Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
Bell stared at me for a long moment, as if he were weighing a million decisions, calculating the risks and the rewards with each heartbeat. “Are we really doing this, E?” he eventually whispered, the question hanging in the air between us.
“Please,” I begged, the single syllable carrying the weight of years of denial and need.
He let out a low sound—not quite a moan, not quite a sigh—and crawled back onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight as he covered me with his body.
He pressed our foreheads together, his breath mingling with mine. “You’re going to wreck me, aren’t you?” The words ghosted across my lips, half-question, half-prophecy.
I huffed out a broken laugh. “You? I’m already wrecked.” My hands trembled as they found purchase on his shoulders, fingers digging into muscle.
Bell’s lips tipped to the side in a smirk, a flash of the cocky young man I’d first met breaking through the intensity of the moment. “And to think, I’m just getting started.” He sat back and tore the lube open and slicked his fingers before reaching down to touch me where I was still wet and aching from his tongue.
His fingers circled my hole, teasing me with slow, shallow touches that made my hips jerk helplessly against his hand, my body betraying my desperation. The sheets beneath me were damp with sweat, twisting under my restless movements.
“Relax, baby,” he murmured, his voice sweet and so fucking patient, a stark contrast to the hunger I could see burning in his eyes. “Let me in.”
I wanted to. God, I wanted to.
The need for him to be inside me was a physical ache, a hollow emptiness I needed him to fill.
But relaxing wasn’t something I knew how to do.
Not when every muscle in my body was locked up tight and desperate for him to just take me already.
I didn’t want soft or gentle or loving. I wanted him to fuck me. To pound into me until I couldn’t remember my own name, until I couldn’t remember all the reasons I’d spent years denying myself this.
But to do that, he had to get inside me first.
“You’re too tense,” Bell said, his voice gentle but firm as his finger continued to circle my entrance without pushing in. “Take a deep breath for me.”
I did as he asked, filling my lungs.
“Now, when you exhale, I want you to bear down a little, like you’re pushing against my finger. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but trust me.”
I shot him a skeptical look, but he just nodded encouragingly. “It works. I promise.”
I blew out a long breath, my ribs expanding and contracting with the effort. I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the sight of him watching me with such careful attention, and bore down as I exhaled.
The broad tip of his finger slid into me with almost no resistance. The intrusion burned slightly, but the discomfort was quickly overtaken by a wave of pleasure that made me gasp as my nerve endings lit up like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
“That’s it,” he crooned, his free hand stroking my thigh, gentling me. “Look at you taking my finger so good. See? Your body knows what it wants, even if your mind’s fighting it.”
He worked me open with relentless care, sinking one finger deep and crooking it just right until I saw stars behind my eyelids. The pressure sent lightning up my spine, making my toes curl and my back arch off the mattress. I cried out, the sound bouncing off the hotel room walls.
He added a second finger, twisting them together to stretch me open. The burn intensified, a delicious counterpoint to the pleasure radiating through me.
I sobbed his name, shamelessly grinding down onto his hand. The headboard knocked against the wall with each frantic rock of my hips.
“You’re so fucking tight,” he rasped, his voice strained with restraint. “So hot. Fuck, Ethan.”
I blinked up at him through wet lashes, tears blurring my vision, and the look on his face almost broke me apart all over again.
His pupils had swallowed the blue of his eyes, leaving only a thin ring of color. His lips were parted, kiss-swollen and red. He looked like he was barely hanging on by a thread.
And still, he took his time, scissoring his fingers inside me, fucking me open until I was a shaking mess, moaning and pleading with every breath I took.
Time seemed to stretch and condense, minutes becoming hours becoming seconds.
“Bell, please,” I gasped, my voice barely recognizable to my own ears, broken and raw. My hands fisted in the sheets. “Need you, need your cock.”
“You think you’re ready for me?” he growled, biting down on the back of my thigh.
“Fuck. Yes, please. Now,” I babbled, rocking my hips frantically, chasing the fullness only he could give me.
When he slipped his fingers free, I hated the sudden emptiness, my hole clenching around nothing.
Bell slicked his dick with quick movements, his hand trembling slightly, betraying the effort it took for him to maintain control.
“Last chance to back out,” he warned.
“Don’t you dare fucking stop.” I hooked my legs around his hips, my heels digging into the small of his back to urge him forward.
He groaned, the sound rumbling from deep in his chest, as he pushed inside, slow and careful. The initial breach sent a shock through me—a burning, stretching, fullness beyond anything I’d imagined.
My breath caught in my throat, my body suspended between pain and pleasure.
My hands flew up to clutch at his shoulders, my nails digging half-moons into his skin as he entered me inch by devastating inch. Sweat beaded along my hairline and my chest, slicking the places where our bodies touched.
