Chapter 29
Luca
As soon as Austin says the words, I’m vaguely aware of him tensing. It’s only because I know him so well that I notice it. They hit me square in the chest, though, making me groan. I want that. I want to belong to him. Always. Forever.
My body trembles as I tug on his hair, all my muscles straining as I try to get closer to him. Closer, closer. Always closer. “I’m yours,” I rasp. “I’m so yours. God, fuck me. Please fuck me.”
Austin lets out a breathless moan. “Fuck, baby. Are you sure?”
Before, it was all wrong. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be. But I lied to myself and to Austin. I wasn’t. Now? Now I’m ready. I’m more than ready. Austin loves me. He fucking loves me, and I’m covered in the proof of it.
My body is aching from it in the best way, every bite mark and hickey and scratch of stubble throbbing with each beat of my heart, my skin hot and flushed, and my heart so full I can hardly breathe. “Yeah—yes… please. Do it.”
His hand leaves my cock, and he climbs up my body, dropping his weight on top of me. I can’t even wait. I surge up, capturing his lips in a kiss. It’s out of control, like it’s the only thing tethering us to reality, and part of me feels like maybe it is.
I’m so fucking needy, rutting against him. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this, the last time I wanted to be filled like this, to be connected to someone in this way.
Austin breaks our kiss and grabs for a bottle of lube. The second he has it in his hand, I’m jerking him back to me and finding his lips with my own again. He chuckles against my mouth. I know if I want him to have sex with me, I need to let him go, but I can’t.
Finally, he pulls away with a gasp, resting his forehead against mine. “Fuck,” he whispers. “I’ve gotta get you ready.”
I shake my head. “I don’t need prep. I can take it.”
“Not a fucking chance, baby,” Austin murmurs, catching my lips with his.
He sits up between my spread thighs, making quick work of covering his fingers in lube. So much. Too much, really. It’s dripping down his hand and onto my thigh and the bed. I can’t help but smile.
My smile dies off with a raspy groan when he presses a finger to my hole and works it slowly inside of me.
It burns a bit, but it’s not painful, and I relax, focusing on him.
On the shape of his lips, the concentration in his eyes, the furrow in his brows.
Reminding myself that this is Austin and that he would never, ever hurt me.
Once his finger is moving easily in and out of me, he adds another, grazing my prostate and making my cock pulse against my stomach.
It pushes me perilously close to the edge, which is so embarrassing, but in my defense, he’s been biting and sucking and kissing my skin for the better part of an hour.
I’m throbbing, my entire body just a ball of need and desperation.
“Fuck, I’m ready. Please, Austin.”
He shakes his head. “I won’t hurt you, baby. I already told you that.”
He did. He did already tell me that, but the reminder makes my heart swell. “Okay,” I breathe, relaxing against the pillows, trying to will my body into submission and just enjoy his touch.
He works a third finger into me, and I whimper, fire licking up my spine. “Feels so fucking good,” I groan, trying to keep it together.
The sound of him working his fingers in and out of me is obscene, frying my brain. When he finally feels like I’m ready, he pulls his fingers free, then notches his cock against my hole.
Something about it, about being so close, is making me lose my mind. In a good way. My head rocks back and forth against the pillow as I try—and fail—to get him to just put it in already. “Fuck, hurry,” I choke out, burning up from the inside out.
I wrap a leg around his waist, pushing my heel into his ass cheek. He laughs, still not putting his damn dick in me, then he leans down and drops a soft kiss on my lips. “How did I never know how needy my Luca was?”
When he finally pushes the head of his cock in, a high keening sound erupts from my throat. He freezes. “My God, you better not stop,” I say, sounding far more breathless than I really want to.
Austin keeps going, pressing into me in one smooth motion, pausing when he’s buried fully inside me, his hips resting against my ass cheeks. “Are you okay?” he asks, staring down at me with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.
I rock my hips, trying to get him to move. “Yeah. Can’t believe it’s been so long since we’ve done this.”
Austin adjusts, resting his body against mine. When he slams his mouth onto mine and starts moving his hips, it’s all I can do to kiss him back. Before now, I thought I’d never be able to actually enjoy sex like this again, but… nothing compares to how this feels. Not a single thing on Earth.
Clutching at his back, I rake my nails over his skin, leaving marks of my own.
Austin moans against my lips, his hips stuttering. “God, baby,” he gasps. “You feel so fucking good.” He punctuates each word with a deep thrust.
A whimper flies from my throat. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” All I can do is chant the words over and over as each roll of his hips sends me higher and higher.
He braces above me, lips hovering over mine as he makes me his. I know sex doesn’t make us belong to each other. I know that, but I’ve never felt anything this… holy before. Me and him, our bodies as close as our souls, his warm brown eyes so full of love and desire as he stares into mine.
All my fears seem silly like this. All my doubts and hesitance go up in flames, much like my body. “I’m gonna come,” I manage to gasp out, not breaking eye contact for even a second. My eyes are burning from trying to keep them open to stare at him. But I don’t want to look anywhere else.
I don’t want to look away from the man who took my ugly and turned it into something beautiful.
