CHAPTER 18 #2
She whimpered, nodding, hips snapping faster, and I felt her walls flutter, already close again.
I sat up, mouth latching onto a nipple, sucking hard, teeth grazing, and she shattered around me, pussy spasming, gripping me with every pulse.
I followed with a roar, spilling deep inside her, flooding her until it leaked out around us.
She collapsed onto my chest, trembling, and I held her tight, my cock still twitching inside her.
Fuck. I really may never leave this bed.
OPHELIA
The world had gone quiet.
It was a silence that only came after something life altering.
It was a soft, aching quiet that hummed under my skin and made even breathing feel like a sacred act.
The air in Matty’s room was heavy with warmth, the scent of us clinging to the sheets, the way the sunlight still lingered across the bed from where afternoon had spilled in through the blinds.
We hadn’t left. Not once.
The hours had blurred, melting together into something slow and endless, a rhythm that felt like breathing him in and exhaling everything I’d ever been afraid to want. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he’d mumbled something about practice, reaching for his phone and typing out a text.
“I’m sick,” he’d said, fake coughing as he sent the excuse to someone.
He’d grinned after sending it, that crooked, dangerous smile that made my heart squeeze.
And then he’d turned off his phone and tossed it on the nightstand like the rest of the world could wait.
I hadn’t thought Matty Adler was capable of skipping practice for anything. But he had. For me.
The realization sat deep in my chest, glowing and terrifying all at once.
Now, hours later, the sun had long since started to fade, and the soft golden light filtering through his blinds had shifted into dusk.
I still held him inside me—I couldn’t bear to let him slip out, thighs locked, walls fluttering every time he shifted, like the thought of emptiness was unbearable.
A pale white film glazed my skin, his cum dried in soft streaks across my breasts, my stomach, my throat, shimmering faintly whenever I breathed.
His arm lay heavy across my waist, our legs tangled beneath the sheets, his heartbeat pulsing underneath me steadily.
The sound of it soothed me in a way I didn’t know how to explain.
I’d never felt anything like this before, this strange, dizzy mix of peace and fear and wonder. Like I’d spent years running and, for the first time, someone had caught me without trying to trap me.
Matty had his face buried against my neck, his breath soft and even, his hand drawing idle circles against my stomach.
The weight of his palm was an anchor. Every time he shifted, I could feel the muscles in his arm flex, the scratch of stubble against my skin.
I’d thought I’d be shy afterward, maybe embarrassed or unsure what to do with myself.
But I wasn’t.
I felt…safe.
His voice came quiet, a low rumble against my ear. “Are you hungry?”
I smiled, eyes still closed. “Not yet.”
“You sure?”
“Mm-hmm. You’ve been feeding me all day.”
I’d swallowed him down every time he’d let me, first from my mouth, then from my skin, then from his fingers pushed deep inside me.
I was obsessed with it, the thick, salty heat of him coating my throat, filling me up, marking me from the inside.
He’d scoop it off my stomach, my breasts, my thighs, and I’d open for him like it was the only thing I ever wanted to drink.
All day. Every drop. I could still feel it, warm and heavy inside me, and I still was craving more.
He laughed under his breath, the sound vibrating through me, and I struggled not to moan when his piercing hit me just right. “I meant real food,” he murmured. “I think we burned through a week’s worth of calories.”
Heat rose to my cheeks, even though the words weren’t teasing, not exactly. There was something soft in the way he said it. Like he was still in awe that I was really there.
A pause stretched between us, not uncomfortable, just full. I could feel him thinking.
“What’s your favorite movie?” he asked suddenly, his voice drowsy, the kind of tone that came from hours of lazy, half sleep.
He’d been doing that all day…asking things.
Between the kisses and the laughter and the slow, endless tangling of limbs, he’d kept slipping in questions like he was trying to map me from the inside out.
Like knowing me was something he couldn’t get enough of either.
I blinked, trying to think. “Um…I don’t know. I used to like Pretty Woman. My mom had it on DVD.”
“Good choice,” he said, pressing a small kiss to my shoulder. “Classic.”
His fingers kept tracing slow patterns against my skin, gentle and aimless. “What about favorite food?”
I didn’t answer out loud. I just thought it, dreamy and shameless. You. Your cum. It’s my new favorite food, salty and warm and all mine.
He huffed, like he’d heard every word in my head. “Besides my cum, dirty girl.”
I winked at him, and he pulled me closer. “Anything sweet,” I murmured.
He hummed, his breath warm against my ear. “I would’ve guessed that. You’re so sweet.”
It was corny, but I loved it anyway. My lips curved before I could stop them, a quiet, helpless smile I buried against his arm. No one had ever said things like that to me and meant them, not like he seemed to, soft and certain, like sweetness was something good to be.
He kept asking things. My favorite color. Where I wanted to travel. If I believed in luck.
And every question made me ache a little more.
Because I realized I hadn’t asked him a single thing.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. It was that I already knew.
I knew his favorite number—the one on his jersey, the one he’d worn since he was twelve. I knew what he ate before every game. I knew what kind of music he played when he drove home from practice, what brand of body wash he used, how he hated being late and was a creature of habit.
Which made him skipping practice today a really big deal.
I knew the names of his siblings, the way he laughed when he was trying not to, the exact spot on his cheek where his dimple appeared if you caught him off guard.
I knew too much.
And suddenly that knowledge, all those stolen details, felt too heavy to hold.
He shifted behind me, his arm tightening slightly, pulling me closer until my back was flush with his chest.
“You’re quiet,” he murmured, his lips brushing my shoulder.
“Just thinking,” I whispered.
“About what?”
“You.”