“Fuck, E.” His forehead dropped to rest against mine, his entire body trembling with the effort of restraint. His breath came in short, hot puffs against my face, his arms shaking on either side of me.
I panted against his mouth, reeling from the stretch and the burn, my body struggling to accommodate him, to accept him, my muscles clenching against the intrusion. But then, seemingly all at once, I yielded to him in ways I’d never yielded to anything or anyone.
“Move, now,” I begged, my hands sliding to his neck, fingers threading through the damp hair at his nape. “Please, fuck me. Now.”
He kissed me, all tongue and teeth and desperation, and then he started to move, drawing back until just the head of his dick remained inside me before driving forward again. Long, deep strokes that made me sob into his mouth, made my fingers scrabble helplessly against his back.
The mattress springs creaked beneath us, the sound mixing with our gasps and moans. The scent of sex and sweat filled the air, primal and intoxicating. With every thrust, pleasure built at the base of my spine, spreading outward like wildfire.
“That’s it,” he whispered, his voice rough with exertion, his hips picking up speed. His hands gripped my thighs, pushing them wider, changing the angle to hit deeper. “You’re doing so fucking good, baby.”
His words of praise washed over me, seeping into empty places inside of me I didn’t know existed before now. I could feel myself unraveling with every word, every thrust, my whole body lighting up like a live wire.
Bell buried his face in my neck and fucked me harder, faster, deeper. His hips snapped against mine with bruising force, his dick hitting what I assumed was my prostate and causing stars to burst in my vision.
“Oh Fuck. Shit. Fuck, I’m coming,” I cried out, the words barely coherent as my dick spurted between us, painting my chest with hot stripes of cum.
Bell groaned, his thrusts turning savage. The slap of skin against skin filled the room as his rhythm faltered, his body tensing above me.
“Where—fuck—where do you want it?”
“Inside,” I gasped, clenching around him deliberately. My hands slid down his sweat-slick back to grip his ass, urging him deeper. “Fill me up.”
He let loose a string of profanity that would make a sailor blush and thrust deep one last time. His body went rigid above me, his muscles locking as he came with a roar, his dick pulsing and throbbing as he marked me from the inside.
I shuddered, squeezing around him greedily, milking every last drop of his release as aftershocks rippled through me.
When he collapsed on top of me a few seconds later, boneless and trembling, I wrapped my arms around him, clinging to him like I could keep him there forever. His heart hammered against mine, our pulses gradually slowing in tandem.
My eyes fell closed, and through the haze of euphoria, I knew one thing for certain: I’d caught feelings.
Big fucking feelings.
I’d never felt like more of a cliché.
Bell pulled out slowly, gently, like he couldn’t bear to hurt me even a little. The sensation made me wince, oversensitive nerves firing wildly. His cum leaked out of me, hot and messy between my cheeks, trailing down toward the sheets.
I blinked my eyes open when I felt him kneeling between my legs, the mattress dipping with his movement. He gripped my thighs and pushed them open, holding me wide, my hole completely exposed to his inspection.
I tried to squirm away, heat flooding my face, but he pressed my legs harder into my chest. “Don’t you fucking move,” he growled. “I want to see it.”
“What the fuck?” I asked, not sure I’d heard him correctly.
“Fuck, Ethan,” Bell whispered almost reverently. “Look at your pretty hole.” His gaze dragged over every raw, ruined inch of me as tangible as a caress.
And even though a part of me wanted to hide from his inspection, another part—dark and needy and newly awake—wanted him to look. To see what he’d done to me. To get off on it. The contradiction confused me.
I hadn’t known I could be turned on by something like this. I’d spent so long being ashamed of everything I thought I wanted that I hadn’t ever let myself learn what that actually was. Hadn’t let myself imagine anything more than quick, furtive fucks with my eyes closed the entire time, guilt waiting on the other side.
Bell dragged two fingers through the mess leaking out of me. My body jolted, and I choked on a sob as he slid those fingers back inside, fucking his cum into me with slow, shallow thrusts. The stretch burned slightly, my body tender and used, but the discomfort only heightened the pleasure, sharpened it.
“That’s it,” he murmured, thrusting with sinful care. “So fucking greedy for it.”
A broken sound tore out of me, half-humiliated, half-wild with how badly his filthy praise turned me on. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. Didn’t know how I could feel so filthy, so debased, and still feel safe.
“Do you trust me?” His fingers stilled inside me, waiting for my answer. His tongue flicked out to wet his bottom lip, leaving it glistening in the dim light.
Did I trust him, this man who in just shy of a month had seemingly brought me back to life?
“Yeah,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I trust you.”
