thin fabric as her fingers trailed down his thigh with an eagerness that made them both breathless.

Before Ruth could take it any further, Raffo softly grabbed her face and drew her lips back up to his. Her whimper made him sit up straighter against the headboard and drag her hot body against his thigh until she was close enough to him. She steadied herself against his shoulders and moved back to break apart for a bit after his slowed movement.

They stared at each other briefly, completely enraptured. Raffo's eyes were blazing with lust and hesitation while Ruth's gaze was trying to focus on the reason behind him stopping. She wanted to take it further and was just about to tell him that when he opened his mouth and asked first.

"Are you sure this is okay? I don't want you to feel . . . pressured," Raffo said, his jaw set. His gaze lingered on her shorts that were practically underwear on her now by the way they bunched at the crevice of her thighs. Throat bobbing, he eyed the outline of her puckered chest, before slithering up her face until he met her burning eyes.

She'd never been more sure of an answer in her fucking life.

"There's no pressure. I just feel you," she murmured instead, running her fingers over his chest until she found his silk hair lying flat over the back of his shoulders. She easily tangled them together to draw his forehead against hers, breathing each other in.

Raffo's hands drifted back up her hips until his long fingers roamed along the bare skin underneath her hoodless sweater. She closed her eyes, allowing him to feel the softness of her skin that wasn't tight with muscle or lay flat like Mirana and the girl at the powwow. Her body was fuller, her breasts rounder, thighs thicker. And yet, he didn't care. He ravished her like she was exactly his type and touched every fleshy part of her with such love and affection, she could've sobbed.

When Raffo pulled her sweater over her head, Ruth wasn't at all embarrassed to be bare chested in front of him. He made her feel that comfortable, that wanted. He gazed at her like she was the sexiest woman he'd ever put his eyes on, the loveliest he'd seen in his life. She was beautiful to him; she could tell in the way he hungrily gazed into her eyes, in the way his fingertips drifted over her sensitive nipples, in the magnetic calling of his body to hers as they push closer. And the cherry on top was the soft kiss he planted against her lips while using his free hand to grip her plump thigh.

Ruth's heart exploded with a feeling she'd never felt in all of her life. One that was exhilarating, terrifying, intense. She knew she'd do anything for that wonderful man, that those nervous butterflies were slowly turning into a warmth of comfort, and the excitement in the pit of her stomach looked forward to a new future- the branch of possibility to spend it with him for a lifetime. She could see it all.

And she wanted it.

When Raffo carefully turned and placed Ruth's body beneath him onto the bed, she was ready to take everything a step further. If he wanted her, she would gladly give her body to him. And by the way he hungrily stared down at her after disconnecting their lips, she knew he was ready too.

"I want you," she started, caressing his cheek. "And before you ask, I want you to know I'm on the IUD and my body isn't ovulating right now. You can use a condom if that makes you more comfortable, but I'm fine if we don't."

Raffo's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Are you sure?" he asked, pulling her tucked in bottom lip from between her teeth.

They were both adults and could make an adult decision together that only they needed to agree to. Getting pregnant definitely wasn't as easy as everyone believed it to be for every person, especially when on a contraceptive and not ovulating. She wouldn't mind using a condom otherwise, but she wanted to feel him for their first time together. She wanted to be connected on a deeper and more intimate level. And that was their choice; no one else's.

"I'm sure if you're sure," she whispered against his massaging thumb.

Raffo ran his knuckles affectionately down the side of her cheek and found his answer in her hooded eyes. "Then I'm sure. I'll just—you know."

They both shared a soft smile. Keeping his gaze trained on her, he lowered himself further down her body until his face was level with her trembling chest. At first, he only pressed a kiss to the center of her chest between her breasts, lingering more towards the left side where her heart beat erratically for him. A shaky breath fell from her lips at the lightness of his tender kisses as he slowly crawled his way over to her breast. He wrapped a hand around her hip to arch her to him.

"So soft," he murmured against her skin. He glanced up at her watching him through the thickness of her lashes as the brush of her curls fall against her inflamed cheeks. She bit the side of her lip in anticipation. "So beautiful, baby."

Ruth's smile was shy and lovely. The term of endearment warmed her body from the inside out and the youthful part of her wanted to squeal loudly and kiss the hell out of him.

Raffo sensually took one of her nipples into his mouth, and he took his time flickering his tongue against her and sucking the flesh against the roof of his mouth. Ruth's other nipple tightened and swelled in anticipation as she moaned and wrapped a thigh around the upper part of his hip to hold him closer to her. His warm mouth vibrated with a throaty moan against her skin and she pushed herself closer to him with the arch of her back.

Raffo turned his attention to her neglected nipple and expertly twirled his tongue and tugged with his teeth against the taunt bundle of nerves. Ruth pushed her head back into the pillow from the combination of getting one of her breasts sucked whole he ran his fingertips over the other one, gently twisting and pulling it. He seemed to love the way she'd push her chest into his hands or mouth as he made love to just her skin.

It wasn't long before he continued his travels down the rest of her shaking body.

His tongue swirled and dipped down the expanse of her soft belly before coming to the top of her shorts. She'd just showered not long before, much to her relief, so when he ran his tongue along the rim of the band on her shorts, she was nothing but exhilarated. She squirmed under his crawling tongue, and moving lips, fascinated by his long lashes that brushed her skin and his hair draping like a waterfall around his broad shoulders. With every fluid turn of his body, his back muscles moved in time with his delicious biceps that bulged and made her heart flutter. She was barely paying attention when he rolled her shorts over her thick thighs and away from her body.

