Chapter 23 - Marco #2
Then he pulled out of me gently. I gasped at the sudden emptiness, at the warm rush of his cum leaking out of me onto the blankets. He reached for his discarded shirt and wiped me clean even when I flinched from oversensitivity.
When he was done he tossed the shirt aside and lowered himself onto the blankets beside me. My heart gave a panicked little kick when he shifted. I was suddenly terrified he was going to stand up and walk away like this had been nothing. Like I had been nothing.
But he didn’t leave.
Instead he gathered me into his arms.
Strong arms slid under me and pulled me against his chest, my cheek pressed right over the constellation tattoo on his skin.
One big hand rubbed circles between my shoulder blades while the other stroked my hair, fingers threading gently through the curls.
The warmth of his body surrounded me. “I’m never letting you go again,” his arms tightened around me as he said it, like the words were a physical thing, like he was pressing them into my body through the act of holding me.
Again.
The word snagged in my mind like a hook.
Again.
What did he mean by that?
Never letting me go again implied he had let me go before. Implied he had me once.
I wanted to ask.
The question formed in my throat and sat there.
His fingers slid through the strands slowly, pushing them back from my face, tracing the curve of my ear, settling at the nape of my neck before starting the motion again. Over and over.
I buried my face against him and let my eyes fall shut.
I didn’t know how long I lay there before I found my voice.
“W… was that okay?”
His hand paused briefly in my hair.
“I just… I wanted to know…” I swallowed, pressing my face harder against his chest so I wouldn’t have to look at him. I don’t know why, but I hoped he didn’t hate it. “I know I’m not… I mean, I was probably not as…”
Not as beautiful as the others you’ve been with.
The thought lived in me like rot. Because there had to have been others. He had to have had people who knew what they were doing. People who were graceful. Experienced. Easy to want.
I was none of those things.
I was a mess.
He had to be disappointed.
He had to be comparing me to someone better right now.
He had to be—
His hand slid down to my chin and tilted my face up.
“Why are you always so insecure?” he asked.
I blinked again, rapidly, trying to clear the blur from my eyes.
“I…” My voice faltered. “Because I don’t… I don’t understand why you…”
I couldn’t say why you want me.
He studied my face for a long moment. “You’re the best I’ve ever had, baby.”
My breath caught.
“And that,” he continued, thumb brushing along my jaw, “was perfect.”
Then my eyes filled with heat again, and I had to look away because I was going to cry right there in his arms, and that would have been the most embarrassing thing I had ever done in a life full of embarrassing things.
I pressed my face back against his chest and felt his arms tighten around me.
His hand returned to my hair and he continued to stroke it. Luckily I managed to choke back the tears and spare myself the embarrassment.
A while after, I really should have gotten up and left.
I knew that. The gala was almost certainly over by now.
I should get up. Instead, I lay there with my head still resting against Alexei’s chest, and I looked up at the sky.
The stars were incredible from up here.
Tonight they felt closer than ever. Brighter.
My eyes drifted across the scattered lights absently. Old habit, then I saw something.
I sat up so fast I nearly knocked into Alexei’s chin.
“My hope star!” I blurted.
I heard him inhale sharply at the sudden movement, but I was too distracted to apologize. My whole face had lit up without my permission, a grin breaking across it, and I was pointing at the sky like a child who had just spotted a friend in a crowd.
“There,” I said, breathless. “Right there. Do you see it? The bright one, low on the—”
Alexei sat up beside me. I was dimly aware of the blanket pooling around both our waists, of the absurdity of being naked on a rooftop with the most dangerous person I had ever met and getting excited about a star.
“You have a star, hm?”
His voice came out strange when he said it.
I nodded, still beaming at the sky.
“Yes. Well. I used to. When I was little.” I lowered my hand slightly, though my eyes stayed fixed on the bright little point of light. “My grandmother told me about it. I used to look for it every night before bed.”
I paused, suddenly self-conscious.
“That sounds stupid,” I added quickly. “I know it’s just a star. I know it doesn’t actually—”
“It doesn’t sound stupid.”
I blinked and looked at him.
