Chapter 11 Elisa
ELISA
Ipress my back to the storeroom door and pull him in with me by the front of his shirt.
My fingers grip the cotton, knuckles tight.
I don’t kiss him right away.
I just hold him close, my breath stirring the collar of his shirt, our foreheads almost touching.
The silence between us is hot and slow, thick like the kitchen gets when the ovens have been running for hours.
My heart is still trying to decide whether it should be afraid or grateful.
I let it do both.
He doesn’t speak.
His hand finds my waist, just above the hem of my coat.
His fingers drag slowly upward, thumb brushing under the edge of my sweater, as if he’s trying to memorize me one inch at a time.
I lean into him and kiss the edge of his mouth—just shy of a real kiss—and he exhales like I’ve taken something from him.
“Bright lights or shadows?” he murmurs, his voice hushed like a secret passed in church.
“Leave them off,” I whisper. “Find me in the dark.”
He nods once and slides my coat from my shoulders.
It falls in a soft heap to the floor.
His hands return immediately, finding the edge of my sweater, tugging it up over my head in a single smooth motion.
I’m left in a bra and jeans, skin already prickling from the difference in temperature, or maybe from the way he looks at me.
Like he’s choosing hunger instead of salvation.
He steps back for a second.
Just enough to take me in.
Then he says, soft and quiet and not like a question at all, “Sit.”
I sit on the prep table behind me.
The wood is cool under my palms.
My legs dangle.
I feel like a girl again, caught doing something deliciously wrong.
Nico opens the nearby cabinet.
He doesn’t look at me as he reaches in and pulls out a small jar. Lemon curd.
He unscrews the lid, dips two fingers in, and tastes.
Then he steps between my knees and touches those same fingers to the corner of my mouth.
“Sweet,” he says. “You should always taste like this.”
I part my lips and suck the curd from his fingers slowly, eyes on his.
His breath stutters just slightly.
One small loss of control.
It lights something behind his eyes.
He dips again, this time dragging a smear across the curve of my breast above the cup of my bra.
The citrus scent cuts through the air, sharp and bright.
“Can I?” he asks, fingers warm where they rest just under the strap.
I nod once.
He bends and licks the lemon from my skin.
His mouth is hot.
His tongue traces the edge of the lace, not straying farther, just lingering, making me feel the emptiness of everywhere he isn’t touching.
My head tips back.
My lips part.
He does it again, this time on the other side.
His stubble scrapes lightly and I gasp, fingers threading into his hair.
He kisses the top of each breast through the lace, never slipping beneath it, never rushing.
“God, you smell like sugar,” he says against my skin. “Flour. Lemon. Heat. You smell like things I should pray for and take apart at the same time.”
He kisses his way up my sternum.
My thighs wrap around his waist without asking permission.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs.
“You’re still dressed,” I answer.
That earns a half-smile, dark and crooked.
He reaches for my hand and brings it to his collar.
“Fix it.”
The scent of him—something deeper, darker, uniquely his—hits me like heat, rich and dizzying.
Deciding to change things up, I slip down from the table and turn him around.
His eyes widen and he chuckles as I pull his trousers open with impatient hands, dragging them down past the curve of his ass.
My palms find muscle—firm, shifting under my touch—and he jerks like the contact surprises him, like he wasn't ready for how much he feels it.
He braces himself on the table, fingers curled around the edge, chest rising in a sharp breath.
His abdomen flexes as I kiss a slow path down it, tongue catching on the fine hair there, tasting sweat and skin and something heady that goes straight to my spine.
My thumbs press into the hollows of his hips, slow circles over bone as my mouth dips lower.
He’s hard beneath the fabric, straining against it, the head already wet and dark through the thin cotton.
I press my mouth over him—hot breath, open lips, no rush—and he moans, my name a fractured sound caught somewhere between reverence and need.
His hand finds the back of my head, not guiding, just there, like he needs the anchor.
I glance up at him, meet his eyes, and hold them as I drag my tongue along the thick ridge of him through the fabric.
His whole body jolts like it’s more than he expected, like I’m already undoing him.
“Fuck… Elisa.”
I hook my fingers into his waistband and drag his briefs down.
His cock springs free, thick, flushed, glistening at the tip.
I exhale over it slowly and watch him twitch.
Then I lean in and kiss the head, soft and wet, a lingering promise.
His hips jerk forward.
I wrap my lips around him, taking him in inch by inch, slow and deep, letting the heat and weight of him fill my mouth.
He groans as I draw him deeper, tongue pressed flat against the underside, feeling every twitch, every pulse.
My fingers grip his thighs to keep him from moving, to remind him I’m in control of the pace.
I set a rhythm—slow, deep strokes, then faster, shallower ones—alternating pressure and speed until his knees begin to tremble and he’s cursing under his breath like he’s unraveling.
I pull back just enough to flick my tongue over the slit, tasting him, teasing, before swallowing him down again with a moan that vibrates through both of us.
His hand tightens in my hair.
“Jesus—Elisa—don’t stop—”
I won’t.
I can’t.
The sound of him—his voice wrecked, breath hitching, body jerking—is intoxicating.
I hum, letting it buzz through him, then suck harder, deeper, until he’s barely coherent, hips flexing against the pressure of my hold.
I look up again.
His eyes are locked on mine, glassy with want, wide with something close to awe.
“You’re going to ruin me,” he says, voice shaking, hands fisting in my hair now like he might fall without the grip.
Letting his cock slip out with a pop, I lick just the tip of it.
He shudders.
His knees go loose.
I open my mouth and take him in again, slow, wet, deep enough for him to feel it in his spine.
He moans, one sharp, helpless sound.
My hands grip his hips as my tongue traces every line, every pulse.
