“Nope,” another jerk of her chin.
I grip the back of my neck. “You want what? A declaration or something?”
“No. I just wanted you, and you’ve made it a lot less appealing now.”
Fuck me.
“I told you that I would take whatever you could give me, and I meant it, so give me something, Dom.”
I search myself frantically because I know she means it.
“French bulldog,” I blurt, and she jerks back in confusion.
“What?”
“That’s the dog you should get,” I say.
She crosses her arms. “I’m listening.”
“They’re companion dogs with good temperament—easy going, alert, sociable, patient, smart. They’re so ugly that they’re cute. It’s the dog Sean should have gotten, but he got an idiot instead.”
She bites her top lip to stifle a smile.
“I won’t ever talk to you like that again, Cecelia. I mean it.”
“Yes, you will,” she counters. “You can’t promise that. So, don’t. Being with you is like being in a constant state between venom bite and cure. But with you, it’s just another weekday, and I can handle that as long as you’re honest with me . . . at least about us.” She steps toward me and delivers her next words point-blank. “But I wouldn’t suggest ever talking to me like that again.”
“Did you just threaten me?” I can’t help my smile.
“Yes.” She deadpans.
Lifting a hand, I run my thumb along her jaw before brushing the divot in her chin. Her eyes penetrate, and her words soothe the ache. “But you are worth it for me, Dom.”
My shoulders relax slightly as I circle her waist, my heart still pounding with the truth—there was never really a fucking decision. There was only giving into the one I’d already made. “I plan to make this apology much better.”
“Well, you haven’t set a high bar for yourself,” she harrumphs.
“That changes the minute you get back on your side of the bed.”
There’s indescribable freedom in falling.
“Dom,” Cecelia moans, her perfect lips parting as I pin her wrists with one hand and pull out partway to deny her orgasm—killing her protest with my tongue by thrusting it into her mouth. She sucks it with abandon, spurring me on.
When I’ve pulled back enough to keep her edged, I burrow back in, rolling my hips, rubbing the ridge of my cock against her clit. Her orgasm rolls through her within a few thrusts, her release vibrating on my tongue as she tightens around me. Gripping her hips, I pull her to straddle me in the middle of my bed. Mattress clear aside from the two of us, sheets and pillows strewn, I thrust up, impaling her, and she cries out my name. When she attempts to move, I still her, commanding her eyes by gripping her jaw, demanding the acknowledgment that I’m the one giving her this pleasure—that this connection is with me.
She gently rocks against me as she stares back at me.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I whisper, as her eyes search mine in an attempt to find deeper meaning in my words—meaning that’s there—that she knows I feel but refuse to put a voice to.
When she again tries to move, I keep an iron grip on her. I won’t be the man who makes promises I can’t keep, but I’ll be dammed if I don’t make it clear that in this room, this bed, it’s all us and what we create when we’re together.
We both know it and have known it since this started. It runs so much fucking deeper than physical. For me, it’s a place of bliss, peace. A place I both liberate and find more of myself that I know is only for her. Holding her in muted intimacy is the only way I can effectively relay to her without words that I feel it, too. I’m not going to let her miss a second of the truth, even if it remains unspoken.
“Let me move,” she pleas, pressing kisses along my jaw. My cock pulses as she attempts to gain the friction we both want—her need throbbing around me as my body thrums with hers. Heart pounding, I hold out as long as I can, for as long as possible, because it’s with her that I feel the most alive. I’m so close to coming, just from seeing her staring back at me, explosions detonating in my chest as everything I feel attempts to break free.
“I need you,” she murmurs, raking her nails down my sweat-slicked back.
We’ve been fucking for hours. I’ve felt nothing but frantic during that time, the compulsion to keep her with me becoming more finite with each release. The panic due to the notion that if I allow her a single inch of space, she’ll discover the reason for my urgency, and I won’t ever get this feeling back.
“Dom,” she whispers as she reads my fear in my refusal to release her, “you can tell me anything.”
Fisting her hair and pulling her neck back with my grip, I whisper the truth at the base of her throat. “I am.”
And I am.
Telling her what I can.
Showing her how being with her revives me and that every day we’re together, she brings me back from the brink, collecting pieces of humanity and empathy I felt I lost.
That she alone is the pinprick of light that brings me back when I get lost in the dark.
That she’s the only being alive that has ever been able to make me feel so much at once.
That we’re told to love our enemy, and I’m faithfully obeying.
Fear and lust war as I claim possession of her physically, but even as I take her body, she continues to steal and own pieces of me I ignored I possessed.
Before her.
Before this bliss.
Hellbent on making us both suffer for perfection I have no right to have with her, I take her mouth, and with just a kiss and one deep thrust, we both come.
Collapsing at the head of the mattress, we lay in a sweaty heap, face to face, stroking the other’s skin, eyes locked. Even with my barrier of silence, we feel solidified—like a drop of black ink tainting the surrounding water, creating our own cloud. But it’s within it where we’re most comfortable. Where we can maintain this perpetual state until we inevitably end, by way of me, my brother, or however this plays out because I can’t protect her from either of us. I can only prepare her. But looking at her now, I can’t remember why I’m not allowed to love her. I can’t think of a single fucking reason why I shouldn’t have her or silence the words.
She’s not her father.
I’m not my brother.
All these things make sense here, under the cover of the storm roaring outside—a cover we created that keeps us safe and hidden away.
It’s just us. And it’s here I can be myself with her, and I don’t want to hide it anymore or from anyone—which is not only detrimentally fucking foolish, but impossible. Which brings me back to the only conclusion I can draw.
This is love, and I’m dangerously consumed by it.
Not a question I have to ask myself as the truth of that is beating steadily in my chest. Staring into her eyes as we share breath, I’m filled with the conviction that I’m looking back at my twin flame. Attracted to her in a way I can’t escape. Even when I’m inside her, the need increases tenfold—especially then—I can’t get close enough. I can’t keep my hands off her or my thoughts from straying toward her constantly when we aren’t together.