26. Ciel #2
“None of you have even tried to touch me since I got back. Well, there have been kisses and cuddles. But anything more than that, and you all seem to shut down and pull away. I understand you’re probably nervous about upsetting me or hurting me…
but I see the way you look at my bruises.
I see the way you flinch at my scar. I know I don’t look the same, and.
..” She trailed off, voice wobbling. Then she cleared her throat and swiveled in the chair to face me.
“I know you’ll tell me the truth when no one else will, so I’m asking you. Is there a reason?”
We’d fucked up. Again.
In the bathroom, and over the last three weeks, I’d been worried about triggering something for her. But we’d made her think we didn’t want her. And now she thought she was less sexy? Less incredible? Less brilliant?
She was Leona .
She was everything.
And we’d made her feel like nothing. Like she wasn’t the singular star in our darkness.
“Get up.”
She frowned, but stood. “Ciel?—”
“Come here.”
When she walked close enough, I clasped her arm and pulled her onto my lap.
She straddled me in the computer chair. I threaded my hands through her hair and brought her lips to mine.
Her mouth was hot as I licked its seam, practically begging her to open for me.
She did with a whimper, and I didn’t hesitate to show her how desperately I had wanted to kiss her for weeks.
How not touching her had felt like being a plant without water. How I could never get enough of her.
“ ángel .” I grabbed her hips and dragged her core over my hard on. “Does that feel like I don’t want you?”
She ground down on me with a whispered, “ No. ”
“That’s right. I want you in my bed. I want you by my side. I want you always .”
“Ciel,” she murmured against my lips. “I missed you all so much. I feel like I’m still missing you.” She pulled back to look at me. “I appreciate how careful you all have been. I don’t know if I’m ready for sex yet, but I…I need to feel needed . Please don’t shut me down.”
“Never,” I replied, sealing my lips to hers again. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “This is…I don’t know what to do either. I just know I can’t bear the thought of none of you wanting me anymore. We were just finding ourselves as a group. I don’t want what happened to change anything.”
“It’s not okay.” I ran my fingers under her shirt where it touched her waist. She sighed, linking her arms over my shoulders. “Let me make it up to you. Let me show you how I feel.”
“ Please .”
I pressed kisses to the column of her neck, relishing the sharp intake of her breath and the flutters of her throat.
My computer chair creaked while she rocked her hips against me, her fingers digging into my shoulders for purchase.
I didn’t need to be inside her to come all over the inside of my boxers, and I would if she kept moving like that, but this was about her.
This was about proving to her that there was nothing she could do that would make me love her, want her, less.
Love .
My mouth opened on its own, ready to spill my heart before her. But I hesitated. What if she didn’t feel the same way? What if it just put even more pressure on her, and she wasn’t ready?
Yet as my hands warmed against her bare skin, feeling her real and alive in my lap, I realized how fleeting all of this could be. And I wouldn’t spend another second without her knowing how I felt about her.
“I love you, Leona,” I whispered. It was my prayer, my devotion. I pressed my cheek to hers. “Nothing you can ever say or do will change the way I feel about you, and what you’ve done for my life. I see you, and I love you.”
Her eyes welled with tears. She cupped my cheeks and rubbed her thumbs across my jaw .
“It’s okay,” I said, filling the space between us. “You don’t have to say it back, now or ever. You just deserve to know.”
She shook her head, a smile breaking over her face. “I love you, too, Ciel. You have no idea what you mean to me. The place you hold in my heart. You’re my perfect partner in crime.”
My chest filled with hot air at her words.
I’d never imagined finding a partner in this life, let alone one like her.
My arms banded around her back, and I picked her up to switch our positions so she sat in the chair, and I kneeled between her legs.
I used the chair’s lever to adjust it back until she could comfortably recline.
Her eyes shone in the light of my computer screens. Her body flushed while she watched me with careful desire.
“No sex,” I said as my hands wandered down her stomach to the waistband of her leggings. “Not until you’re ready. No rushing. But you have to tell me what the boundaries are.”
She nodded, even as her eyes looked nervous. “I’m fine. It’s okay.”
My fingers gently pulled down her leggings, hitching them under her ass and down the length of her legs. I kept a careful watch on her face for any sign I should stop.
