Chapter 21 Selene
TWENTY-ONE
SELENE
By the time we got back, the sun had dipped low enough that the living room glowed with that soft late-afternoon light—the kind that made everything feel a little slower, a little more golden around the edges.
I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door and slipped off my shoes, trying to ignore how comfortable it all felt.
Austin followed behind me, pausing just inside the entryway.
I could feel his gaze on my back before I turned.
His hoodie was pushed up to his elbows, the worn fabric soft around his forearms, and his hair had gone tousled from the wind.
He looked like he belonged here, and that was the part that kept knocking me off balance.
It wasn’t just that he was hot, or funny, or that we’d slept together again. It was that I liked him here. I liked the way he moved through the house like it was familiar now. Like the space bent around him instead of the other way around.
I busied myself putting the kettle on, more for something to do than out of need. He stepped into the kitchen behind me and leaned a hip against the counter, watching me with that crooked smile that always made my stomach dip.
“I thought you had things to do today,” I said, softer this time, more question than tease. “An actual life to get back to.”
Austin shrugged. “I ran a couple errands this morning while you worked. But afterward?” His voice dropped an octave. “I guess I just didn’t feel like being anywhere else.”
He said it so simply. No grand gesture. No practiced charm. Just truth, plain and unvarnished.
“You spent the majority of a Saturday with me,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. “That’s commitment.”
“You fed me. Let me touch your boobs. Let me help sort through haunted artifacts.” His grin was wide. “It was basically a dream date.”
I barked a laugh and swatted him, but the warmth he stirred didn’t fade. If anything, it made my chest go gooey.
He was younger than me—eight years, to be exact—and in most ways, I felt it.
He moved with a kind of unbothered energy that hadn’t belonged to me in a long time.
At least, not since Winnie was born. Not since the person I used to be slipped into the background beneath sticky fingers and grocery lists and late-night fevers.
But Austin made me feel something I hadn’t expected.
Alive.
It was there in the way he teased me. In the way he noticed when I was tired and handed me tea without a word.
In the way he looked at me like I wasn’t just surviving womanhood and motherhood and personhood—I was still desirable, still fun.
His eyes settled on me like I was still capable of being more than someone’s caretaker.
Maybe that was what they meant by spring awakening. Ironic I seemed to be feeling it as autumn wrapped its cool arms around us.
Austin turned toward me then, eyes catching mine in the dim glow from the stove light, his hand brushing my waist as he passed by—an absent touch that still felt deliberate.
His touch was possessive, like I belonged to him in ways neither of us had put into words yet. Desire danced across my skin.
He moved past me again, flipping off the last light in the living room. The house settled into a hush, and the quiet stretched between us—not empty, but full. Full of everything we weren’t saying.
I stood still, heart beginning to thrum low and steady, as he came to stand behind me. His hand slid around my waist, warm and steady, pulling me back into his chest. I could feel the beat of his heart where it pressed against my spine.
“You ever think,” he murmured, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear, “that maybe I like playing house with you?”
A shiver rolled down my spine.
His fingers drifted up, slow and reverent, grazing the underside of my breast through the soft cotton of my shirt. I let out a shaky breath.
“Because I do,” he said, voice low. “I fucking love it.” His mouth brushed against the thin skin of my neck.
I turned in his arms, my palms settling against his chest. That same cedar-and-skin scent I was starting to crave. “Austin . . .”
I didn’t have a follow-up. Not really. Just his name, just the ache of it.
He leaned down, capturing my mouth in a kiss that started soft—tender enough to undo me. Then his hands slid beneath my shirt and everything shifted.
I didn’t remember walking to the bedroom.
I soaked up the feel of his mouth trailing heat down my throat, the way his body guided mine through the door, how my shirt disappeared without me noticing.
I was vaguely aware of the way the last streak of light faded from the room behind us.
It felt like everything we’d held back until now was crumbling between our bodies.
He laid me back against the sheets like he was offering up a prayer, his hands reverent against my skin.
I arched into him, thighs parting instinctively as he pressed his mouth to the space below my ribs.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he murmured, kissing the line of my stomach. “Every inch of you.”
