Chapter 27 #3
“You’re right, I wasn’t there. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the way people work. Devlin has been chasing a high he can’t reach his whole life. You beating yourself up for it for the last decade is just you being stubborn.”
“Maybe if I’d just given in to Devlin, then you wouldn’t have had to live the way you have for the last five years. Did you think of that?”
I scoffed. “Oh, you want me to blame you too now? You want me to tell Amara this is all your fault? Come on, Con.” I laughed but the sound was sour. “This is the way our lives turned out, and I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Amara. I’m not doing what ifs, Con. It’s a waste of time.”
His jaw clenched. “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” I spread my arms wide. “Are we fighting? Because I think you’re holding onto a martyr complex, and I’m just making you confront it.”
“This is not what you—” He stopped short, frustration evident in his clenched fists.
“This is not what I what?” I demanded. “Finish that sentence, Con.” Part of me knew where he was going with this. That me confronting him wasn’t our deal, wasn’t part of the silent agreement we’d made in our relationship.
I could tell meeting my gaze was causing him physical pain. “Tav, please.”
“Finish. The. Sentence.”
His lips thinned, and for a moment, I thought he might strike me. “This is not,” he spoke through gritted teeth, “what you need to do with me.”
“Oh, so you can bend over backward to heal whatever is fucked up with me, and I can’t do that to you? What, you think I’m only here as a like a little pet project? Something you can fix to make up for all the guilt you got rotting in your gut?”
He surged forward, eyes firing. “Don’t call yourself that.”
I noticed that what made him the most pissed off was when I insulted myself. “Then tell me why we can’t have this conversation.”
“Because it’s hard.” He slammed his fist down on the chair, and something in the furniture creaked. With a groan, the anger seemed to ebb as he pitched forward and dropped his head into his hands. “Fuck, this is hard.”
I reached for him, and his body went limp like a doll. I pulled him into my lap, arranging his legs so they straddled my hips and tucked his face into my neck. His lips dipped to mouth at my collarbone near my bad shoulder. His arms snaked around my body to curl at the short hair at my nape.
“I don’t see you like that,” he murmured against my skin. “You’re not a pet project. But sometimes focusing on you gives me the only reprieve I have from thinking about all my mistakes.”
“That’s not fair to either of us. You want me around for a while? After Devlin is dealt with? Then you have to give to me the same way you get from me.”
He leaned back on my thighs and faced me.
His eyes were no longer wet, but sorrow lurked there in the shadows.
His fingers played over my face, running along the scars and crooked ridge of my nose, across my lips and then back up to tangle in my hair.
Finally his gaze met mine. “I’ll try. That’s all…
that’s all I can promise right now. I’ll try. ”
I believed him. Con didn’t make promises lightly, and he kept them. He wasn’t going to change overnight, just like I wasn’t. We both had scars and wounds that ran deep. “That’s all I’m asking.”
He smiled, a real one. “One thing I have let myself think about was that if I had given in to Devlin all those years ago, I probably wouldn’t have met you. But you had to go through hell to get here, and…” His jaw shifted, and his eyes went misty.
“And we’re here now. That’s what matters.”
His lips parted, and I swore I saw a bit of the old Con, the one he must have been over a decade ago before he let the guilt descend and taint everything about him.
He pressed his lips to mine, and the kiss turned deep quick as he plundered my mouth with his tongue.
His cock pressed against mine as he rolled his hips on his lap.
He separated us an inch to whisper, “Fuck me, Tav.”
I groaned. I had never been much for topping, but being inside Con was a fucking dream. “Get the lube.”
He shook his head and spit on his hand before reaching back behind him. “No time.”
I snorted. “There’s plenty of fucking time, Con.”
He shook his head, eyes flaring like blue crystals. “No. I want it to hurt a little.”
I stiffened. “No, I—”
“This isn’t a punishment thing.” He shoved his pants off and reached into my briefs. “I just want to feel you for days. Please, Tav.”
When he wrapped his fingers around my cock and tugged it out of my briefs, my eyes rolled back into my head. “Spit,” he ordered. I let my spit drip out of my mouth to coat the head of my cock. His measured breathing dissolved into hard pants as he coated my shaft with my spit. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
And then he rose up onto his knees and lowered himself onto my cock.
His muscles resisted at first, and I almost pulled away, but Con was nothing but persistent as he dropped down, inch by agonizing inch until I was fully seated in him.
A beautiful blush covered his chest as he arched his neck and began to fuck himself onto me.
I held his hip with one hand and braced myself with the other behind me, staring at the place we were connected, at his hard dick bouncing between us with precum glistening the tip.
We were fast and dirty, all harsh groans and skin slapping until I felt my balls draw up tight. It seemed too soon, but Con’s thighs were shaking, and he jerked himself with one hand while staring into my eyes. “Come inside me, Tav.” He rasped. “Fill me. Fill me so fucking full.”
“Con,” I moaned as my head fell back. I gave it up then, my hips bucking as my cock pulsed inside of him. He came on a soft cry, cum shooting all up my chest and over his hand. He went lax against me, slumping into my chest like the dead.
I held him for a moment as the orgasm glow faded, and our breathing returned to normal. Then I pressed a kiss on the top of his head and cleaned us both up before shuffling us into bed. Con fell into an exhausted sleep immediately, his head on my chest, his fingers laced with mine.