I draw him in with purpose, retreat just to tease the head, then swallow him again, deeper this time, letting him feel the full heat of my mouth.
I hum low against him, and the vibration makes him buck hard into my throat.
“Elisa… fuck.” His voice is ruined already, and I’ve barely started.
I vary the pace—long strokes, then shallow ones, my tongue never still.
I let him feel everything—the drag of my lips, the wet slide of heat, the pressure of my mouth as I suck harder, deeper, just to hear him gasp.
He can’t stay still.
His hand clenches in my hair, the other gripping the table like if he lets go, he’ll come apart completely.
I smile around him.
As I work him deeper, I slide a hand between my thighs, already aching. I’m drenched.
My fingers glide over slick skin, and I moan around him as I touch myself, circling my clit with slow, tight strokes that echo the rhythm of my mouth.
He feels it.
He hears it.
The moan I let out when I press two fingers inside myself is muffled by his cock, but it vibrates around him, and he jolts.
“Fuck,” he chokes out. “Are you—are you touching yourself?”
I glance up, lips wrapped around him, and nod.
My eyes never leave his.
That look of dark hunger on his face spurs me on.
My hand moves faster, wetter, fingers curling inside me as I suck him deep, the sounds of my mouth and my pleasure filling the room.
He’s barely holding on now, voice breaking with every breath.
He’s trembling, fighting for control, while I fall apart on my own fingers.
The pleasure coils tight, fast, burning through me.
Every time I hollow my cheeks and swallow around him, I feel myself getting closer—his taste, his heat, the way he moans my name like it’s sacred.
My moan deepens, mouth going slicker, sloppier, as I move faster on myself.
It’s all too much—his body, his voice, the need tearing through both of us.
And then I’m coming fast, hard, my hand still working between my thighs as my orgasm hits.
I gasp around him, a long, guttural sound vibrating through my throat.
The rhythm of my mouth stutters, but I don’t stop.
He feels me fall apart, hears it in the way I moan, sees it in my eyes.
“Stop,” he gasps, voice hoarse. “I—fuck, I can’t—”
He pulls back, out of my mouth, eyes wild, flushed from throat to chest.
He looks like he’s about to fall apart, like he needs to.
Then he grabs me.
Not roughly, but with purpose.
With desperation.
Hauling me up into his arms, mouth crashing against mine in a messy, open kiss that tastes like heat and hunger and everything he’s been holding back.
What remains of my clothes come undone.
He turns us, bodies colliding with the table behind him, and lifts me onto it in one smooth, frantic motion.
The air between us is molten.
He doesn’t pause.
Doesn’t ask.
His eyes meet mine just long enough to make sure I’m still with him.
Then he pushes inside.
The stretch, the sudden fullness, the sharp snap of heat steals my breath, my thoughts, everything but the feel of him.
His mouth finds my neck, my shoulder, biting down on a curse as he buries himself deep.
He’s not slow now.
There’s nothing careful about this.
Every thrust is a surrender and a demand all at once.
My nails dig into his back, his hips slam into mine, and the rhythm is wild, unstoppable, like he’s trying to disappear inside me.
Like he needs to.
He growls my name like it hurts to say it, like it saves him.
Each time he drives into me, I feel the force of everything he’s held back, all the softness turned sharp, all the patience snapped like a wire pulled too tight.
The sounds are filthy, skin on skin, the wet slap of our bodies meeting, my moans catching with every thrust.
His name slips out of me between gasps, low and pleading.
His hand finds my breast, thumb flicking over my nipple as he drives into me.
I clench around him, and his rhythm stutters.
“Do that again,” he growls, and I do, tightening, pulsing around him, and his entire body shudders. My second orgasm builds fast, sharp and aching and close to the edge. “Come for me,” he whispers. “Let me feel you break again.”
That’s all it takes.
I shatter with a cry, body locking around him, back arching.
The pleasure rips through me in waves, fast and hot and endless.
I tremble under him, mouth open, unable to breathe, unable to think.
He thrusts through it, groaning as I clench and flutter around him, and then he’s right there with me, head tipping back, body seizing as he buries himself deep one last time.
“Fuck, Elisa…” he gasps, and then he’s coming, hot and hard inside me, hips jerking as he spills into the aftershock of my orgasm.
The world stays hazy for a while after it ends.
My body is trembling, not from cold, not from fear, just from too much of everything.
I can still taste him, still feel the echo of his breath against my skin.
He’s the first one to move.
His forehead finds my shoulder, the weight of it warm and heavy, his breath rough against my neck.
I rest a hand at the back of his head, fingers sliding into his hair, slow and thoughtless.
We stay like that, half-standing, half-holding each other upright, until the world stops spinning.
When he pulls back, his eyes find mine in the dark.
The look there is raw—tired, wrecked, tender in a way that makes my throat ache.
He runs his hand down my arm, his thumb tracing the inside of my wrist where my pulse won’t quiet.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod, but the air catches in my chest anyway.
He notices.
He always does.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, then reaches for my coat on the floor and drapes it around my shoulders.
The lining is cool against my skin, the smell of him all over it.
It makes me want to laugh and cry at once.
“Breathe,” he murmurs.
I do, and the world steadies a little.
My pulse evens out.
His fingers keep tracing up and down my back, small, slow circles that pull me back into myself.
The sound of our breathing fills the room, soft and real.
I tip my head against his chest, listening to the steady thud under my ear.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I let myself be still.
He presses a kiss to the top of my hair, then another, slower, to my temple.
“You’re safe,” he says, and it lands somewhere deep, somewhere I didn’t know was still raw.
I don’t trust words like safe, but right now, I believe him anyway.
The dark doesn’t feel dangerous anymore.
It just feels full of breath, of heat, of us trying to remember how to come back down to earth.