He laughed softly, a breath against my skin. “Good answer.”
When I didn’t say anything else, he nudged my side gently. “Ask me something.”
I blinked, caught off guard.
“What?”
He smiled against my neck. “You’ve let me ask you everything. I want you to ask me something. Anything. Whatever you want to know.”
I froze.
My mind scrambled for questions, any question, but it was like trying to find something new in a story I’d already memorized. Everything I could think of, I already knew.
He was waiting, though, so I searched for something. Anything.
“Have you…” My throat felt tight. “Have you ever been in love?”
The question slipped out smaller than I meant, fragile and stupid. Idiot. I could’ve asked about his favorite color, favorite song…anything safe. Instead, I’d cracked myself open.
Matty went still behind me. His fingers froze on my hip. The room turned thick, the quiet pressing in.
I couldn’t stand it. Heat flooded my face, the shame terrible and sudden. I shifted, pulling away fast. His cock slid out of me with a wet pop that made me want to disappear. I curled onto my side, knees to chest, hiding my face in the pillow.
He didn’t move for a beat. Then the mattress dipped. His hand settled warm on my shoulder, not pulling, just resting.
When I finally turned my head to look at him, he was already watching me.
His eyes caught the dim light, unreadable. But it didn’t seem like he was avoiding the question. Or that he was about to run screaming from the room. It seemed like he was just feeling it. Turning it over in his mind before letting it go.
“Yes,” he finally said.
The single word cut through me. My chest went tight, my stomach hollowing out.
I didn’t even know why it hurt so much. Of course, someone like him had been in love before. Of course there had been other girls.
Still, I felt it. The sting. The twist. The foolish, impossible jealousy that burned hot and fast.
I looked away before I could stop myself, my breath catching. “Oh.”
For a heartbeat, he didn’t say anything.
Then, softly, so soft I almost didn’t hear it, he said, “With you.”
My head jerked back toward him. “What?”
His eyes didn’t waver. “You asked if I’ve ever been in love,” he said simply. “Yeah. With you. From the second I saw you.”
The words sank deep, spreading through me in a rush that felt both shattering and whole. Like he’d just spoken something my heart had been waiting its entire life to hear.
He said it like it was fact. No hesitation. No teasing smirk. Just truth.
And it was too much.
Tears blurred my vision before I felt them fall. My chest tightened, my throat aching as the first one slid down my cheek.
He saw it immediately. “Hey,” he murmured, sitting up slightly. His hand caught my face, thumb brushing under my eye. “Hey, look at me.”
I did. Barely. My vision swam.
“You’re crying,” he said softly, his brows drawing together. “Why are you crying, pretty baby?”
I tried to smile, but it trembled. “Because…you mean it.”
His jaw flexed, and for a second I thought he might say something, but instead he just kissed me. Slow and deep…nothing like the frantic kind of kisses we’d shared earlier. This one was careful, almost worshipful.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine. “Of course I mean it.”
I couldn’t stop crying. It wasn’t the ugly, hiccupping kind of crying. It was quieter than that, the kind that comes when you’ve been holding too much inside for too long and suddenly someone gives you permission to let it go.
Matty brushed the tears away one by one, his fingers tracing down to my jaw. “I’m surprised you couldn’t feel it,” he whispered.
I swallowed hard. “Something like that feels more like a hope than a reality.”
His mouth curved into a small, disbelieving smile. “You make it sound impossible.”
“It felt impossible,” I admitted. “Before you.”
He searched my face, obviously not understanding what I meant. But then he kissed me again, softer this time, like a promise.
We lay there in silence, his hand running slow lines down my spine, my fingers tangled in the sheets. Every once in a while, his thumb would drift over the back of my neck, a quiet reminder that he was still aware of me.
I couldn’t stop staring at him…the faint stubble along his jaw, the way his lashes cast small shadows across his cheeks, the tiny scar above his brow I’d noticed from the first photo I’d ever seen of him.
He caught me staring and smiled. “What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
He tilted his head. “You’re thinking something.”
I hesitated, then said quietly, “Just that I never thought I’d end up here.”
His smile softened. “With me?”
“With you,” I said, my voice small. “And you saying things like that.”
Matty’s expression shifted; something tender flickered behind his eyes. “Get used to it,” he said, “because I’m not planning on stopping.”
I laughed softly, the sound half choked by tears. “You always know exactly what to say.”
He leaned in until his lips brushed my ear. “Only with you.”
I closed my eyes, the warmth of his voice sinking into me, wrapping around all the broken, jagged places that had been empty for so long.
I didn’t tell him that I’d spent years dreaming of someone saying those words. That I’d built entire fantasies around the idea of his love.
The last of the daylight faded, leaving us in the hush of his room. The hum of the ceiling fan. The steady rhythm of his breathing.
He shifted once, his arm tightening around me, and then his breaths evened out, deep and slow…sleep taking him easily, like it always must for people who didn’t live inside their own heads.
Another tear slipped free before I could stop it, sliding down my temple onto his pillow. The thought came quiet but sharp, cutting through the softness of the moment.
He never asked.
He hadn’t asked why I was standing in front of his house this morning, trembling and half crazed. He didn’t wonder how I knew where he lived, or why I’d been there at all.
Because he didn’t really know me.
He couldn’t love me, not the real me, because he hadn’t seen her yet.
I closed my eyes, letting the dark press in. His heartbeat pulsed against my back, warm and steady, and still…
Somewhere deep inside, I knew it couldn’t last.
Love built on secrets never does.
But that didn’t stop me from wanting to keep it, to clutch it with both hands, even as the edges cut into me, even as I felt it slipping through my fingers.
I would try to hold on to it for as long as I could.