30. Delilah
Delilah
Iwalked Adrian back to my tiny apartment, tiny at least compared to his penthouse.
But I wasn’t thinking one iota about that.
I wasn’t even sure that I was thinking at that moment, because honestly, the prior several weeks had been filled with way too much thinking.
Thinking, really, had always been a mechanism of control.
Thinking about how the future would go… thinking about how compatible we were…
thinking about what I wanted my career to be.
It was obviously true that thinking was not only necessary, it was extraordinarily useful in ninety-nine percent of situations.
But sometimes, you had to turn your damn brain off. You just had to go with what you felt and be present. And this was one of those one-percent moments.
I felt Adrian’s hand in mine as I walked him to my place, and I just felt unbelievable heat pulsing through my body. Not the kind of heat that arose from pressure, but the gentle, warm glow of a pleasant summer day on the beach.
I felt nervousness as I walked up the stairs to my apartment. Not the kind of nervousness from wondering if we were doing the right thing, but the nervousness akin to someone about to go on a first date or a first dance.
I felt unbelievably aroused and connected as I opened the door to my penthouse and turned to kiss Adrian once more. Not the kind of arousal where I threw caution to the wind or made stupid decisions, but the kind of safe arousal where I knew I was grounded in my shared vulnerability with Adrian.
I could think about how far we’d come. I could think about the unreal changes we’d made. I could think about many invaluable, life-altering moments before us.
But I felt safe, cherished, and seen. Who needed to think when I felt those things?
Adrian and I half tumbled into the dark penthouse. I worked to find a light switch, but Adrian pushed my arms down.
“You said you trusted me,” he said. “Then trust me to make this the most unforgettable night you’ve ever had.”
I swallowed, trying not to explode with excitement.
He spun me in place, turning my back to him, before he kissed my neck, all the while gently running his hands across my body.
His hands never rushed to one spot, but they never sat too long, either.
He moved as if exploring every sensitive part just long enough that it made me squirm, but not so long that I became desensitized.
It was made all the better by the fact that it was too dark to see where his hands were going, but with enough light that I could make out the handsome silhouette of the billionaire.
He picked me up suddenly, but then gently guided me to the bed. I expected to be thrown down, tossed like a rag doll, taken.
But instead, he gently placed me down in front of the bed, slowly undressing me.
Off went my shirt. Then my shoes, socks, and pants, leaving me in nothing but my bra and underwear.
But once more, instead of rushing things, he moved like a gentle river, his hands and body brushing over me but not yet dominating me.
He would caress my face, put my hair behind my ear, and kiss me.
It was so unlike what I had come to expect from the King of Diamonds that it almost seemed deliberate. For a hot second, I tried to think about whether this was another game.
But then I told myself to stop thinking and start feeling.
I’d had plenty of time to think. Too much of it, really. It was time to start feeling.
“You,” he said as he smoothly removed my bra, tossing it to the side, “are all I see right now. You are all I want right now. You are all I need. And you.”
He finally moved his fingers around my underwear and slid them down. He came up, kissing me from knee to hip—with a brief touch where it tingled most—up to my breasts and to my neck.
“Are mine.”
If Adrian had meant to go slow, being naked and with a sentence like that took away my ability to want to go slow.
I pulled him in for a tongue-filled kiss, tearing off his clothes far more aggressively than he had mine.
Adrian might have needed to go with an unspoken flow, the better to show that he was not playing games, was not trying to manipulate me, but I had no such reservations.
I fucking needed him, and he’d pushed me to a point where I could not pretend otherwise. I didn’t need to remind myself to stop thinking—I was fully immersed in this moment.
I had him down to his underwear before he pushed me onto the bed.
I kept trying to reach for his underwear, to pull his cock out and begin pleasuring him, but, strangely, he seemed to move as if he wouldn’t let me.
We still kissed, and he still found my erogenous spots with the perfect blend of tease and escape. But what was this?
“You first,” he said. “I’ve put myself first for far too long. It’s about damn time that you come first.”
Oh.
Fuck.
Yes.
Without missing a beat, Adrian slid down my body until his face hovered over me. I tossed my head back, closed my eyes, and arched my hips before he even got his tongue out. I prepared myself to be rocked.
And then his tongue gently, almost barely, glided over my clit.
Oh, damn! I should have known better. Adrian wasn’t going to rush this. He was going to give me almost unbearable pleasure by taking his time. If this was manipulation, well, fuck it, I wanted this kind of manipulation.
