Chapter 30 Autumn
AUTUMN
Dom finally stepped out, steam curling behind him. The towel sat low, daring me to strip it away. But I stayed exactly as I was, on my stomach with one knee bent and my hips tilted just enough. A pose I’d practiced more times than I’d admit.
He kneeled beside me, and his eyes drank me in. “You waiting for someone?”
I licked my lips. “Only you.”
“How am I supposed to survive this?”
I reached up and ran a single finger along the edge of his towel. “Maybe you’re not.”
He smiled, his breath shaky. Then I tugged.
The towel dropped.
I turned so I lay on my side. He crouched next to me but didn’t join me on the rug.
“Dom?”
I guided him down, and finally, his body lowered beside mine.
Our knees brushed, then our thighs. His skin still carried the heat from the shower, his damp hair curling slightly at the edges.
I cupped his jaw and kissed him again, longer this time.
The kind of kiss that said we’re doing this, but also, we’ll remember every second.
His palm skimmed the outside of my thigh, then higher. Every part of me burned where he touched. When his hand slid beneath my bra, cupping me fully, I arched into him. Every inch of him moved through me.
“I want to know every sound you make,” he murmured.
“I hear a virgin makes a lot of them,” I whispered back as his thumb rolled over my nipple. “Think you can handle it?”
“I might not survive you. But I’ll survive your voice, Otter.”
Then he moved and drew me into his mouth one breast at a time. He kissed through the lace, his tongue chasing the skin like that was where the sweetness lived. My back bowed, and my nails dug into the rug. The pressure of him against me was divine torture.
He hovered over me as I lay on my back, his cock brushing my pelvis, heavy and impossible to ignore.
I pressed both palms to his chest, soaking in the feel of his slick skin and the way his body hair clung to him in dark whorls. He was so firm everywhere—so male. My thumbs grazed his roughened, chestnut nipples. They pebbled beneath my touch, and God, that made me bold.
I rubbed my body against the rug. “Take me now.”
“You want it here?” His smile came slowly, but his cock was anything but. It’d grown thicker and fully hard, demanding and stunning.
It was intimidating; there was no question about it. But I wasn’t one to shy away from a challenge, especially not this one. Especially not with him. If there was ever a time for my body to follow orders, it was now.
“Don’t tell me you’re nervous,” I teased, my fingers following the sculpted lines of his stomach.
“Maybe I am,” he said. “You’re too beautiful to be in my company.”
His hand was cooler than it should’ve been, which was odd, considering he’d just stepped out of a hot shower. Then, after the briefest pause, he lay flat and murmured, “All yours.”
I kissed him like my body had already written a contract with his.
My mouth traced wet trails down his chest, pausing to lick, nuzzle, and toy with the line of hair beneath my lips.
I might’ve been clumsy and not exactly seasoned in exploring a man this way, but still, he gave me all access.
He brought no rush, no ego. Just Dom, open and waiting.
I dropped to my knees. Not innocent. Not demure. It was a child’s pose reimagined, bold, sensual, and mine.
He groaned as I kissed my way down his abdomen, then lower, until my lips reached the edge of him. My hand slid to his ass. It was taut and muscled, gladiator-grade. The kind of body that made angels weep and devils smirk.
I kissed the base of his shaft, then licked a path upward.
Salt and heat. Then that malty taste. Masculinity, but aged. Less burn, more pull. Better than I imagined.
My hand closed around him, weighing the heft. He throbbed against my palm, thick and devastating.
His eyes were molten.
I took him in, my lips sealing over the crown. He shuddered when my tongue dragged along the underside.
“You’re incredible, Otter.” The sound of his voice made something in me rise. There was no room left for doubt.
So I kept going.
I licked, sucked, and tested. And he let me. Not passive, just present.
And he never once took control. He just let the moment be mine and let me love him on my terms.
I let go of his manhood. It was flushed, swollen, and glistening with need.
“I want you inside me,” I said, needing to give myself to the man who’d shown me strength, safety, and a tenderness I never thought was possible in someone so alpha. So powerful. So…Dom.
I climbed back up, skin to skin, never looking away.
“You sure you want to do it down here?” he asked.
I raked my eyes over his form, laid out on the rug like temptation itself. “Is that a crime, Counselor?”
