Chapter Twenty Five — Adrian #2
I laugh, actually laugh. The kind that surprises me as much as it seems to surprise her, and she kisses the sound out of my mouth before it finishes.
We don't make it to the bed. The Sanctuary floor is hard and covered in pattern paper. Neither of us cares.
Somewhere in the process she knocks over what's left of the noodles. Swears without stopping what she's doing. I think, distantly, that I have never once wanted anyone the way I want her right now. Mid-curse about cold noodles, hand already at my belt.
Her bra comes off next. Same efficiency she brings to everything.
Then it's just her. Bare in the Sanctuary's afternoon light, breasts full and heavy, nipples already tightened to dark peaks.
Unbothered by any of it, the way she's stopped being bothered by most things that used to make her brace for judgment.
I start to say something about wanting to see her. The old instinct, still there, and she catches it before it finishes.
"Don't," she says. "I've been right here this whole time. You don't have to ask."
Fair. I let it go and kiss her instead. Unhurried, the way she was with my shirt buttons, like we have every minute we'll ever need.
Her hands find my hair, not guiding, just holding on, the way you hold something you've already decided isn't going anywhere.
She breaks the kiss first. Slides down, working my belt open with the same unhurried focus she gave the buttons on my shirt an hour of my life ago. The leather hisses through the loops. She drops it beside us and it lands with a clink of buckle against concrete. I catch her wrist.
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." She looks up at me from under the strands that have escaped the knot. "That's the point."
Her fingers find the button of my trousers, then the zipper, and she works both with the same efficient precision she uses setting a sleeve. No wasted motion, no hesitation. She tugs the fabric down over my hips.
Then she bends her head.
Her mouth finds me. Warm, wet, deliberate. The sound I make isn't one I decide on.
She takes me in slowly. Her lips seal around the head of my cock. Her tongue presses flat against the underside and holds there.
Then she pulls back. Traces the ridge. Takes me deeper.
Her hand wraps the base where her mouth can't reach. A slow twist, matched to her rhythm. I can hear how wet her fingers are.
She makes a soft sound in her throat. Not a performance. Just the low hum of concentration. The same sound she was making over that hem an hour ago.
That's what undoes me. Not her mouth. That.
A year ago I'd have found some careful way to slow this down. Some argument about taking turns.
That version isn't in the room.
What's left of me braces on one arm and watches her take me apart in layers.
I say her name once. Low. More warning than word. She doesn't stop. Glances up at me through her lashes like the warning is the point. Her rhythm doesn't break.
She takes me deeper instead.
My hand finds the back of her head. Fingers slide into the loose knot of her hair. I hold her there for a second before I remember I shouldn't.
When I finally pull her off it's with more force than I mean to use.
She comes up laughing. Low, pleased with herself. Mouth swollen and wet. She wipes it with the back of her hand like she's got nothing left to prove and knows it.
"Get up here," I say, and it comes out rougher than I intend.
She doesn't need telling twice. Climbs over me, knees bracketing my hips.
No more unhurried left in either of us. Her hand guides me. Her breath catches.
She sinks onto me slowly. Short shallow pulls of air as she takes me in, her body opening around me inch by inch. The heat of it drags a groan out of me and I don't bother holding it back.
Then she's fully seated. Thighs pressed tight to mine.
Where I've wanted to be since the terrace. Since before the terrace. Since the first night I watched her cross a room like she owned every inch of it.
She sets the pace. I let her.
Slow at first. A rolling grind that presses her against me on every forward stroke. Her hand braced flat on my chest like she needs the anchor.
I bend my head and take one of her nipples into my mouth. She inhales sharply. Her fingers grip my shoulder.
I suck. Slow, deliberate pressure, my tongue working the stiffened peak in tight circles. My other hand finds her other breast. I roll the nipple between thumb and forefinger. Tug gently. Then less gently.
She makes a sound that's almost a word. Almost my name. It breaks apart before it gets there.
I switch. Mouth to the other breast, hand taking over the first, wet from me and tight between my fingers.
Then not slow.
She picks up speed. I let her go so I can watch her face do the thing it does when she stops performing for anyone. Unguarded. A little wrecked. Entirely hers.
My hands find her hips. Her waist. The line of her spine when she leans forward. Every place I touch answers a question I didn't know I'd been asking my whole life.
Her eyes stay open. Fixed on mine. Unafraid.
Her breathing turns ragged. Broken by small sounds. Half-words, fragments of my name, sharp exhales through her nose.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders hard enough that I'll find the marks tomorrow.
"Adrian—" Her voice cracks on the second syllable. Her rhythm stutters, goes uneven. "I'm—"
She comes with a sound like she's been struck. A sharp high note in the back of her throat. Her whole body seizes around me.
Her thighs clamp against my hips. Her nails bite in, no shirt left to blunt them.
She rides it out in short jerky pulses. Her head drops forward at last. Forehead pressing to mine.
I hold her hips and thrust up into her. Three times. Four. Deep and deliberate, chasing the grip of her still contracting around me.
It builds at the base of my spine. Breaks on the fourth thrust.
Everything in me locks. The sound of it stays trapped somewhere in my chest. My fingers dig into the soft flesh of her hips as I spill into her.
I don't last as long as I'd like to admit. I can't make myself care.
After, neither of us says anything that isn't just each other's names.
Afterward we lie on the floor in a nest of patterned paper and abandoned clothes, her head on my chest, one leg thrown over mine like she's staking a claim on the rest of the afternoon.
"The floor was a mistake," she says. "My back is never going to forgive me."
"I'll get you a better floor."
"That's not—" She laughs, the sound vibrating against my ribs. "That's not how this works. You can't just buy me an ergonomic marriage."
"I could try."
"You could not." She props herself up on one elbow, looking down at me with an expression I don't have a name for yet. Something between amused and unbearably fond. "Some things you have to actually build. Slowly. With your hands. No shortcuts."
"I'm familiar with the concept. Someone recently informed me structure isn't the same thing as trust."
"Someone's been taking notes."
"I have an excellent teacher."
"Don't get used to me being this reasonable about it. I reserve the right to be furious with you again tomorrow, over something much smaller than any of this."
"I'd expect nothing less."
"Good." She settles back against my chest. "Because I'm going to need the practice. Being angry at someone who actually listens when I am is going to take some getting used to."
She kisses me again before I can find anything clever to say back. Probably for the best. I don't have anything clever left.
I just have this. Pattern paper, cold noodles, and a woman who spent three years certain I'd disappear. Choosing, on purpose, in the middle of an ordinary day, to stay.
I don't need the city to notice. I've spent my whole life needing rooms to notice me. Needing scale and height and every visible marker of having built something worth seeing.
Right now the only room that matters is this one. The only thing I built worth keeping is lying three inches away from me. Laughing at something only she finds funny. In no hurry to go anywhere else.
I text Sterling back four words before I put my phone away for the rest of the afternoon.
I have no intention of wasting it.