And wouldn’t you know it, this kind of manipulation was absolutely fucking perfect in building the tension, building toward a release that I knew would be even more potent than what I’d experienced before.
Even though I knew it was “manipulation,” somehow, it seemed like I was perfectly in sync with him.
That didn’t mean that I predicted his every move, far from it, but it did mean that everything he did was just right.
There was no wasted motion, no “oh I don’t like that,” not even a “meh” moment.
Every flicker of his tongue, every grasp of his hand, every press worked to perfection.
I could barely breathe. And Adrian wasn’t even trying to suffocate me, either literally or otherwise. He just seemed to perfectly listen to what my body said, take it in, and give it.
It took almost no time at all to get me to climax. Adrian held my hips in place, making it impossible to escape the rush overwhelming me from my clit outward. Oh, trust me, I tried. I squirmed, I screamed, I grabbed his hair as tight as I could.
Only when I begged him to stop and nearly kicked him in the face did he pull back.
I took but a second to recover before I told him to get on the bed, on his back.
He might have wanted to go slow, the better to show he was present, not conniving, but I had no such qualms. Before he had even fully gotten on the bed, I yanked his underwear off, showing his erect cock pointed face down.
It was a position that really just showed how much the King of Diamonds was packing, and despite having come just moments before, I was right back where I was moments before.
When he laid on his back, I wasted no time getting him in my hands, stroking before placing him in my mouth. I never let my eyes wander from his; I wanted him to know that I would have him forever. No more doubts. No more thinking.
Just being and doing.
As any good relationship would be.
As any meaningful, long-lasting relationship would be.
The implication of what we were hit me. We weren’t just compatible sexually, though that was absolutely fucking true. We weren’t just intellectually compatible.
We were just compatible, period. We didn’t need to provide nuance to the word or say it didn’t apply to certain situations. We just were.
There was something so powerful about that realization. For all the complexity we’d been through, for all the hoops I’d jumped through related to my work and him with his persona… sometimes, you just had to call a diamond a diamond, regardless of how much heat and pressure had forged it.
And fuck if I didn’t have the most handsome diamond of all.
“I need you still,” I said, pulling him out of my mouth to stroke him further. “I want you in me.”
“Come,” Adrian said.
I held him as I straddled him, guided him in, and then moved my hands to my chest. I wanted Adrian to come right here. I didn’t care about changing positions, about lasting a while; all of that would happen at a later date.
I wanted to look Adrian Vale in the eyes the entire time he was inside me. We’d been through so many struggles, so many fears, so much growth, I needed us to see each other at his moment of release.
Adrian must have felt the same way, because his gaze never left mine. His hands explored me all over, sure, and he ran his fingers over my clit when I was in a more stable spot. But on the part of the eyes?
We never left each other.
And I knew, looking at him, that we never would.
In the same way it didn’t take me that long to climax, it didn’t take Adrian that long.
He wasn’t a pump-and-done by any stretch, but it wasn’t like this lasted an hour.
But you know what? We lasted long enough.
We lasted until there were no illusions of games, of fake pressure or heat, or of doubts.
We lasted until we reached a place of certainty.
We lasted long enough to know this would be forever.
As Adrian finished, I leaned forward and kissed him, smothering his orgasmic shouts with my lips. Slowly, he stopped lurching. Slowly, he relaxed.
Slowly, his heart settled down.
I dismounted him, reached for a towel nearby, cleaned us both off, and laid next to him, pressing our fully exposed bodies to each other.
I had no idea what time it was; I barely had any awareness of the fact that we were still at my place, not Adrian’s.
Briefly, a thought crossed my mind about how in the world Adrian would get back to Vegas.
Another one flashed about how we’d realistically make this long-distance thing work.
But I stopped thinking and resumed feeling.
And as I did, I felt certain that those details would ultimately be resolved. We would find a way to make this work. I felt so comforted, so certain that this man—the full man, the one that encompassed both Adrian Vale and the King of Diamonds—would be mine and do anything for me.
This, I smiled profoundly at, was what I’d always wanted but never had.
A partnership built on genuine trust and respect, not of trying to change the other person, not of trying to get them to discard their darkest side, but of embracing every fiber of their being.
“Adrian,” I whispered. I rested my head on his chest, listening to his accelerating heartbeat. I smiled, half-asleep, and made sure my next words were spoken loud enough to be heard. “I love you.”
His heart jumped. Adrian drew in a breath, rested a hand in my hair, and gently scratched.
“Delilah,” he said, his voice equally breathless, his body equally rested and exhausted at the same time. “I love you.”