You reach for me in the night. I lie curled onto my favourite side, my back towards you, drifting on the hazy edge of slumber. I smile sleepily as I feel your hand reach for the soft warmth of my belly, drawing gentle circles upon my skin with your fingertips. It’s your favourite spot, that area just below my belly button, where my skin is smooth and warm and fragrant. Maybe it’s the contrast to you that draws you there. You’re all hard lines and planes and angles, muscled limbs and stubble. Maybe we naturally seek out the opposite, in order to better appreciate our own uniqueness.

I stretch languorously and roll onto my back to give you better access. The palm of your hand rubs slow, lazy circles upon my belly, soothing and intimate. There are nights you do this and it lulls me to sleep, safe and warm in your love. Not so tonight. Tonight, the caress awakens deeper desires, basic and primal, feeding needs and urges that will only be satisfied with one outcome.

I hear your breathing change in the darkened gloom as you realise I am awake and intent on you. Yours quickens even as mine calms, your natural predatory instincts aroused by the scent of your mate. I sense, rather than see, your head lower until you capture my mouth with yours, tongues entwining with moist, erotic purpose. The taste of you is both familiar and potent. You’re like a fine wine that I can’t get enough of. One sip, two sips, leave me thirsting for more, delightfully tipsy, my senses awakening. The more I drink, the headier you become and I want to gulp you down, no matter that you make my head spin and my caution disappear.

Your hands move upwards from my belly as you soften your touch and pluck kiss after kiss from my mouth, leaving me reeling. The softness of my belly gives way to the silky smoothness of my breast and you delight in this most delicate of textures. Your fingers feather over my nipple, the hot hard nub’s resilient hardness a sure sign of the fires you ignite in me. You lower your mouth to my breast and suckle, your moans of pleasure transmitting through my skin and lodging in my heart.

I love you. Of that there can be no doubt. By day, you are my companion, my rock. The one I trust and turn to and joke with, the one whose thoughts I know nearly as well as my own. By night, you are my lover, my protector; you and I on our little square island, making sense of the world. These fleeting moments, between day and night, are not our reason for being, as love needs no reason. Rather they serve to ground us, when life becomes overwhelming. Stripped bare, we can shed the chaos that life entangles us in, and simply be.

I arch my back as your tongue circles my nipple, your breath hot on my breast. Your teeth scrape against the bud, eliciting a groan from my lips. Mad with desire now, you drag me up until we are kneeling face to face on the bed. You squeeze my butt and pull me close against you, letting me feel the hot hard length of you that yearns to be inside me.

My head falls back in abandon as feelings of desire course through my blood. You set your teeth upon the pale column of my throat, not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough to matter.

You seize my hair in your fist, ensuring I cannot look away from you as you reach for the wetness at my core. Your eyes roam over my face, hungrily devouring every nuance of my expression as your fingers slip inside me. The hunger in my eyes as you probe my hot depths is reflected in yours – the knowledge that you cause this reaction in me a potent aphrodisiac. Your gaze holds mine as your fingers play inside me, strumming and teasing my clit with your thumb.

As my breath grows ragged, I rest my hands on your shoulders, trusting you to be strong when I fall. Your eyes gleam in the darkness inches from mine, waiting for that moment of perfect bliss to be reflected in my eyes. My skin grows hot and my body quickens as the peak comes racing towards me. My hips are moving, up and down upon your fingers, dancing to your perfect beat. As the pleasure washes over me, you tighten your hand in my hair, drinking in my gaze as if you can see through it into my very soul.

I cry out as I climax, the intensity of the physical feelings multiplied by the intimacy of your touch. You still the hand within me as I shudder around you, your other hand now stroking my hair, letting me calm and relax. This is the way you like me best, all soft and warm and wet for you. You gently lie me back before ranging over me and slipping your hard length inside me, easy now, giving my body time to accommodate its welcome intruder.

I glance down at our joined bodies as you start to move. I like to watch you sliding in and out of me, like to match it to the feeling of you inside me. Easy with each other after so many years, you take my hand and bring it to my clit, playing your fingers over mine as you thrust deep into me. As your strokes quicken and become more desperate, I flick my little button harder, matching my tempo to yours, anticipating your pleasure.

Your breathing grows heavy and you moan out my name as your climax approaches. To see you, a man of your strength, surrendering to the moment and to me, is just one aspect of why I love you. That you choose to lose yourself in me is a miracle that I give thanks for daily.

Your seed spills out of you and into me as that most ancient of rituals is played out – a mate declaring his territory. My frantic fingers bring me to a second climax and I clamp around you, fiercely and possessively. You collapse onto me and we lie, limbs entwined, kisses now soothing, breathing in the scent of one another.

As passion cools, we draw up the blankets, still entwined. Inevitably, we will separate in the night as our bodies seek a comfortable spot for sleep, but for now I lie with you, knowing your love is the only thing I will ever need to see me through another day.