My body tensed, shame rising before I could stop it—automatic, conditioned. The soft places I usually covered. The faint stretch marks, the lines, the reality of motherhood etched across my skin.
He must’ve felt the shift, because he stilled and looked up at me.
“Don’t do that,” he said, gently caressing my skin with his mouth. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I’m not,” I whispered, though it wasn’t fully true.
Austin came up beside me, sliding his palm along my jaw until I was forced to look at him. His gaze held mine like a vow.
“Your body created a life. It’s carried weight no one sees . . . and it turns me the fuck on, Selene. Every time I look at you, I want to drop to my knees.”
Heat flooded me—too much and not enough. My thighs pressed together to ease the ache.
With one hand pressed to my throat, he kissed me again, slower this time, deeper. His hand skimmed down my side, finding the edge of my panties. When he peeled them away, I heard the sound of his breath hitch.
“You’re soaked,” he rasped, spreading me open with his fingers.
My legs opened wider on instinct.
He didn’t rush. His fingertips stroked over me with maddening patience, circling, dipping, teasing—his mouth never far from mine, as if he didn’t want to miss a single reaction.
I moaned into his mouth as he slid two fingers inside, curling just right.
My hips rocked against his palm, begging for more.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he said, kissing along my jaw, licking into the corner of my mouth like he owned it. “Let me take my time.”
I nodded. Or maybe I whimpered. I wasn’t sure. Everything was blurring at the edges.
His mouth moved across my breasts and rib cage.
Lower again, this time across my hip bones until he settled between my thighs.
He licked me like he meant it, like he was memorizing me from the inside out.
My hands threaded through his hair and I swore, breath catching hard as he sucked my clit between his lips, then eased two fingers back inside me, working in slow tandem until my orgasm broke open like a storm.
When I came, he didn’t stop. He groaned into my skin like my pleasure did something to him—like it wrecked him. He slid up my body, kissed me long and deep, and murmured, “I’m not done with you.”
Austin reached for his jeans, but I gripped his forearm. Our eyes locked.
“I want to feel you . . . bare.” A blush heated my cheeks.
Desire stormed in his green eyes. His jaw ticced as his body coiled. “I’m clean. I trust you. You can trust me.”
I nodded, my body humming with anticipation. “Same.”
We hurried to strip off our remaining clothes.
Austin sat back on his heels, my legs spread open before him.
He fingered me, spreading my desire and coating me in wetness.
My eyes flashed to his when he sucked his own fingers, tasting me before positioning his cock at my entrance.
My hips jerked upward, silently begging him to fill me.
When he finally sank into me, it was so slow it felt like my whole body was being remapped. Bracing himself above me Austin rocked into me with purpose—teasing, relentless, just the right pressure as his hand slid down to where we were joined.
“Austin,” I gasped, already spiraling again.
“I know, baby.” His voice was thick with want. “I got you.”
He kissed the side of my throat as he fucked me through the edge of another climax, and this time when I came, it hit harder.
My legs shook. My body clenched around him, and he growled—one hand bracing against the headboard as he thrust deeper, faster.
The other rolled my nipple through his fingers, intensifying my pleasure.
Then his fingers brushed lower. Just a brush of his fingertip across my ass, tentative, asking.
My eyes flew open.
He stilled. “Too much?”
I shook my head, the word already on my lips. “No. Don’t stop. I want more.”
The pressure returned, slow and sinful. Austin guided his cock while his fingers teased me––circling, pressing, retreating—until my whole body trembled with need. My breath hitched at the unfamiliar sensation. It was a new, forbidden feeling. Intimate in a way I hadn’t expected.
“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered, voice gritty. “I only want you to feel good.”
And I did. Fuck, I did. Every cell in my body felt lit from within. My head dropped back as my body coiled, begging for more, wrung out of me by his name.
As his fingers caressed my delicate skin, my body relaxed, opening to him. “I’ve . . .” My voice was hoarse. “I’ve never done this.”
He was steady and sure. “We’ll only go as far as you’re comfortable. I promise.”
My bones were liquid. “More,” I begged.
Then Austin slowed, his mouth brushing against my shoulder. “Do you have . . . ?” he asked, the unspoken part trailing between us like smoke. His voice was low. Careful. Not shy, just respectful.