Chapter 13 #3
There’s no warning before he lets out a roar that fills up the room.
He bands an arm around my waist and fucks me so hard that he hits places that both hurt and cause a blinding white light to short out in front of my eyes.
I’m tipped straight into a hot climax that grips me, waves of pleasure wringing me out, twisting me.
I pant and whimper, arch and moan, half a wild animal myself.
The pleasure is hot and sharp, doubly so because I can feel the kick of Shadow’s cock and his hot seed filling me as he shatters apart with me.
He went first and brought me with him. That’s the only thought that cycles through my mind as I come down from the obliterating high. That, and how much more beautiful it was than I ever knew it could be.
Tears of bliss, and more emotion than I can unravel, sting my eyes, but I blink them back.
I don’t want Shadow to notice. He’d see them and I know he’d think that he did something wrong when everything he did was perfect.
I don’t regret a single second of this. It wasn’t wrong.
All I feel is warmth, more than just post sex bliss.
He wraps his arms around my middle and leans forward, arching over me to rest his sticky forehead against the small of my back. I keep myself supported with one hand and set the other on his clasped fingers. Every single one of his breaths feels like a benediction.
His ragged panting hasn’t even slowed before he pulls away. He doesn’t leave, though, like I picture him doing in my head—gathering up his jacket and helmet and going out the door without so much as a word.
He adjusts his clothes and spreads out along the edge of the bed. I roll to face him, drawing in a sharp breath at his expression. He looks shyer than I’ve ever seen. Boyish and vulnerable, flushed and sweaty, and still fresh out of the shower fully clothed.
I can’t help but set my hand on his sweat damp cheek.
He blinks at me, his eyes dark and unfathomable, but he nuzzles into my palm.
I leave my hand there for a moment, until I can’t resist the urge to trace his neck, to press my fingers against his slamming pulse, and guide them lower, over his t-shirt, to his thundering heart.
“Are you okay?” It’s a dumb question.
“I thought I was the one who was supposed to say that,” he says.
The last thing he needs is my guilt or a sorry. Or to feel like I didn’t want this. Whatever this is.
“Am I still the hero in your mind?” he asks. The question is jokey. An asshole move, but I see the pain in his eyes. Like he’s expecting me to say it shouldn’t have happened.
“You’re you.” I trace his beautiful lips with my thumb, then sweep my finger to the scars along the side of his jaw. “Beautifully. Wonderfully. Perfect to me. Always.”
He’s so still. Even his breaths have slowed to almost nothing.
“I want your skin against my skin,” I say, half a plea. “I want to touch you. Hold you. Feel you. Will there be a next time?”
His eyes flick to the wall above my shoulder. “I’m betraying a man I hold the utmost respect for, but I’ve known that since the second I kissed you back.”
“There’s no betrayal.” I told him before we did this, but I can hear how badly he needs me to say those words again.
“Your dad wants more for you. He wants the best.”
Those words cut me deep. I can hear the pain in his voice. “I have the best. Right here.” I press my palm against his chest, finding the curl of his pec and then the rapid beat of his heart. “Right here in my palm.”
He’s allowing this intimacy, he’s here with me, and that means everything.
I’ll focus on what he’s giving me and not what he can’t yet.
My arm wraps around his neck and I shift closer, until there’s no space between us.
My hand splays over the back of his head like I can shield him.
I draw him to me and kiss him tenderly, savoring him, trying to soak up his pain from all the bad that has ever happened to him.
I want to draw the poison out, to be his antidote, to heal and to mend him.
I roll his bottom lip between my teeth, sucking and licking it playfully. “Does this mean that you’re definitely coming to the symphony?”
He grunts. “I said I was.”
“I thought maybe you’d change your mind.”
“Now that I have to face Preacher?”
I look up into his beautiful, haunted face. “This isn’t for anyone but us, until we’re ready for it to be. No shame. No hiding. No secrecy. It’s nothing furtive or sneaky. I think that we deserve our privacy.”
