Chapter 17 #2
I slide my hand along her jaw, tilting her face toward mine. “You are mine Bambola, even if I don’t get to keep you.”
“I don’t want to regret this,” she whispers, her voice thin and taut like a wire ready to snap.
“I won’t let you,” I say, even though the truth is I’ve got no idea what tomorrow looks like. Only that not touching her might kill me faster than any bullet. “I need to feel you.”
I lift her shirt slowly, baring inch after inch of skin like it’s something sacred. I touch her like she’s breakable, even though I know she’s not. I kiss her slowly, like I’ve got forever, like I’m allowed to feel this.
Her hands find my chest, my shoulders, my face. Her touch melts the tension I didn’t realize I was holding. Her fingers hook into the front of my shirt and slide up beneath the fabric, her fingertips tracing the lines of my ribs, my spine, her palms moving across my chest.
The backs of her knees hit the bed. I guide her down gently, laying her out like something precious. This time, I don’t devour her like a starving man. I take my time peeling the rest of her clothes away, worshiping her body. Every scar. Every freckle. Every soft breath and shiver of her skin.
My hands trace her breast, glide over the delicate line of her stomach, memorizing her one inch at a time like I’ve never touched her before.
My mouth follows the slope of her collarbone, the rise of her breasts, the soft skin at her ribs that makes her shiver when I drag my tongue over it.
Then my mouth moves lower, enjoying the little shiver that runs through her when my tongue trails down her stomach.
The way her breath catches when I kiss the inside of her thigh.
I savor her. Tasting her. Slowly. Building her up until her thighs tremble.
“God, Aero,” she breathes. “You’re gonna ruin me.”
Too late.
Her thighs part for me like they’ve been waiting. I press a kiss there, right where she’s pulsing for me, and she gasps, fisting the sheets like she’s already close.
I don’t rush it. I want to hear her fall apart. I want to feel the way her whole body tightens when I suck her into my mouth, her moan muffled against her arm.
“Aero, please,” she begs, hips arching into my mouth.
I give her what she wants. And then I give her more. Her legs clench around my shoulders, and she cries out like she’s finally letting go of everything she’s held back.
I hold her through it, anchoring her as she falls apart on my tongue.
When she comes, it’s not soft. It’s fire and desperation and the sweetest damn sound I’ve ever heard.
She pulls me up to her with trembling fingers, and I kiss her hard, her taste still on my tongue.
She holds my face in her hands like I’m worth holding onto. Like I’m not the broken man I’ve always been.
Our bodies press together, hot, slick, and perfectly aligned. I push into her with a groan, and her eyes flutter shut, her mouth parting with a gasp that wrecks me completely.
And when I finally sink fully into her, it’s not hard or fast. It’s slow. Deep. A kind of claiming that doesn’t need teeth or bruises to be real.
We move together like we’re trying to rewrite something broken inside both of us.
Her hands clutch my back, her legs wrapping around my hips, drawing me deeper into her with every thrust.
The room fades. The pain. The past. The weight of what we saw.
All that’s left is this. Her breath in my ear, her nails scraping down my back, the sound of skin against skin, and the raw, unspoken truth pulsing between us.
I stay with her through every wave of it, holding her gaze, feeling her come undone beneath me. She arches her back, gasping my name like it’s the only one she’s ever known.
I kiss her shoulder, her throat, the hollow where her collarbone rises like a ridge of exposed truth.
“I’m still figuring this out,” I murmur against her skin. “Still trying not to fuck it all up.”
“You won’t,” she whispers back, fingers threading through my hair. “You’re here.”
God, that does something to me. Wrecks me from the inside out.
I move deeper, slower, until the world narrows to the feel of her wrapped around me, the rise and fall of her breath, the little sounds she makes when I whisper her name.
She moans into my mouth and fuses her hips to mine, and just like that, I lose my mind.
Her nails scrape my shoulders. Her legs tighten around my waist. Every whisper of my name pushes me closer to the edge.
And when she shatters again beneath me, when I feel her clench around me like she never wants to let me go, I follow, growling her name like a prayer I never deserved to speak.
My release is deep and hard. Like I need to leave part of myself behind, so no matter what, she won’t ever be able to forget me.
When we’re both spent, I stay inside her, her legs still hooked around me, my forehead resting against hers as our hearts slow in sync.
She brushes a thumb over my cheek and for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I feel something settle in me. Not peace exactly, but maybe the start of it.
I shift onto my side, pulling her against my chest. Her hand finds mine, and our fingers twine together like they’ve always known the shape of each other. I hold her close, her head on my chest, my arm tight around her back. For once, I don’t feel the need to get up. To armor myself. To run.
“I’m scared,” she says quietly. “Of what this could be. Of how much it might hurt if it doesn’t work.”
I press a kiss into her hair. “Me too.”
She looks up at me like she didn’t expect that. And I know I can’t promise her a future, but maybe, in this moment, I can promise her the truth.
There’s a hush between us, not just silence but that quiet that settles when something real takes shape, like the first moment before a storm breaks or the breath held just before a first kiss.
I don’t know what happens next. But for now, her hand in mine, her heartbeat steady against my chest, it’s easy to believe that maybe this, whatever the hell this is, could be enough.
She sighs, soft and content. And for one perfect moment, the world outside that door doesn’t exist.