Chapter 50
Iwas still straddling him, the heat of his body a furnace beneath me, my limbs gone syrupy and light.
His mouth was on my breast again — not hungrily this time, not teasing — just soft, reverent kisses like he could memorize me through his lips. “God, you’re perfect,” he murmured. “You don’t even know what you do to me.”
I didn’t have the strength to answer. I just held him, burying my face in his hair as the aftershocks ebbed. My thighs were shaking. My chest was damp with sweat. I felt used up in the best way, the kind of tired that came with being wanted. Worshipped.
He shifted, brushing his hand along my spine.
“Stay still, baby. Let me—” He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure I’d let him finish. “Let me take care of you.”
I blinked down at him.
“What?”
“You’re a mess,” he said softly, but it wasn’t teasing. His eyes tracked every inch of me, so warm it made my throat catch. “Let me clean you up.”
I froze. Not because I didn’t want it, but because no one had ever offered before. Not once.
I’d always cleaned myself. Pulled my clothes back on in silence. Sat in the bathroom, waiting for my legs to stop shaking while whoever-it-was scrolled on their phone or rolled over to sleep.
While my husband passed out, alone.
But Ansel was already wrapping his arms around me, holding me as he stood — stood — like carrying me wasn’t even hard. He set me down gently on the couch like I were breakable. Like I was worth being careful with.
“I’ll be right back,” he whispered, brushing the hair from my face. “Don’t move.”
I could only nod.
A minute passed. Then another. I sat there, half-naked and dazed, my thighs still slick with the mess we made, my chest still flushed from where he’d had his mouth.
And then he came back. A warm, damp cloth in his hand. A clean towel draped over his shoulder.
He knelt between my legs, lifting my hips with one hand, and shimmying my — his — boxers off with the other.
I instinctively went to cover myself, but he just looked up at me — steady and soft, like this wasn’t something shameful. “Let me,” he said again.
So… I let him.
He was quiet as he touched me. Gentle. He cleaned me with slow, patient strokes, careful not to press where I was sore. I couldn’t look away. His brow furrowed like he was focused on the most important thing in the world.
It was too much. I had to laugh. “Jesus, Ansel.”
“What?” His voice was amused, but he didn’t stop.
“You’re so ridiculous.”
He glanced up. “Ridiculously in love with your pussy, yeah. So sue me.”
I laughed again, breathless and aching. “You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do,” he said, cutting me off with terrifying certainty. “You deserve this. You deserve to be taken care of.”
I felt the words like a punch to the chest.
“I don’t even know what to say to that,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “Just remember this next time you think about settling for anyone less.”
How could there be anyone else?
He handed me the towel, pressing a kiss to my knee. “You want water? Food? New underwear?”
My throat went tight again. “You trying to marry me, or…?”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said. And I didn’t know if he meant it as a joke — but his smile was too soft, too real, for me to laugh.
I pulled the towel over my chest, suddenly shy.
And Ansel leaned forward, resting his forehead against my bare thigh.
“You wrecked me,” he whispered. “And I’d still do it again tomorrow. Slower. Better. Until you never forget how good this gets to be.”
The house was quiet.
Not the awkward kind of quiet — not the kind that filled the space after bad sex or regret. This was a full silence, like something sacred had happened, and now the world was letting me breathe through it.
He scooped me up like I was weightless, curling me against his chest, my head nestled under his chin. I didn’t ask where we were going — I knew. “Arms around my neck, pretty.” He murmured against my hair.
I obeyed without a thought. I… don’t know how he managed, but he kept one arm under my legs, and used his other to turn down the comforter on the bed. Warmth licked down my spine thinking of the sheer strength it must take.
“Be right back.” His breath washed over me, warm and inviting, as he wrapped me up in the blankets.
I curled under the covers, fresh towel-warmed shirt clinging to my skin. His shirt. It smelled like cedarwood and worn-in denim, like the curve of his neck when I’d tucked my face into it just an hour ago.
My body still hummed.
I hadn’t come down yet. Not really. There was a new softness in my bones, like being cared for had somehow rewired me in places I didn’t know were broken.
No one had ever done that. No one had ever…
I blinked up at the ceiling, throat tightening.
It wasn’t just the orgasm — though, Jesus Christ, that had been enough to put me in a different stratosphere.
It was everything after. The way he’d carried me.
Washed me. Dried my thighs like I was something fragile, something precious.
That I was allowed to be something worthy of gentleness. Not even my ex-husband had ever —
And he hadn’t even asked for anything in return.
Hell, I’d teased him — about not coming, about how he’d already lost control once — and he’d just grinned, tucked me into bed like I was something worth savoring, not conquering.
My thighs squeezed together on instinct. My body remembered him — the press of his lips, the way he’d mouthed my breast like it could anchor him to earth, the way he’d shaken trying not to come when I’d rolled my hips —
“Fuck,” I whispered into the empty room.
Sometime later, the door creaked.
I didn’t move.
There was no need to.
His footsteps were soft, but sure — the slow, grounded rhythm of a man who wasn’t rushing anything. Who knew exactly where he was going. Like he’d already decided he’d be ending this day with me in his arms.
A drawer opened. Water poured from the tap.
He was still taking care of me.
Something sharp and practically unnamable curled in my chest. A burning that I didn’t want to name. Not yet.
When the mattress dipped beside me, my body reacted before I did — rolling into the pull of him like a tide. Like my bones remembered the way they were supposed to rest.
“Hey,” he whispered, brushing hair from my cheek.
I didn’t answer. Just blinked at him. Because the way he looked at me…
That stupid, irredeemable man.
He looked like I’d wrecked him. Like he was grinning through it.
And then his hand smoothed along the curve of my hip, slow and reverent, as if it was a privilege just to touch me. His gaze swept over me like I were some miracle he hadn’t quite earned yet. Like he was afraid to blink and miss it. “You alright?” he murmured, voice low and warm.
My throat worked. “Yeah.”
“You need anything?”
“Just you.”
The words slipped out.
Simple. Honest. And only moderately terrifying.
His smile deepened. Not smug. Not cocky. It was warm. Grateful. Wrecked. “I’m here,” he said. And then he was.
He shifted under the covers, one arm going beneath my neck, the other curling firmly around my waist — anchoring me. Like this was home.
He buried his nose in my hair, exhaled.
We didn’t speak.
His palm dragged up and down my spine, lazy and slow, like he could memorize me with touch alone. Like he had all day. Like there was nothing in the world more important than this moment, this skin, this quiet.
I blinked hard. I couldn’t say what I was thinking — not yet. But I held onto him like I meant it. Let myself sink against his chest. Let my cheek rest over his heart.
It was steady.
So steady.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
I felt it in my knees. My ribs. My whole fucking body.
No one had ever held me like this before.
And God, I didn’t know how to survive it.