Someone else might find the idea preposterous, but Bell and I were connected in a way a lot of people couldn’t understand. We had learned to read each other’s bodies on the ice, predict one another’s movements, and know what was going through our heads in any given moment. We relied on each other for our success, we suffered together in defeat. I’d given him my body, taken parts of his in return.
If that wasn’t trust, I didn’t know what was.
“Good,” he hummed, raising his eyes up to meet mine as he dropped onto his stomach, licking a broad stripe over my cum-filled hole.
I cried out, jerking against his hold, but his hands pinned me in place, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh of my inner thighs. He moaned against me, like he was savoring the taste of himself mixed with me.
Then his tongue began fucking into into me, slow and filthy, each shallow breach sending sparks shooting up my spine.
“Bell, fuck, fuck, I …” I sputtered, words failing me as my vocabulary was reduced to his name and broken pleas.
He sucked on my hole until I was shaking and felt on the verge of another orgasm, though I didn’t think I had anything left to give, only sliding away once I’d been reduced to nothing but a mess of whimpering flesh, his chin wet and glistening. He cupped my jaw, his thumb tugging gently on my lower lip, prompting me to open. When I did, he kissed me, deep and thorough, messily feeding his cum into my mouth.
A small, judgmental voice at the back of my head told me I should find this revolting, but I didn’t. I wanted this. Wanted everything Bell gave me. I sucked on his tongue, greedy for all of it. My need was visceral and overwhelming. The taste of us mingling together, —salt and musk and earthiness—flooded my senses, blending into something I felt deep in my bones.
When he finally pulled back, he wiped his mouth and kissed my forehead, my cheeks, and the tip of my nose, murmuring soft, broken words that sounded like beautiful , perfect , and mine.
Every inch of my body felt tender and well-used, muscles aching in places I hadn’t known could ache. But beneath the physical exhaustion was something else, something I wasn’t ready to name but couldn’t deny.
“You did so fucking good,” he murmured, brushing sweaty hair back from my forehead with such tenderness it made my throat tight. His eyes were soft now, the hunger replaced by something that looked dangerously like affection.
I clung to him, too shattered to say anything, too overwhelmed to even think. My body trembled with aftershocks, small tremors running through me at irregular intervals.
“C’mon,” he whispered eventually, pressing one last kiss to my temple. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I made a noise of protest when he shifted away, but he just chuckled quietly, cupping my cheek for a second before sliding off the bed.
I let him coax me upright, the room spinning briefly. My legs shook so badly that Bell had to steady me with an arm around my waist, his palm splayed against my ribs. The short walk into the bathroom felt like a marathon, each step sending little aftershocks of pleasure-pain through my oversensitive body.
Bell started the shower, steam quickly filling the small space and fogging the mirror until our reflections blurred into indistinct shapes.
I let him hold me under the spray, the hot water cascading over my shoulders, down my back, between my legs. I winced slightly at the sting against the sensitive, used parts of me, but the warmth soon eased the discomfort. He soaped me up with gentle touches, creating a thin lather that slid down my chest, my stomach, my shins.
When he rinsed me off, his hands followed the paths of water sluicing down my body, ensuring every trace of soap was gone. Nobody had ever touched me like this—like I was something worthy of taking care of.
I leaned back against him, my body sagging in relief.
“I’ve got you,” he said, holding me up when my knees threatened to buckle under the weight of everything I was feeling.
I’ve got you.
Those three words cracked something open inside me, a dam holding back emotions I’d kept contained for years. I didn’t cry—not this time—but I felt the pressure behind my eyes, the tightness in my throat that warned me tears weren’t far off.
No one had ever had me, not like this.
When the water started to cool, tepid then chilly against my skin, Bell finally nudged me out of the stall.
“Here,” he said, grabbing a towel from the rack and shaking it open.
I stepped into it and he began rubbing me down, his movements efficient but gentle. He dried between my fingers, behind my ears, in all the places people—myself included—usually forget. When I was mostly dry, he wrapped the towel around my waist and patted my hip bone.
“You should sit,” he murmured, guiding me toward the toilet. “You look like you might fall over.”
I sat on the closed lid while he dried himself off, the porcelain cold through the terry cloth. I watched him through half-lidded eyes, feeling dazed and weirdly shy.
He moved with unconscious grace, the muscles in his back flexing as he dried his hair.
“That was … umm …” I trailed off, at a loss for words that could encompass what had just happened between us.
“Too much?” he asked, a flicker of concern passing over his features.
I shook my head so hard the bathroom spun briefly around me. “No. Not too much. Just …” My sentence hung unfinished as I struggled to find the right words to describe the seismic shift I’d just experienced. “Intense,” I finally settled on, the word seeming woefully inadequate. “It was really fucking intense.”