“I’m ugly enough without letting your dad skin my hide.”
“You are not ugly.”
“Post euphoric bliss is scientifically shown to addle your mind.”
I twist away so that I can poke him dead center in his chest. “Are you ever going to stop pretending to be an asshole?”
“Who says I’m pretending?”
I can’t resist flattening my palm against his damp shirt and finding his heartbeat again. “When you’re ready to drop your guard and let me in, I’ll be here.”
“And if I’m never ready?”
The question hangs between us, scalding, raw, painfully real.
I swallow thickly past the lump of tears and twisted emotions blocking my airway.
“I’ll still be here.” It’s easier for him to talk about the tangible things.
I don’t care about easy, but I do care about giving him relief.
“Do you… want us to pick you up for the symphony? I’m going to be driving with my mom.
Dad and Rita and the boys are taking their own car. ”
“I think I’m gonna take the bike.” He laughs darkly when my nose involuntarily scrunches at the implication of that. “Don’t worry, I won’t wear my vest. I can scrub up okay. Though I wasn’t joking about the Phantom of the Opera. I’ll wear a mask and cape.”
I won’t allow him to wound himself with his own dark humor any longer. Not tonight. “Shh.” I tilt my face, finding his lips again. I brush mine over them, our breaths mingling before I apply any pressure. “That’s quite enough lip for now.”
“I thought you liked my lips.”
He kisses me, but then suddenly shoves up, like he’s going to leave.
I curl back, not wanting to crowd him or cling to him.
He’s not mine. I have to remember that. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to do this again, or even if we should.
I vowed not to bring him anymore pain and I have to stay true to that.
He needs time, and I need to honor what he needs.
He doesn’t leave.
He sits up and straightens his legs. I don’t know if he was going to go and changed his mind, or something else made him stay.
I get off the bed and go to the dresser, taking out a nightshirt. Not the sexy, hot lingerie kind either. It’s more an oversized t-shirt.
“I love your lips, Finn.”
“This is serious if you’re going to be dropping my real name.”
“It is serious.”
“That’s quite unfortunate for you.”
I expected the snarky comeback, but I also expected a full blown retreat. I’m a little bit shocked when it’s not there. “Why? If you want this to be a one-time thing, I can take it, but I need you to tell me now that—”
It’s his turn to press his thumb to my lips and shush me. “I don’t want that.” His words are gravelly. “It’s unfortunate for you, because you see how I am. The burns are probably the prettiest part of my personality.”
“I like your personality.”
“You poor thing.” He can’t keep his lips from twitching as he says it, though.
It’s a win. Big or small, I’ll take anything.
And this? Even if Shadow leaves soon, it’s a big win.
Huge. Epic. We just… slept together. He didn’t freak out or race out of here after.
He’s promised that he’ll come to the symphony with me, and I believe him.
That alone is a huge fucking deal. When I asked him if this could happen again, he was reluctant, but he didn’t say no.
He’s been self-deprecating, but not self-hating.
To someone else, this might not be much, but for us, it’s monumental.
“I should go.” He finally says the expected.
I’m not going to beg him to stay. I won’t rush him or pressure him.
Tonight was already more than I ever dreamed.
I know it’s in his nature to fight and to survive, and all of this probably feels very new and threatening.
He’s not fighting against me, but if I push for too much in too many obvious ways, I know that he won’t be ready.
At the very least, I’ll make him extremely uncomfortable.
I want to insist that I drive him to work, or that I take him home, but I pay attention to the silence around us and realize that it’s no longer raining.
“Okay. I can walk you to the door.” I kiss his forehead and scramble off, refusing to take no for an answer.
Even when he slips out, jacket draped over his arm, gloves stuffed into the jacket pocket, helmet dangling from his fingers, lingering on the doorstep for just a moment before he walks more silently down those metal steps than any human in big boots should be able to do, it doesn’t change the truth.
He’s so much more than just a hero in my mind.
He’s as real as our connection.
I belong to him. I have for so many years.