32. Eli
Eli
I can see the want all over him, but even on his knees, with my cock heavy in his hand and my body shaking above him, he’s still making sure this belongs to me before it belongs to either of us.
That should make me feel exposed—it does. But it doesn’t feel wrong.
That’s the thing I can’t stop noticing as his mouth lowers and his breath skims hot over the most sensitive part of me.
I’m standing in a half-finished nursery with my shorts shoved low on my thighs, one hand braced against the wall and the other tangled in Julian’s dark curls, and some part of me knows I should feel more scared than this.
Not because of him—never because of him.
My body has been a crime scene in conversations I still can’t fully hold in my head.
Desire has been tangled up with confusion and missing hours and shame that didn’t belong to me but still knew how to make itself at home.
Because consent used to feel, in retrospect, like a door someone else had walked through while I was too drugged and dazed to know it was open.
But this is not that.
Julian turns his face and kisses the inside of my thigh just once, and the panic I expect never arrives.
It flickers, maybe. A little thing in the corner of me bracing for wrongness, for the old fog and the awful, delayed feeling of my body being involved in something my mind can’t reach.
But this isn’t that; I’m painfully awake.
I stare down at him and wonder how the hell I’m supposed to survive this.
“You’re thinking too hard,” he murmurs, thumb brushing once beneath the head of my cock, not enough pressure to count as anything and still enough to make my hips jerk.
A sharp sound breaks out of me before I can swallow it. “Yeah, well, this is a lot.”
Julian’s mouth tips against my thigh, almost a smile, but his eyes stay serious. “Good a lot?”
I drag in a breath and nod, then force myself to say it because he asked for words earlier and I understand now that words matter here. With him, they’re not interruptions. They’re part of the trust.
“Good a lot,” I say, voice wrecked already. “Really fucking good, Jules.”
His eyelids lower for one second, and I feel the answer run through him in a shudder.
“Tell me if anything feels wrong,” he says against my skin, and then he wraps his hand fully around me.
My head hits the wall behind me hard enough to make the paint swatches jump.
“Fuck,” I gasp, fingers tightening in his hair by reflex before I loosen them immediately because some frantic part of me worries I pulled too hard. Julian makes a sound that suggests he does not share my concern.
His hand moves slowly at first, firm and exploratory, and the first clean stroke of his palm over me sends heat bolting up my spine so sharply that my knees actually dip.
He catches it. Of course he catches it. I look down just as he tilts his head and presses a kiss to the base of my cock.
“Oh my God.”
Julian’s laugh is low and dark against me, then his tongue drags up the underside of my cock in one slow, wet line, and language leaves my mind entirely.
I make a noise I’ve never heard myself make before, something rough and helpless that bounces off the empty walls of the nursery and comes back twice as embarrassing.
Julian’s eyes flash at the sound, and he licks the precum from the tip. “Fuck, baby. Give me more of those sounds. Let me hear how good I make you feel. Been starving for it.”
The sharp need in Julian’s voice knocks every last coherent thought out of my head. My fingers tighten in his hair, wordless permission pouring out of me in a rough, choked sound he clearly lives for.
Then he takes me deep, slow enough I feel the first stretch slide into heat, then seals his lips around the head and drags back with brutal intent. The wet sound makes my spine bow; I choke on a half-formed warning that dissolves into something nearer a plea.
“Jules—” My voice cracks, but he just grins, feral and proud. The suction punches a curse straight from my lungs. My hips jerk once, and he tightens his grip until I’m pinned, until the only thing I can move is my mouth.
“Easy, Liefling. Let me do the work.” Each word ghosts heat across slick skin before he swallows me again, deeper, throat flexing around the tip.
Stars detonate behind my eyes. The distant baby monitor hums, but all I can see is him—tongue flattening, cheeks hollowing, the slick slide of his mouth as he sets a relentless pace.
He learns fast, because Julian always does.
He knows me in ways no one else ever bothered to.
Knowing how I take coffee and when I’m lying about being fine translates horrifically well into knowing exactly when to slow down, when to use his tongue, when to take me deeper, and when to pull back and let his hand work me while I gasp at the ceiling.
My fingers flex in his hair, and he groans around me, the vibration making my balls draw up. “Fuck, yes—don’t stop.” I choke, hips twitching before I can stop them.
His hand slides to my balls, cupping and teasing them while he continues to take me down his throat without choking. A loud as fuck moan tears out of me, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep quiet, but he catches it, easing off just enough that the cool air hits wet skin and makes me shudder.
“Don’t hold back on me. I wanna hear every fucking noise you make. I’ve earned them.”
“God,” I gasp, fingers slipping tighter through his curls. “Fuck, Jules, your mouth—”
His hand keeps moving, slow and maddening, while he looks up at me with lips parted and eyes heavy. When he speaks, his voice is wrecked and filthy in a way I will probably remember on my deathbed.
“You like my mouth on you, sweetheart?”
I nearly come from the question alone.
My head knocks back against the wall again when his hand tightens slightly. “Answer me,” he murmurs, dragging his lips along the length of my cock instead of taking me in. “I want to hear you say it.”
The old embarrassment tries to rise, but it doesn’t have enough room to grow. Not with Julian touching me like this. Not with his eyes on me, not demanding performance, just wanting my honesty because my voice matters here.