A smile formed on his face as he lifted a hand, easing one bra strap down, then the other. I reached behind, unhooked it, and let the fabric fall.
He rose just enough to kiss the swell of my breast, sucking my nipples one by one. My thighs pressed together on instinct, my hips arching toward him.
And then his hands moved lower. His fingers hooked at the edge of my panties, and he paused, just long enough for me to nod.
He crawled beneath me while I stayed on all fours. He peeled my panties down, kissing my hips, the crease of each thigh, and the tender spots that had never been seen by someone who wanted me and not just my body.
Then he parted my folds, admiration woven into every breath and every stroke of his fingers. And when his thumb reached my clit, the bridge my body formed above him trembled. I moaned hard, the sound pulled straight from somewhere deeper than my want.
What startled me most…was just how ready I was.
“Let me taste you,” he murmured, nudging me gently to lie flat again.
I did.
One hand braced on his shoulder, and the other tangled in his still-damp hair as I gave in. His tongue was sinful, sending me into an almost trance-like state in waves. Every flick and every press sent me spiraling higher.
The sound he said he wanted to hear? I gave it to him. Loud, breathless, begging.
His pace increased, his mouth working in a rhythm that told me exactly how close he was to losing his own control. The way he moved, the pressure, the way he sucked my clit…I was losing it too.
And then he pulled back.
His mouth was glistening, his lips wet with me, his eyes nothing short of feral.
My cry of protest caught in my throat because I craved him inside me.
He was on top of me now, ready, but something in his touch felt cautious. It was not uncertainty—Dom always knew exactly what he was doing—but a deliberate care. And half a second before he moved, he glanced at me, as if searching for something only he could see.
His palm still rested on my lower back. “Can we move to the bed?”
“Sure,” I said, trusting him. The rug had done its job. Foreplay had left me aching, and now I wanted comfort. Closeness.
He lifted me, then carried me to the bed as if we couldn’t bear to wait one second more. He laid me down with care, grabbed a condom, and sheathed himself. Then he reached for the lube. A lot of it.
“It might hurt,” he said so tenderly that it didn’t feel like a warning. “But if it ever gets too much, tell me. I don’t want you pushing through pain and missing the good. You’re supposed to enjoy this. Forget what you’ve read in magazines or heard from friends. Just believe me.”
I nodded, my throat thick with emotion.
He kissed the corner of my mouth. “You know how badly I want to win, but not half as much as I want this to be good for you. I’ll earn it, whatever it takes.”
I tried to smile. “No ambush this time? Like my shoulder?”
His grin was slow and sweet. “No ambush, Otter. Just let me take care of you.”
“Alpha move?”
“No, sweetheart,” he murmured, brushing his knuckles down my cheek. “Let me be on top, so I can work for you.”
I sank back into the pillows, then raised my arms over my head. “Then I’m ready.”
He knelt between my legs, then leaned over me, sliding his hands up my arms until our fingers linked. He pinned them to the mattress, not to restrain, but to hold. To keep me right there with him.
The first cool touch of lube between my thighs made my pulse gallop. Then I felt him, the heat of him, pressing at my entrance. He moved in inch by inch as my body stretched around him, a sweet, overwhelming burn that made me gasp.
“God, you’re tight,” he rasped.
My hips jolted.
“Breathe for me,” he whispered. “Nice and slow.”
And I did.
He didn’t thrust, didn’t chase. He stayed right there, buried halfway inside me, holding still, holding me, while I adjusted. He kissed the side of my neck, whispered against my skin, and stroked calming circles into my palms. Every inch of his body stayed connected to mine.
It hurt, but not in a way that made me want to stop. Dom was too skilled. Too present.
And my body, my heart, knew the difference.
This wasn’t just about penetration. It was everything else. The way he moved for me, not against me, and the way he gave—his weight, his restraint, his absolute focus. Carrying me through it wasn’t just his role; it was his privilege.
“Are you okay, Otter?”
I nodded, barely able to find my voice. “Yeah…”
He started to move. Shallow strokes, barely there, though they somehow still scattered stars behind my eyes.
“Can I try deeper?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
The next stretch made me wince, a sudden flash. But it passed just as quickly, replaced by a heat that curled inward and bloomed outward, winding through every nerve.
He gradually pulled back. And that…that was the magic. My body clung to the pleasure he left behind. It tingled at every edge and sparked behind my ribs.