Ruth's breath shuddered. Raffo ran his mouth along the inside of her thigh, suckling gently with his hand tenderly drifting down the outside of her leg. When his mouth got even lower, and his tongue traced up the center of her slit, her heart practically exploded out of her chest. Her breathless gasp was loud and she jerked towards his mouth, but he was careful in holding her hips down.

Raffo's lips made sweet love to her. His wet tongue was hugged and encouraged before he met her nub of nerves that made her scream. The constant collision of his mouth to the most sensitive part of her world made her fingers sink into his hair and pull him closer to her as she sprawled her legs out on either side of him. He groaned low and raw the longer he lapped up the honey spilling onto his tongue when he dragged the flat of it deeper into her.

"Don't stop," Ruth begged, a balloon starting to build in the lower half of her belly. She shuddered at the immense pleasure that shook her body to its core.

Raffo sucked her faster, more intently. The tip of his tongue was firm and wet as it flickered against her bundle of nerves harder. His finger followed beneath it and pushed and curled against the spot that made her scream his name. The spot that shot electricity along the base of her spine and made her eyes roll to the back of her head in absolute pleasure.

After wrapping his lips and softly sucking on her clit, she came hard onto his eager tongue. Her chest moved with each suffocating breath as her entire body relaxed and the stars behind the darkness in her eyes settled on the wind of contentment. After pressing one more kiss to her, he pulled himself up, her essence glistening on his grinning lips that he licked deliciously slow.

"Y—you—" she faded off. A lazy half-smile touched her plump lips as she ran her fingers over his biceps that rested on either side of her head. "Were entirely too good at that."

Raffo chuckled, his eyes shimmering with lust and excitement. "It's easy when your girl's sexy as fuck."

Ruth's smirk beneath her half-closed eyelids only made Raffo's lips fall to the silk of her throat as she threaded her fingers through his. "Your girl, huh?"

"If you want to be," he said, squeezing her hands in his.

"And sexy?" she teased, arching her breasts into his chest as she rolled her neck to the side.

"Very sexy," Raffo murmured. He nibbled the skin at the conjunction of where her neck met her shoulder. "And delicious."

Ruth's lower half throbbed with wanting more now. "Take off your pants, Raff. Now."

Raffo smirked against her skin but rolled off to follow her clear instructions. She pushed herself onto her elbows, allowing her curls to fall around her in a goddess-like glow while she watched him, the corner of her lip tucked securely between her clenched teeth. She enjoyed marveling over the muscled body of Raffo, lingering in the crevices of his broad chest, and felt the sticky, wetness return to the area between her thighs at the sight of how thick his shaft stood to attention. Her breath was lost in the sea of lust clouding her judgement as it took everything in her not to get up and wrap her lips around it.

"Like what you see?" Raffo's voice was low and husky, making Ruth shiver in anticipation.

Ruth smiled and reached for him, pulling him impossibly closer to her awaiting body. He wrapped a thick thigh around his waist with rough fingers and position his body between hers perfectly until they were lined up with one another. She looked into his eyes and he into hers, wanting the other to be sure that this was going to happen on that particular night and there was no going back.

A nod from them both was all the confirmation they needed as he slowly eased his tip into her tight, wet center, making them both shudder together. He pressed his lips to hers and swallowed her sweet moans the further he pushed himself into her and she in turn drank his hisses of pleasure. Her fingernails dragged into the thick skin of his back and he encouraged her arch into him from the pressure under her back.

It wasn't until Raffo slid his long length all the way in that Ruth finally breathed properly. Her heart could have easily exploded out of her chest with the time it took to adjust to the thickness of him, but when she finally did, she was the first to encourage him to thrust with the lifting of her hip. From there, he didn't need anymore encouragement.

Raffo rocked her body slow at first. They took their time to learn the feel of each other's bodies that fit together perfectly, and spent their time kissing through most of it. When he finally picked up his pace, and thrusted deeper and deeper into her, Ruth was sure she was going to pass out. Her cries and moans mixed with Raffo's guttural groans was music in the warmth of the stuffy air.

Ruth came first around him, his name falling from her bewitched lips loud and hard as her eyes watered. The throbbing of her walls around his thrusting cock made him cum not far behind her after a couple more messy thrusts. His hands grab and relax at her trembling body the longer it took for his body to slow down and by the time he almost went over his self-control, he pulled out and wet himself into a tissue at her bedside table.

"Fuck," he breathed as Ruth whimpered and fell lax on the bed, her body still coming back down to earth at the slowest pace.

"Wow," she murmured under her breath. She pressed a hand to her beating chest and willed for it to slow down, though it did no such thing. That motherfucker was good and knew exactly how to please her, unlike her past partners. Sure, they were good. But nothing like that.

And she didn't even need to get on top. What the actual hell?

After tossing his tissue in the trash in the bathroom and washing his hands, Raffo was quick to gather a tired Ruth up into his arms and drape her body against his. He drew her blanket up onto their sweating bodies and tucked her into him securely. She lazily positioned her face against his bare chest, her soft fingers pressed to his skin.

"You'll stay then?" Ruth whispered, her gaze falling onto his huffing lips. His flushed cheeks broke a smile across her swollen mouth.

"I'll stay," Raffo promised, capturing one of her stray curls.

Forever? She wanted to ask childishly but didn't. She couldn't make him promise her his future when hers was just as uncertain. For now, she'd have to be fine with what he could give her and vice versa.

And that was completely fine with her.

*****