She speaks against my lips, voice a mere whisper of breath. “I kept you out because everything we had was in here, buried so deep in darkness and shame. You barely touched me in public, unless you were putting me or someone else in their place.” When I open my eyes, she’s looking up at me, eyes wide and guileless. “I just…needed to know we could be something more than that. That you could want something more from this than how messed up it was.”
I hold her face in my hands, fervently insisting, “You are so much more than that.” I feel the pain of loving her in the burning cuts on my chest, but that’s not what it is. It isn’t surface-level. It’s so deep that sometimes I think it’s etched into my bones. “So much fucking more.”
I grab her, lifting her off the ground. No sneaking. No darkness. Just me and my woman, together.
“The blood,” she says, even though she steals a slow, wet kiss from my mouth. “It’s going to get everywhere.”
“Fuck it.” I march on, unapologetic, as I carry her over to the bed, unzipping her dress as I go. The green satin falls away like shedding a skin, and when I lay her down, I take a second to catch my breath, knowing that she might be exposed, but no one here is more naked than me.
I look at her for a long time, drinking in every inch of her, from the crown of her head to the tips of turquoise-painted toes, and all of it is perfect. The freckle on her stomach, the scars on her chest, the discolored patch of skin near her elbow. But the best part of her, by far, is that she’s awake for what happens next.
Shrugging out of my shirt—ripping off my tie—I bend, kissing down her heaving chest. I detour at her nipples, licking out to catch the pebbles on my tongue, but stay on task, dropping lower as her heavy eyes track my descent. I map her ribs with my lips, nip my teeth into the patch of skin beside her bellybutton, drag my nose along the swell of her pelvic bone. Hooking my fingers in her panties, I tug them off, so eager to spread her thighs that I miss her body going rigid.
“Shit,” she says, pushing up on her elbows. “The camera. It’s still on from earlier.”
I glance back at the skull, imagining Tristian’s eyes glued to his phone, cock in his hand. I let out a low snort. “Eh, he did a good job tonight. Let him watch.”
Let him see that I can love you.
She acts all shy at first, covering her face as she laughs, but when she pulls her hands away, she sends the camera this cheeky little wave.
I turn back to the legs spread before me, zeroing in on her cunt. Aside from wanting to shove my cock into one, I’ve never really paid much mind to other girls’ pussies. But Story’s is so erotically fucking inviting, it’s basically commanding a warm tongue to lap between her folds.
A good soldier follows orders.
Her thighs fall wider at the first touch of my mouth, but I still force them further apart, straining the tendons beneath my thumbs. Her body shudders beneath me when I catch her clit in a long, sensuous kiss, tongue painting loops around the swollen bud.
I’m expecting her fingers to wind in my hair, but I’m not expecting the softness of her touch—the way she strokes her fingertips against my scalp. I’m expecting the buck of her hips when I move lower, dipping my tongue into her tight hole, but I’m not expecting the drawn out mewl she makes. I’m expecting her to chase my mouth with every rise and dip of my tongue, her body telling me what she wants, what she needs.
I’m not expecting her to come undone so fast.
She comes with a body-wracking tremor, mouth opened in a silent cry as I flatten my tongue to her clit, letting her ride against me.
When I rise on my knees, swiping my wrist over my mouth, she’s still trembling, and all I know to do is drop down beside her, dragging her into my chest. I don’t ask if I can stay, and she doesn’t tell me to leave—even though she knows I would.
She just murmurs three little words against my neck. They’re words I’ve been aching to hear since the first night I saw her. Words that leave me feeling hollowed out and filled back up. Words that carve themselves into my skin just as deeply as her initial in my chest.
“Sleep with me.”
I clutch her to me, nosing into her hair, because I don’t need the brush of her hand against the front of my pants to understand what she’s asking.
What she’s giving.
“Always.”
Despite the fact I’ve been waiting for this for months, long mornings spent in the shower with my hand flying over my dick as I imagined it, I somehow fall asleep, too.