Chapter 23 #2
When we returned to the house, we went out to the deck with a pile of blankets and pillows for the double lounger. Axel looped a finger into my belt loop and pulled me back to his chest. “Dance with me,” he whispered into my ear.
My face heated with embarrassment. It was one more thing I didn’t know how to do. “I don’t know how, and there’s no music.”
Axel cupped the side of my jaw and eased my nerves. “Then hold onto me as if you’ll never let me go. I’ll do the rest.”
I wanted that more than anything. “I can do that.”
We swayed in the bright moonlight to the rhythmic sound of soft waves lapping at the shore. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been this happy and content with my life. Axel changed everything.
“Ready for bed, love?” His eyes swept across my face.
My pulse thrummed, not from being nervous, but with confidence. The smell of his cologne and the salt air had worked their magic on me. Axel was everything I wanted, and what better time to show him? Leaning back, I wanted him to see my face.
“You have never pressured me for more than I could give. You’ve taken the time to make me comfortable in my own skin when it would have been reasonable for you to issue ultimatums. But you didn’t.
I see you for the man you are. The one who is a little banged up by life, who has the biggest heart, but oozes kindness from behind his mask.
You are imperfect, Axel Hughes, but you’re perfect for me.
Prove to me that waiting for you was the best decision of my life.
And in return, I want to give you the only thing I have to give. Me.”
He waited to respond, but stared as if he were processing my words. For the first time since I’d met him months ago, he sounded unsure. “Is that really how you see me?”
“Yes,” I whispered, taking his face into my hands. “You hide behind your painful past, just like I do. But not here. In this beautiful hideaway from the world, where there’s only you and me, I want to stop hiding, and I want to let you in for however long we last.”
His brow furrowed, but I distracted him with a kiss. I knew what he would say. But this Luca was going to live in the moment with the best person I’d ever known. The man I was in love with.
Axel ran his hands under my thighs and lifted me. I wrapped my legs around him as he kissed me with so much reverence I felt it in my core. Our hearts were talking forever, and my head wanted to believe it as he carried me to the room and onto our bed, never breaking the kiss.
His weight on me was the anchor I needed.
His erection along mine sent shivers down my spine.
I needed to breathe, but didn’t want to stop.
Axel took charge of my heart and soul, and I willingly turned it over to him.
Pulling away, he never let go as he quietly looked down into my eyes, as the curtains billowed in the breeze and the moonlight illuminated our world.
“Are you sure, love? You can say no, and it changes nothing.”
“It changes everything, Axel.” I swallowed because the words were bubbling up from my unguarded heart.
If it was a mistake, then so be it. But how could loving someone ever be wrong?
“You can read me like a book, and if you haven’t figured it out, I am in love with you.
I’ve tried not to fall. Tried to put distance between us, but you kept coming.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped fighting, because it’s impossible not to love you. ”
His eyes welled as he gazed down at me. Again, he said nothing, and if I’d ruined us, at least he knew he was loved.
He blinked away the tears and came back to me.
“I love you, Luca Vaughn. I thought I was incapable of giving my heart to anyone, but you proved me wrong. You see beyond my walls, and you love me anyway.”
I smiled. “I do. And I’d really like to experience that love with you.”
He lowered his mouth to mine and drank me in. “I need your skin on mine,” I whispered. “I need to feel all of you.”
Axel pulled back and got to his feet. Reaching for me, he removed my clothes as if he were unwrapping a gift. Every brush of his fingers felt like he was branding me. And I wanted more.
With the barriers between us gone, he lowered himself onto me until we were skin to skin.
He started at my mouth and worked his way down.
I sifted my fingers through his hair, and he sucked and licked and mouthed, drawing moans and sighs as he worked his way down.
I wanted to watch as he lavished the head with his tongue and mouth, but it was too much. “You’re gonna make me come,” I warned.
“Not yet, love. Stay with me.”
He skated his hand down my thigh and under my knee.
My pulse picked up again, because I knew what was coming.
Since the first night he lit me on fire, Axel had rimmed me many times in our exploration, but never ending with him inside me.
Only toys that mimicked what it might feel like to have him.
When his mouth went to my opening, my back arched and I moaned.
My eyes closed as I got lost in our lovemaking.
My inhibitions and doubts floated away with the breeze from how right we were together.
Every inch of my skin was alight with need as he prepared me to take him.
It was too much until it wasn’t enough. I needed more and more, climbing higher until I couldn’t take it any longer.
“Baby, please,” I breathed. “I need you.”
Breathing heavily, he looked down at me, his mouth wet from my arousal, and working me open. “You will tell me if it’s too much.”
“Yes, I promise. Just get inside me, please. But no condom. Just you and me. Like we talked about.”
Axel nodded, confirming he remembered our conversation from a while back. “Okay, love. I’ll give you what you want.”
I smiled as he reached for the lube. Popping the top, he drizzled it onto himself as I lightly tugged my erection. He’d worked me so close to the edge that if I wasn’t careful, the lightest touch and watching his hand prepare himself would end us before we began.
Cool fingers found my skin as he worked some inside me.
He watched my face, and when my eyes closed from his fingers grazing the sweet bundle of nerves inside me, he stopped.
“Try not to come until I tell you to,” he said, lowering himself onto one forearm.
His muscles flexed as the tip found my opening.
Hot and wet, I sighed as he slipped the head inside.
“I’m okay,” I reassured him with panting breaths. We’d spent hours exploring, so I was confident I could take him. But like the control freak he could be, he left it there, nestled right inside my opening until I groaned. “Please, baby, please.”
Inch by inch, he slipped ever so slowly inside me. Had it been the other way around, I would have lost control long ago. But this is Axel, and he was the epitome of control. “Breathe out, love. I’ve got you.”
And he did. I complied and he entered me until I was impossibly full. I pulled his mouth to mine and kissed him. “Can you move and kiss at the same time?”
One side of his mouth tipped up. “I can do anything for you.”
My love drunk eyes closed as he gave me exactly what I wanted.
He eased out, then back in, only breaking our kiss to breathe periodically.
When he couldn’t hold back, he reached for me just as his climax neared.
Working us both expertly, I moaned from his expert touch as he came, and I followed him over.
My release coated my stomach and chest as Axel pumped his hips until he had no more to give.
We were sweaty when he lowered himself onto me.
The cool ocean breeze sent a shiver over my damp skin as Axel reached back for the sheet.
“I wish you could stay inside me,” I said, as he covered us.
“As do I, love.” He kissed me softly as we held one another. “Was that okay?”
Turning him to his back, I met his eyes. “It was everything.”
With another kiss, I lowered my head to his chest as his arms wrapped around me. I’d been right. Axel was worth waiting for. “I love you,” I murmured into his skin.
“I love you, too,” he sighed as sleep found us.