He was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite name. Something soft and unreadable and almost… warm? No. That wasn’t possible. I was projecting. The night was getting to me. The cold was making me imagine things.
“Your grandmother,” he said after a moment. “What did she tell you about stars?”
“She said they were holes poked in the dark. Little ones, where the light leaks through. So the light can breathe.”
Alexei went very still beside me.
I noticed but didn’t think much of it. I was too busy looking at my star, my chest full of something bittersweet and achingly familiar.
“She said the dark is just a blanket,” I continued, softer now. “And behind the blanket is light. More light than you can imagine. Light that goes on forever.”
I laughed a little, embarrassed.
“It’s silly. I know. Stars are just burning gas. But I still…” I shrugged, cheeks warming. “I still like her version better.”
I glanced over at Alexei again.
He was staring at me.
“What?” I asked, suddenly nervous. “Was that weird? I know it’s childish. You don’t have to—”
“How long have you had that star?”
The question caught me off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“Your hope star,” he said. “How long have you called it that?”
I frowned slightly, thinking. “Since I was… I don’t know. Six? Seven?”
Alexei looked at me for a long, strange moment.
Then he stood up.
I flinched before I could stop myself, the old fear surging up reflexively, my body forgetting for half a second that this was the same person who had been holding me gently minutes ago. He noticed, I could tell by the brief flicker in his eyes, but he didn’t comment on it.
Instead he walked toward the far edge of the rooftop.
I watched him go, confused, clutching the blanket tighter around myself. Then he walked back toward me carrying a black telescope.
My eyes went wide.
“Is that a telescope?”
“Yes.”
He adjusted the angle, then he stepped back and gestured toward it.
“Take a look at it, then.”
“Really? You’re not… I mean, you’re not going to make fun of me for wanting to look at my star?”
He gave me a look that somehow managed to be both flat and incredibly gentle.
“I’m not going to make fun of you for wanting to look at your star, Marco.”
The use of my actual name did something to my chest that I wasn’t prepared for.
I scrambled up from the blanket, wrapping it around myself like a makeshift toga because I wasn’t about to crouch naked in front of a telescope with full consciousness of what that looked like.
I shuffled toward him in my fabric cocoon, nearly tripping on the hem, and ducked awkwardly to press my eye to the viewfinder.
For a second, everything was dark.
Then Alexei adjusted something, and the image sharpened.
My breath caught.
The star was right there.
Not just a point of light anymore. An actual shape, bright and distinct, surrounded by the deep velvet black of the sky. It was bigger than I expected, more real than it had ever looked from my bedroom window or the garden where I used to sneak out at night when I was small.
“Oh,” I pressed closer to the viewfinder, afraid to look away in case it disappeared.
“It’s so clear,” I murmured. “I’ve never seen it this close before. I didn’t even know you could see it this close.”
I could hear Alexei shifting behind me.
When I finally straightened up, my eyes were stinging.
I turned to find Alexei watching me with that same strange expression from before.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For letting me see it.”
His eyes moved from me to the telescope, then to the sky, then back to me. Something was working behind his gaze, something I couldn’t access.
Then he reached out and brushed a curl back from my face.
“You named it your hope star.”
I nodded.
“Why hope?”
I shrugged, suddenly shy again. “Because… I don’t know. Because when I couldn’t sleep, or when I was scared, or when things were hard, I would look at it and think… if that light can keep burning through all that dark, maybe I can too.”
I laughed nervously, embarrassed.
“It’s dumb. I know.”
Alexei’s hand stayed near my face, his thumb resting lightly against my temple.
“It isn’t dumb.” His voice was very quiet.
“Alexei?” I asked hesitantly. “Are you okay?”
He blinked once.
Then the strange softness in his face smoothed over, replaced by the familiar calm mask I knew better.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Get dressed. I’ll take you home.”
I stared at him for a second, certain I had missed something important.
But I was too tired and too happy and too overwhelmed to chase it.
He slipped beneath my skin
like a poison,
finding every place
I had sworn no one would ever reach.
Now he lives in the spaces
between my heartbeats.
I cannot scrape him away.
I cannot bleed him out.
He is buried too deep.