I lifted my hips in offering.
And Dom knew exactly what I needed. He entered me again. This time, my body welcomed the stretch, already learning him.
“Deeper,” I begged, half-moan, half-challenge.
He moved.
A cry cracked in my throat as the burn returned.
He stopped instantly, still buried partway inside me. He pulled back just enough for the pain to ebb.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, clinging to his arms. “Don’t go far.”
“I’ll stay here a while,” he assured me. His mouth traced its way down, lavishing my breasts, his tongue coaxing and calming with every suck at my nipple. His hips rocked in the smallest motions, barely there, but enough. Enough to guide my body toward wanting more.
The pain began to dissolve.
In its place was heat, sensation, and depth. All of him—his chest, his abs, his mouth—worked in concert, as if every part of him was tuned to me.
“Keep going. I can take you, Dom,” I whispered again.
He pushed in, longer now, to the hilt. Trusting me. Trusting us.
And God, the way he fit… My body clung to him, held him, and pulled him in. His groan broke against my throat, and I felt it everywhere.
He started to thrust, and I met him without thinking. My hips answered his, my body choosing him again and again with every glide and every tightening wave.
It still hurt…yes, it hurt.
But the pain was the kind you let sweep through you for someone who might just be your forever.
“Oh, you’re close, baby. I can feel it.”
I hadn’t understood what close meant until he said it. Back in Idaho Falls, those first orgasms with him had swept me away. Soul-deep, yes, but the path there was crowded with nerves, my head full of how to please him instead of what I was feeling.
Tonight was different. Tonight I had room to breathe, to pay attention to him and to myself. And when he moved again, I knew exactly what close meant.
Close was an ache in my core, a gasp trapped in my lungs, and a hot rush I couldn’t contain.
And then I flew.
My back arched, my legs trembled, and I cried out his name as the world shattered into white light and stars.
Dom threw his head back, moaning my name as he came, his hips still rocking into me before going still. His chest heaved as his body blanketed mine.
I wrapped my arms around him, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.
He didn’t just take my virginity.
He gave me something I didn’t know I’d been waiting for all along.
Him.
He collapsed onto me, not all the way, just enough that I could feel the tremble in his arms as he held himself above me.
Our foreheads brushed. His breath stayed quick, mingling with mine.
Sweat slid down his temple and across my skin.
Our chests rose and fell, trying to learn the same rhythm. Maybe they already had.
He finally rolled to the side, his fingers immediately seeking my hand. He didn’t let go.
“How’s my Otter?” he checked in.
I turned my head, met his gaze, and smiled with satedness. “Never better.”
His hand drifted down my side, tracing the curve of my waist, over my hip, and down the outer length of my thigh. It was a dove-like contact, a delicate conclusion.
And then he pulled me close.
It was the kind of cuddle that didn’t feel like an afterthought. I tucked myself into his side, and my leg draped over his, his chest my pillow. We didn’t talk for a minute. I listened to the way his breathing calmed as his thumb kept stroking small, lazy circles on my hipbone.
He kissed the top of my head.
“You wanna clean up?” he murmured.
He still hadn’t taken the condom off. It clung to his length, now softened but still filled. Something about that sight stirred a strange pride in me. That happened. We happened. All of that was us.
I nodded, and we rose together.
Dom held me at the waist as we padded to the bathroom. My steps were unsteady, still adjusting to the ground beneath me.
He tossed the condom and rinsed himself at the sink before grabbing a towel for both of us. I took the towel and wiped between my legs.
That’s when I saw it.
Just a streak, but unmistakable.
He saw it too, and he didn’t say a word. He just stepped behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his face in my hair. I felt him breathe me in. And that told me more than anything he could’ve said.
It was the marker of something I’d carried since birth. The thing other girls had shed in fleeting moments or drunken mistakes. But for me, it would always be his.
I’d waited, even when it would’ve been easier not to. And now I knew why.
Dominic Powell, the man who carried me when I stumbled. Who fought for me without being asked. Who treated my body like it was rare and powerful and wholly mine.
He made it feel like giving him everything wasn’t a sacrifice. That it was something I’d done for myself.
He kissed the nape of my neck. “Come back to bed with me.”
I leaned into him. “Where else would I want to be?”