Austin reaches between us, wrapping a hand around my cock. I cry out, nails digging into his shoulders as a shudder wracks my body. He strokes me in time with his thrusts, brushing his thumb over the leaking head of my dick. I arch and whine, trying to get him closer.
Close, close, close.
With one final stroke, my body tenses, and I come over his fist, shooting rope after rope of cum onto my stomach and chest. Warm lips press to my forehead in a soft kiss. “That’s it, baby,” Austin whispers against my sweat-slicked forehead.
He fucks me through it, slowing his thrusts as my body tightens around him with each wave of my orgasm. Tears burn my eyes, the moment too perfect and beautiful to hold back. I’ve healed so much since coming home. Since being with Austin. But this? God, there’s nothing like this.
When my body goes slack against the bed, Austin pulls out. I’m not sure that he even strokes his cock before he’s shooting on my stomach, gasping and moaning low in his throat.
He collapses against me, his chest heaving, and I run my fingers through his damp hair, holding him tightly to me as he drags his lips up and down my throat.
I’m loose and hazy and warm all over when he tries to get up. “Wait,” I mumble, holding him tighter.
“Okay, baby,” he whispers, pressing another kiss to my throat.
We lie in silence, breathing in sync with one another. It’s only when my curiosity about Austin’s marks on my body gets to be too much that I sigh. “I want to go look.”
“Look?” Austin asks, voice muffled, like he’s trying to stay awake.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “At my body. At your marks.”
Austin groans. “Yeah, me too. Let’s go.”
He climbs off me, then turns to offer me his hand. He leads me into the bathroom, then stands against the wall while I get up the nerve to look at my reflection.
When I finally do, I gasp.
My eyes can’t find a place to focus.
Teeth marks on my shoulder, mottled bruising on my throat and across my chest. Red marks from beard burn. The evidence of our pleasure streaked across the bruises.
I run my fingers over each one reverently. There’s a particularly dark spot on my hip where Austin bit down hard. Each indent of his teeth is visible, and it’s slightly sore to the touch. But there’s no pain. Not really. Not the type of pain I felt when Damien’s marks lived on my skin.
Just like I’d hoped, I feel loved and cherished.
I step back and look down. There are small, round bruises on the insides of each of my thighs, proof of the path Austin kissed up as he worshipped me and took me apart piece by piece, slowly putting everything back where it belongs.
More heart fragments escape from their hiding places, slotting back into place. It’s not until Austin wraps his arm around me and pulls me into him, then tilts my head back and wipes under my eyes, that I realize I’m crying.
Judging by the soft smile on his lips, he knows what I know. That the tears aren’t bad. They’re cleansing and healing. Damien took everything from me. And Austin’s giving it back plus more.
“You look beautiful,” he whispers.
“Because of you,” I croak out. “I look like this because of you.”
He shakes his head slowly. “You look beautiful because of you, baby. Do you like them?”
“I do.” I sniffle hard, more tears spilling from my eyes.
Austin wipes these away too, then leans in for a kiss. “So beautiful. Inside and out.”
He holds me for a second, and when he finally lets go, he grabs a washcloth. He’s careful as he cleans me up, wiping away the drying cum from my body. When he’s done, I look down at myself again.
All that’s left is a slight flush on my skin and the proof of his love. Me and him. Us. A living, breathing monument to our relationship. To his love.
Relationship.
That’s what this is, isn’t it? Calling it anything else is kind of silly.
“You love me,” I say softly.
“With my whole heart,” Austin answers.
I nod. “I want to be with you. Actually be with you. I want to be yours.”
He cups my chin and encourages me to look at him. “You are mine,” he says gently, searching my eyes.
I am. I know it, and he knows it. My body aches in the most perfect way. Proof, proof, proof living on my skin. Proof of Austin’s love. Proof that I never deserved pain. “I am. But I want the label. I want to call it what it is. A relationship.”
I’m met with silence, and for a second that worries me. Is it too much? Does he not want that after all?
A breathtaking smile spreads across his face, and when he speaks, his voice is more choked up and shaky than I’ve ever heard it. “Nothing would make me happier, baby.”
I take his hand, relieved beyond belief, and lead him out of the bathroom and back into our room. “Can we cuddle? I just want to be close to you.”
“I’d let you live in my skin if I could, baby,” Austin says with a smile in his voice.
We climb into the bed together, and as soon as we’re settled, I wrap myself around Austin. I close my eyes, content and so fucking loved.
After a while, he breaks the silence. “Are you okay?”
I trail my fingers over his chest, adjusting so I can look up at him.
“I don’t think I’ve been this okay since I was sixteen and you kissed me for the last time.
Your lips were the last place I remember breathing easily.
Everything without you felt like holding my breath underwater.
Lungs burning, screaming for me to surface and just fucking breathe already.
” I brush my lips over his gently, then pull back to search his eyes.
“I’m breathing again, Austin. Because of you. ”
Austin’s quiet for a beat, staring into my eyes in what seems to be shock. Then he lets out a choked laugh. “There’s my little romance writer. I wondered when I’d get him back.”
“If I’m seeing magic in love again, it’s because of you.”
He groans, sinking his hands into my hair and pulling me into him for a kiss. “Fuck, I love you,” he whispers against my lips.
I love you too.
“I know,” I whisper back.