Chapter 34 #3
He comes back to me, hands framing my face like he needs to be sure I’m real. And when he looks at me, my stomach flips. It’s not just desire, but the weight of all the years I didn’t see what he was carrying.
His voice drops, rougher. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
No flourish. No bravado. Just truth.
His words do exactly what I’m afraid they will do: they crack something open.
Because the wanting is big enough to scare me.
“What if I’m not…” My voice catches, and I hate that it does. I force it steady. “What if I’m not all you imagined I’d be?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He just holds my gaze.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He reaches for a lavender silk tie hanging on his bedpost, gathers my wrists above my head, and loops the tie around them, slow, gentle, knotting it loose enough that the silk slides instead of bites. A suggestion of restraint, not a trap.
“Just for the record,” he murmurs, mouth brushing ear, “I’ve never tied anyone else up in my life.”
Heat floods low and fast. Of course, he hasn’t. Of course, this is him. Thoughtful even when he’s losing control.
His mouth finds mine again. Then my neck. My stomach.
His hands explore with a devotion that borders on worship. He moves like he knows exactly where to touch and how long to linger. My body hums, arches, reacts before I can think.
His fingers graze under my bra, then trace the straps to the back.
“Front snap,” I murmur when he fumbles.
His mouth never leaves my body as he undoes the clasp of my bra, one-handed.
“You’re scarily good at that.”
I feel the smile on his lips as he cups my breast, thumb rubbing over the peak, then lowers his mouth. When his lips close around my nipple, I make a sound I can’t take back. My back bows. My wrists pull against the tie as he sucks, slow and indulgent. It’s not just desire. It’s reverence again. Like he’s thanking me for existing.
“I’ve dreamt about this,” he says, voice low, certain. “About you under me.”
Something unspools deep inside me at the way he says it, like the wanting isn’t just sexual. It’s emotional. Physical. Total.
He shifts lower, kissing down my stomach, then the softest parts of me, until his hands slide beneath the waistband of my panties. He peels them away like he’s unveiling something sacred. The air hits me and I shiver hard.
And then—his mouth. Hot. Devoted. Every movement deliberate, every stroke of his tongue a confession. I gasp, buck against him, not even trying to hide how badly I need it, need him.
My wrists strain again, the knot loosens with the motion, the silk sliding, giving. The restraint turns into friction, turns into hunger.
“Gavin—” I gasp. It’s not a plea. It’s surrender.
He doesn’t stop. He goes deeper into it like he’s determined to take me apart with his mouth before he asks anything of me at all. Like the first time is his to give.
I’m shaking when one wrist finally slips free. The instant it does, I reach down and thread my fingers into his hair, holding him there. Anchoring. Because I can’t bear the distance even for a breath.
My hips lift, chasing him. He meets me—steady, relentless—until the pressure builds too fast, too high.
I come with a gasp that borders on a sob, my body breaking open around his mouth, my hand tightening in his hair like it’s the only thing keeping me on the planet.
When the tremors start to ease, I pull, gentle but urgent, drawing him back up my body because I want him. All of him.
He climbs over me, mouth wet, eyes wrecked, and the sight of him like that hits harder than the orgasm. My other wrist is loose now, the tie forgotten, hanging from my skin like an afterthought.
I lift my hips, desperate. “Please,” I whisper. “I need you.”
His breath stutters. He kisses me. One quick kiss, like he’s barely holding on, then another, deeper.
He reaches into the nightstand drawer without looking. A soft scrape. The rip of foil.
The sound alone makes me clench.
He rolls the condom on fast—no hesitation, no fumbling—then he’s back over me, braced on his forearms, eyes locked on my face like he won’t let this happen without seeing me.
And then he’s inside me.
A stretch. A fit. A breathless, perfect fullness.
He goes still for a beat, forehead dropping to mine, eyes searching my face like he’s checking for pain, like he’d rather take himself apart than hurt me.
I clutch him closer, nails in his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” I breathe.
That does it.
He starts to move, slow at first, controlled, as if he’s trying to make it last and also trying not to lose it. My body meets him, chasing the friction, the fullness, the way he fills every hollow place like he belongs there.
His mouth finds mine again, swallowing every broken sound. My legs wrap around him. He groans my name like it hurts, like it’s relief.
The rhythm builds. The room narrows to skin and breath and the wet heat between us.
I feel it coming again, sharp and fast, and he must feel it too because his eyes go darker, his grip tightening, his mouth at my ear.
“Look at me,” he breathes—not gentle now. Not polite. A need.
I do.
And when we shatter, we do it together—eyes open, mouths parted, tangled, breathless, and undone.