“Yes,” I say, and it comes out broken. “Yeah. I like it.”
His mouth curves against me. “How much?”
I hate him.
I love him so much I can barely stand it.
“So much I can’t fucking think,” I admit. “So much I want to mess up your hair and keep you choking on me.”
Julian groans, and the sound is so deep I feel it in my thighs. “Then do it,” he says. “Grip my hair and fuck my mouth as hard as you want, baby.”
My fucking cock twitches so hard, precum spills out.
I curl both hands more securely into his hair, and his lashes flutter. He likes it. God, he likes it. That knowledge goes straight through the center of me, bright and dangerous, and when he lowers his mouth again, I push him deeper.
The wall is the only reason I stay upright.
That and Julian’s hand bracing me, his palm firm against my hip while his mouth pulls pleasure out of me so steadily I can’t defend against it.
It doesn’t feel like falling asleep or going foggy.
Every nerve sending up sparks and every sound torn out of my body has my full awareness attached.
His mouth moves with devastating focus as the other hand slides up to remove one of mine from his hair and lace his fingers through it. That simple touch, his fingers locking with mine while he’s on his knees, is what tips the whole thing from unbearable to impossible.
I gasp, and it’s a warning and plea tangled together. He looks up, and I come with his name in my mouth and my hand locked around his.
The orgasm crashes through me with a force that makes my spine bow and my hand slam against the wall, Julian’s name tearing out of me in a ragged whisper that sounds like relief as much as pleasure.
He holds my hand through it, keeping me anchored as sensation rolls through me and leaves me shaking in its wake.
I was afraid maybe I’d feel emptied out, scraped hollow by shame, or maybe too exposed and stupid for wanting.
I don’t. I feel raw, yes. Overwhelmed. Embarrassed enough that I’m sure the second I look at Julian’s face I’ll combust. But underneath all of that, I understand with a clarity so sharp it almost hurts—this memory belongs to me.
There’s no elegant way to stand after coming as hard as I just did. My knees actually buckle slightly, and Julian rises fast, pulling up my shorts and catching me at the waist. He pulls me close before I can slide down the wall and make the moment even more humiliating.
“Hey,” he murmurs against my temple. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Liefling.”
This time when he kisses me, it’s soft enough to make the tears finally spill over.
He tastes like warmth and want and so much fucking love.
I break off the kiss and wipe at my face, embarrassed, but Julian catches my wrist before I can hide too much.
He presses his mouth to my knuckles, then my palm, then the inside of my wrist where my pulse is still racing.
I let my forehead drop to his chest and stay there instead of pulling myself back together too fast. His hand cups the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, and he holds me.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
He pulls back, and his expression changes to one of confusion. “For what?”
I shrug one shoulder and let my hand rest over his heart. “For making it feel safe.”
Julian’s eyes widen in surprise, then his chin trembles and he pulls me back in, kissing me with so much care that it almost breaks me more than his mouth on my cock did.
He pulls back again, cupping my face and watching me with soft eyes.
There’s no mockery in his gaze, only love and heat and a little bit of smugness because he’s still Julian and apparently blowing my mind has done nothing to humble him.
His mouth is swollen, his hair is a disaster from my hands, and the sight of him like this sends another flicker of heat through me.
“You look pleased with yourself,” I mutter.
“I’m extremely pleased with you.”
That shuts me up instantly. My face burns again, worse because I understand now that praise is dangerous and Julian has absolutely noticed. His thumb brushes over my cheekbone, his smile turning softer.
“You did so good,” he says quietly.
I groan and drop my forehead to his chest again. “Stop.”
“No.”
“Jules—”
“No,” he repeats, more gentle than teasing now. “I want you to hear it. You were brave and told me what you wanted. You stayed with me and let yourself feel good. That matters, Liefling; it matters so fucking much.”
I look at him: at his ruined hair and smug mouth and the wet shine of his eyes. My best friend is looking at me like I’m something he prayed for and never expected to survive receiving.
I realize vaguely that I’m still leaning against the wall and that I have probably just made sounds in a nursery that should condemn me morally, but I can’t bring myself to care yet.
My body feels loose and stunned and strangely quiet.
The panic never came. The wrongness never swallowed me.
There is no nausea, no cold, no crawling need to leave my skin. There is just Julian.
I wrap my arms around his waist and hold on just as we hear Mila making a tiny sleepy noise through the baby monitor.
Julian looks over his shoulder toward the dresser while I hold my breath, every part of me snapping back into father mode so fast it almost gives me whiplash.
The noise stops, and a second later, there’s only soft static and the quiet rhythm of her breathing.
Julian’s mouth twitches, and I press my lips together to stop a laugh from bursting out too loudly. “Cockblocked by our daughter,” he mutters, then catches himself half a second too late and his smile drops immediately. His eyes cut to mine, alarm flashing across his face. “Eli, I’m—”
I grab the front of his shirt and pull him back to me before he can apologize. “Don’t take it back.”
His lips part as if to apologize again, and I shake my head.
“Don’t,” I say again, softer.
He exhales, shaky and relieved, and rests his forehead against mine. “Okay.”
I close my eyes for a second, letting the words settle. Our daughter. Mine by blood, his by choice, those two words held between us in a room full of things I never expected to want and now can’t imagine surviving without.