Bell’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile as he crouched in front of me, resting his forearms on my thighs and bringing his face level with mine. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It was pretty intense.”
His thumbs stroked circles against my knees. “You okay, though?” he asked, his voice serious, eyes searching mine for any hint of regret or discomfort.
I nodded, the movement jerky. “I think so. I just …” I ducked my head, unable to hold his gaze, feeling my cheeks burn with renewed heat. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”
He tipped my chin up with the fingers he’d used to fuck his cum back into me, the memory making my stomach clench with renewed desire despite my exhaustion. He made me look at him, his eyes soft but insistent, refusing to let me hide. “There’s nothing wrong with liking it like that, Ethan. Nothing wrong with wanting it.”
His voice was so fucking gentle and filled with a tenderness, I hadn’t ever known I needed.
The truth was, before Bell, sex had never been what I’d hoped it would be. Quick, mechanical fucks in darkened rooms, too afraid of discovery to actually enjoy the moment hardly seemed worth the effort. Get in, get off, get out. No lingering touches. No talking. Certainly no intimacy, not like this.
I’d heard other people talk about sex like it was something they’d die without, but that had never been me. And I’d started to think that maybe I just wasn’t built for it the way others seemed to be. I’d watch porn, but nothing ever really clicked. Some things turned me on in theory, but when I watched those clips, my body and mind somehow detached from one another, I found myself wondering why.
But the things that Bell and I had just done? The things he’d done to me? It’d opened my eyes about what I actually wanted. We’d been filthy and raw, and to someone with barely any experience, so fucking kinky, but it’d also been tender in ways I hadn’t known to crave. The way Bell had taken control while simultaneously making me feel safe. The way he’d pushed me past shame into something purer. The way he’d cared for me after, like I was something to be cherished. It was as if he’d unlocked a door I hadn’t known existed, revealing parts of myself I’d never had the courage to explore. Wouldn’t have ever explored, probably, without his guidance.
Maybe this was what I had needed all this time—sex that was both dirty and sweet.
“I did like it,” I whispered, the confession barely audible over the hum of the bathroom fan.
Something unclenched inside me at the admission, a tightness I’d carried for so long I’d almost forgotten it was there.
“Good,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling and the tension around his mouth easing until it curved into a shy smile. “Because that was the hottest thing I’ve ever done, and I can’t wait to do it again.”
I let out a breathless laugh. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a bossy bastard in bed? ” I asked, trying to sound light and teasing without revealing just how much I craved it, how his commands had lit me up from the inside.
Bell just grinned wider, completely unrepentant. His hand squeezed my knee gently. “It’s okay. You can tell me later how much you loved it.”
I flushed even harder, the heat spreading down my chest, but I couldn’t argue—because he was right.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice filling the small room.
I nodded, suddenly conscious of my nakedness beneath the thin, scratchy towel and how vulnerable this moment was now that the passion had ebbed.
Bell reached out his hand to me, palm up in invitation, his fingers slightly curled. Such a simple gesture, yet it felt monumental—like he was asking for a connection that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with comfort.
After only a moment of hesitation, I placed my hand in his.
He gave it a gentle squeeze, tugging me toward the door. “Come on,” he said softly, his eyes holding mine. “Let’s get some sleep.”
When we stepped out of the bathroom, the reality of what we’d done crashed back in. The room was a wreck. My bedsheets were twisted and damp, thrown half onto the floor in our frenzy, and the unmistakable scent of sex hung heavy in the air, deep and musky.
As I stood there staring out at the mess, another new realization washed over me.
I didn’t want to sleep alone. Not after the way Bell had torn me down and put me back together again. I didn’t think I could bear it.
I turned to him, my heart hammering and my mouth as dry as Texas dirt in July. “I know this is just fucking,” I said, my voice cracking slightly on that last word and betraying my nervousness. “But um … can you sleep with me tonight?”
The question hung in the air between us, fragile and terrifying. I held my breath, waiting for rejection, for him to remind me of our agreement.
But then his face went soft, something unguarded and genuine crossing his features. The sight of it was a sweetness that hurt worse than any pain.
He didn’t say anything. Just dropped his towel and strolled over to the clean bed, peeled the covers back, and climbed in. “Come on, then,” he said, holding them up so I could settle in beside him.
I practically dove in after him, abandoning my towel on the floor next to his. I pressed my back to his chest, his warmth enveloping me.
He tucked the blanket around us and pulled me in tight, his arm a welcome weight across my waist. His hand found mine, fingers lacing together in a gesture that felt more intimate than anything we’d done before.
“Get some sleep,” he murmured against my hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My eyes drifted closed, heavy with exhaustion and emotion. The last thing I felt before sleep claimed me was the steady beat of his heart against my back, strong and sure and real.