“Good?”
She nodded, so I went further. I pressed my face to the skin of her thighs. Her legs widened for me, a soft moan escaping her lips as my breath gusted over her panties.
“Tell me if it’s too much. Tell me what you need.” I pressed a kiss on the inside of her thigh. Her breath hitched, and she hooked one leg over my shoulder and the other over the chair’s armrest. “You’re safe with me. I would never want to hurt you.”
“I know.” Her eyes fluttered closed.
I pressed a kiss higher, my nose rubbing against the damp spot on her panties. It set off a bomb inside me. I needed to taste her so badly.
“Leona, look at me,” I said. Her eyes opened, and she watched as I flattened my tongue and drug it up the front of her underwear. “Can I taste you?”
My mouth watered at the memory of her, me, and Wynn in the library. I’d already realized that I wanted Wynn just as much as her, but I didn’t know if he’d ever feel the same. For now, I just wanted her to feel the way she felt then: wild, free, and worshipped.
“Yes,” she whispered.
I groaned, my cock digging into the seam of my jeans. We both needed this so badly. In an instant, she was bare. Glistening. Wet. Ready. I went slow at first, soft licks, giving her space to change her mind. My tongue dragged over her entrance while her hands gripped the armrests.
“Ciel,” she gasped. “ Please .”
Begging. My girl was begging for my tongue. Fuck . What else could I do but give her everything she asked?
I descended on her, working her slowly at first, giving her body time to relax and open. Her legs widened with my every movement so I had all the space I needed to pleasure her.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I murmured against her pussy. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I could kneel here for hours and never be satisfied.”
She gasped as I circled her clit and my hands clamped around her thighs. “ Oh .”
“Take what you need, baby girl,” I encouraged. Her hips moved against face. I followed every shift of her body with my mouth, listening to her perfect little whimpers and moans.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling me harder against her. I plunged my tongue inside her while I rubbed tight, controlled circles around her clit.
“Ciel, shit ,” she moaned. “Ciel, oh my God.”
Her breaths came harder, faster, the more she let loose. “Pinch your nipples, baby. Show me how beautiful they are.”
She pulled down the neckline of her shirt, reaching inside her bra and rolling her nipples between her fingers. I groaned against her pussy, and her breath hitched at the vibrations.
“Ciel, don’t stop. Don’t stop, I’m so close.”
I sucked her clit, and she moaned heavily.
Her leg clamped around my shoulder, holding me against her pussy.
She gasped, whining as her pleasure peaked, and I devoured her through the cresting waves.
I almost came in my boxers at the sight of her face alone.
Her head thrown back. Her eyes closed, scrunched together. Her mouth open and breaths hard.
“You were amazing for me, ángel. So perfect.”
“You’re incredible, Ciel. I’m boneless,” she said with a soft laugh. Her body, which had been taut, was now melting in my chair. I scooped her up, planting her in my lap, as I kissed her temples. “Thank you, Ciel.”
“Mmm.” I tipped her chin up to fuse our lips. “I see you, and I love you.”
“Love you,” she murmured, lids heavy and voice drowsy. If Ryuji hadn’t stolen my mattress, I would have carried her to it so she could take a nap. For now, she could rest in my arms as long as she wanted.
Movement caught the corner of my eye. My door was slightly ajar. Wynn stood in the doorway, watching. My heart leapt, my cock twitching in my pants as my mouth watered even more.
I already knew Leona’s taste. What would his cum be like on my tongue?
Leona caught me looking and smiled when she saw him. She reached out a hand, just like she’d done to him that night in the library. “Wynn.”
Except this time, he didn’t move. He didn’t thunder forward to take her lips in the hottest kiss I’d ever seen. His eyebrows furrowed before he whispered, “I can’t.”
He backed out of the room and closed the door.
Shit. My arms tightened around her.
“It’s him, not you,” I assured her. “Give him time. ”
They’d been working out together, but he’d been distant from even her. I wasn’t sure they’d even spoken together alone except to conspire against my need to keep them both safe.
She didn’t answer. She just pulled me to her lips and kissed me tenderly.
“Nap?” I asked, smoothing the hair from her face. “You should rest.”
“No,” she answered. “There’s work to be done.”