Martin gasps and arches into him, and it feels like both a reward and a faint warning. The situation is already a delicate one, with John's relative experience putting him at an unavoidable advantage. And Christ knows that's a foreign experience — even with Martin, who was so careful to demand nothing of him, he'd felt like he had some significant catching up to do — but that doesn't excuse him making a botch of it. If anything, it means he needs to put extra effort into not casually bulldozing over the boundaries of someone who might be having too good a time to really think about or articulate them — or, more likely, encouraging Martin to stumble blindly into one of his hard 'no's. The last thing he wants is for either of them to end up regretting any part of this. And that means, until they sit down and have a proper conversation about it all, he cannot let it escalate.
The irony is that escalation would be easy, almost instinctive, a more organic option than the slow, careful winding down that used to be the only manageable exit they had. If this were his Martin trembling beneath him, there'd be no question of it: the hand currently sinking into Martin's hair would curl into a fist; he'd relinquish his mouth in favor of sucking a bruise onto the soft span of his throat. He wants to, in the same way that he wants to stretch when first getting out of bed in the morning, or split a dessert at a restaurant, the sort of pleasure he wouldn't normally have to interrogate. He also knows it would be monstrously unfair to expect Martin to navigate anything more intense than what they're currently doing. Hell, even expecting Martin to navigate this is a bit much; it's only caution and luck that have kept them both on an even keel.
John sighs softly, both in response to Martin's touch and in some regret, before he consciously eases back a bit. "Hey," he breathes, punctuating it with both a light brush of a kiss and a gentle curl of his fingers in Martin's hair, wanting to indicate above all else that nothing's wrong, nothing's ruined, "I need a-a bit of a breather, okay?" He leans back a little so he can look at Martin properly, his thumb sweeping back the hair at Martin's temple, then lets his other hand drop to where Martin's back is still pressed against the counter. "And this cannot be comfortable," he adds dryly, before tipping his head towards the living room. "Here, do you— can we sit down?"
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The irony is that escalation would be easy, almost instinctive, a more organic option than the slow, careful winding down that used to be the only manageable exit they had. If this were his Martin trembling beneath him, there'd be no question of it: the hand currently sinking into Martin's hair would curl into a fist; he'd relinquish his mouth in favor of sucking a bruise onto the soft span of his throat. He wants to, in the same way that he wants to stretch when first getting out of bed in the morning, or split a dessert at a restaurant, the sort of pleasure he wouldn't normally have to interrogate. He also knows it would be monstrously unfair to expect Martin to navigate anything more intense than what they're currently doing. Hell, even expecting Martin to navigate this is a bit much; it's only caution and luck that have kept them both on an even keel.
John sighs softly, both in response to Martin's touch and in some regret, before he consciously eases back a bit. "Hey," he breathes, punctuating it with both a light brush of a kiss and a gentle curl of his fingers in Martin's hair, wanting to indicate above all else that nothing's wrong, nothing's ruined, "I need a-a bit of a breather, okay?" He leans back a little so he can look at Martin properly, his thumb sweeping back the hair at Martin's temple, then lets his other hand drop to where Martin's back is still pressed against the counter. "And this cannot be comfortable," he adds dryly, before tipping his head towards the living room. "Here, do you— can we sit down?"