Chapter 53
Xavier
It doesn’t take long to convince my guy to leave his blank-screened email and come back to bed. Coffee abandoned, I take him by the hand and pull him to the bedroom.
There’s a nip in the air, that January chill that makes you shiver on the tiles if you don’t have underfloor heating.
Of course, my bougie other half does, so part of me wants to starfish out on the fancy floor and warm my whole body.
But I have a feeling something even warmer is in my immediate future.
We find our way to the side of the bed, and I turn toward him. A war of emotions skate over his face. My ice prince is lost at sea. He’s just chosen restraint instead of controlling or fixing how I handle my future, and he’s still reeling from the meeting with his father.
Cupping his face with my palm prompts him to sigh, his shoulders sagging, his eyes fluttering closed at the touch.
I lean toward him, sliding my nose against his before placing the softest kiss against his even softer lips.
He moans, reaching for the band of my pants to tug me against him as his lips capture mine.
He holds me against him, kissing me like he needs the contact to keep him tethered. It’s not urgent or rushed. It’s not sloppy or brutally claiming. It’s slow, it’s deep, and it leaves me feeling wanted like I’ve never felt before.
In a fumble of limbs, we make it onto his bed, face-to-face. In an act of chest-crushing gentleness, he places my injured arm on a pillow between us. His fingers wander my bare skin like he’s tracing places on a map, studying, learning, committing everything to memory as they roam.
He stills, searching my face, always waiting.
“Okay?” His ask is quiet but at the same time deafeningly loud.
He dots kisses over every inch of my face, down the length of my neck, and when he makes it to my injured shoulder and collarbone, his kisses are featherlight.
None of this fixes anything, but it steadies me, and maybe that’s enough for both of us this morning.
The desire doesn’t crash into me like a wrecking ball but builds like a slow-burning ache somewhere deep within. The way he handles me with such tenderness, like I’m a precious artifact, makes my bones, my very being ache.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous.” His words are mumbled against my skin, praising and reverent, and they land somewhere deep in the recesses of my heart. I’m not scoring goals. I’m not acing a test. Hell, I’m lying here damaged, still bruised and broken, and yet, he still wants me.
That hits in a way I never realized I needed it to. It hits in a way that whispers forever. And where that word once terrified me, now I want to run toward it. He isn’t leading me, not dominating. He’s listening to my body, learning, taking his time to find out what makes me moan.
I’m so fucking hard I’m leaking precum into my pj pants. Literally nothing is hotter than a man taking his time, learning what kisses make you whimper, and stoking the fire in your body with a precision poker.
My body remembers pain faster than pleasure lately, but he’s rewriting that map kiss by heartachingly tender kiss.
I can’t take it anymore. My skin is hot, the need urgent and deep, and I want him to poke me with his fucking poker.
“Arte.” It’s embarrassing how needy the word sounds when it tumbles from my lips.
“Shhhh. Duende. Not yet, let me worship you.” His lips sear a brand on my neck as he talks.
“Okay.” I’m practically panting, my hips jerking seeking contact, friction, something to help the need that’s now progressed from a simmer to an aggressively, bubbling boil. “But… I need you… please?”
His deep chuckle amps up my frustration, driving my need from irritating to consuming. As though he knows I’m about to explode, or do the damn job myself, he cups my crotch, grinding the heel of his palm against my weeping dick.
My hips roll to meet him, gathering speed as the blissful warmth of friction spreads through my body. “I’m…” Fuck. I’m close. I tip my head back, letting my eyes drift shut as release builds in my balls. It hits me then—maybe he isn’t careful because I’m fragile. He’s careful because I matter.
My release catches us both off guard. As I fill my pj pants, my hips snap, jerking me forward, and my forehead collides with his.
“Fuck.” The sting of pain radiates behind my forehead, and when my eyes snap open, his fear-filled browns meet mine.
With my good hand, I grab him into a kiss, it’s deep, it’s passionate, and his body instantly relaxes, kissing me back.
My body’s boneless, oversensitive, my head still buzzing from the sting and the release. Artemis doesn’t rush me, he doesn’t scold, doesn’t panic. He just cups the back of my neck and presses his forehead to mine like we’re calibrating to the same… everything.
“There you are.” Not are you okay? Not be careful or watch what you’re doing. Just… there you are.
Something in my chest cracks wide open. Even wrecked, even bruised, even leaking into my PJs like a messy fucking disaster—I’m still wanted. Not tolerated, not managed, but fucking chosen by one of the best men I know.
I don’t know what the hell to do with that kind of tenderness, so I do the only thing I can. I kiss him back, slow and deep. If this is what being held looks like, maybe I don’t need to know who I am yet. Maybe it’s more than enough to know I’m safe while I take the time to figure it out.