24. Leo
24
LEO
W hen the sun finally comes up, my dick feels like it’s going to fall off.
I haven’t had a night with so much sex in—well, ever .
Christ, is that right? Before Stella, dating was too risky, so most rendezvous were limited to one-time things. A quick tryst in a dark room before a meeting or stolen when my father was out of town. Regardless of if I was with a man or woman, there was never an opportunity to prolong the pleasure.
Moreover, I never found myself wanting to. I was satisfied with fleeting moments, and yet from the second Stella Ricci was offered to me in that church seven years ago, the idea of her being a temporary fixture has never sat right with me.
Even when I was accepting the offer on the premise of taking something from Rafael, I knew I wouldn’t be happy with having her once. I hadn’t spent half my adolescence watching her, admiring her, only to be blessed with a few pressurized minutes of forced affection.
With Stella, I wanted it all . Despite knowing she didn’t feel the same and that she was looking for an escape before she even came to Saint Paul’s. My desire to keep her, to make her mine, was intrinsic.
My eyes find the rising sun past the mansion outside, and I tuck Stella’s sleeping form closer into me. Her eyelashes brush the tops of her cheeks, pinkened from the long night we’ve had, and there’s still a sheen of sweat gleaming against her skin.
Studies say it takes a man eighty-eight days to fall in love.
I believe it took me eighty-eight seconds, one single kiss, and the transfer of a razor blade from her mouth to mine.
A single verse sung during church choir—the perfect melody—heard when I was just a boy sitting in the back row of the nave and hating that I had to be there. Yet, when she opened her mouth to sing, it was impossible to focus on anything else. Her voice captivated me from that moment, like a spell weaved around my soul.
I’ve been careening off the cliff ever since.
Stella’s body tenses, and her brown eyes squint up at me from where her head rests on my chest. “Are you watching me sleep?”
“Depends.” I squeeze her hip, then wrap a fistful of her hair around my fingers. “Does it make me a pervert stalker if I say yes?”
“Well, it doesn’t make you not one.” Using her hand to push herself into a sitting position, she lets the comforter fall off us, then lifts onto her knees.
I swallow over a lump in my throat as her hair curtains her body, her nipples peeking through the silken waves. When she hooks a leg over my waist, straddling me without any prompting, my heart grows heavy in my chest.
“Stella,” I warn, my cock springing to life at the mere brush of her cunt against it.
“What?” She bats her eyelashes, sliding her slit over my shaft. “I’m just trying to get closer to you. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“This isn’t the only thing I wanted.”
Still, it’s no use. I’ve created a little monster, and she isn’t listening to me; her cunt is fully intent on getting its fill, and I can’t help the dread that laces my insides, wondering if that’s all she plans on doing with me. If this is as close as she’ll let herself get.
I suppose I don’t exactly deserve more, but that doesn’t stop my soul from craving it.
The tip of my dick slips in as she shimmies her ass backward, and we gasp collectively.
“ Fuck ,” I grind out, fisting the sheets. “How is it possible that I haven’t ruined this yet?”
“You can’t ruin fate.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Is that so?”
Her mouth parts as she slowly— so goddamn slow —pushes down on me, letting my cock split her open. She’s so wet and perfect that my vision blurs, and my back bows off the mattress with the sensation of being fully seated in her.
“That’s what this feels like, right?” she whispers, leaning with her palms on my shoulders. Her tits swing in my face as she starts to tentatively ride me. “Years have passed, and it’s like we’re picking up right where we left off. Almost as if time stood still in the distance between us, waiting for our reunion.”
She flushes a deep fuchsia, and my nerves draw taut.
Fuck, she feels it, too?
“I can’t explain why I’m here with you right now, doing this.” Her nails lightly burrow into my skin, and I release the sheets to grab her hips, urging her to ride me harder. “The nerdy part of my brain wants to say biology is, obviously, winning out, and I’m just horny. But I could’ve said no to you last night, or the night before, or even back when we got married and I was afraid being your wife was going to be my only identity.”
“Yet you didn’t. You stayed, stellina , and now you’re using my cock to get off.”
Her cunt tightens around me, and she lets out a soft moan. “Yeah, exactly. That has to be fate, right? No matter where I’ve gone or what I’ve done over the last seven years, you’ve been a constant thought in my mind. Something I knew all along I wouldn’t be able to fight if it came down to that. I could never deny this, and you could never mess it up, because it was an inevitability. Statistically, I don’t know what the odds are, but even if the data doesn’t necessarily support my theory, that’s my educated guess.”
I groan, clawing at her, guiding her movements on top of me. Each undulation of her hips is met by an upward thrust of my own, and I drag her face to mine. She keeps grinding, her cunt squelching lewdly in the silent room, even as I press a brutal kiss to her mouth, wishing there were a way for me to capture her intelligence, her faith, and fuse it into my being.
“You learn fast,” I mutter against her mouth, recognizing the signs of climax as she bears down, then shoves a hand between us to play with her clit.
“I have an okay teacher,” she says, and when we come, I black out a little from the rush of blinding pleasure.
Moments later, my cock softens inside her, warm and snug, and I do nothing to alter the situation. She heaves a stuttered breath as her high wanes, though she doesn’t make a move to get off me.
Eventually, she slumps, resting her head on my shoulder.
My fingers shake slightly as I stroke her back, exhaustion finally catching up with me. Or maybe it’s my nerves, frayed from all the overthinking I’ve been doing.
“So,” I venture, brushing the hair from her back and reveling in its length, “what does Stella Ricci’s future look like now?”
“Oh.” I feel her blink, but she remains still. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve done everything you told me you wanted to seven years ago. Save for curing cancer, but I’ll give you a pass on that one, since you’re far from the first person to not achieve that particular feat in their lifetime. But everything else—you’ve managed to check off an impressive list, you know? You graduated with honors despite your circumstances, you were president of at least two student organizations, and you published several official papers on stem cells and the future of genetics in esteemed journals. Now, you work as an assistant at a lab, and you’re spending your current free time with me.”
“It’s kind of creepy how you know all that.”
I smirk, listening to her heart beating, feeling it pump steadily against my chest. “What comes next for you?”
“I…” Her fingers curl in, and she tucks her face into me as if hiding something. “Well, I guess I don’t really know. I came here to get that orchid, but now…”
Now, I wouldn’t mind staying with you.
The flower doesn’t matter, Leo. I just want to be here, in this moment, for as long as possible.
Those words don’t come, though, and I do my best not to take it personally. It’s never been about me anyway; my question wasn’t either, and that’s what I remind myself as I gently push her onto the bed beside me, sitting up with a heavy sigh.
“You fulfilled your end of the deal,” I tell her. “I’ll help you get the flower.”