30. Delilah #3
“When you were on Storm. When I was-” He stops. Clears his throat. “When we were together on that horse. Did you want that? Or did you just let it happen because it was easier than saying no?”
The question hits somewhere deep.
“I wanted it,” I say. “I shouldn’t have. I was still angry. I’m still angry. But I wanted it.”
“And now?”
I look at him. This man I’ve loved for years. This man who broke my heart and is trying, piece by piece, to put it back together.
“Now I want more,” I say. “But I need to trust that you won’t disappear again. That you won’t get distracted by the next meeting, the next investor, the next woman who flatters you.”
“There won’t be-”
“I know you think that. I need to feel it.”
He nods slowly. “What do you need from me?”
“Time. And consistency. And-” I hesitate. “And tonight. I need tonight to be just about us. No business. No gala. No past. Just two people having dinner and remembering why they fell in love.”
“I can do that.”
“Then do it. Tell me something else. Something that makes you happy.”
He thinks for a long moment.
“This,” he says finally. “Right now. Sitting across from you, watching you eat, listening to you laugh. This is the happiest I’ve been in months.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s true.” He shrugs. “The waffles helped. Seeing your face every morning when I brought them - even when you were still mad, even when you barely looked at me - it helped. Because you were there. Because I could see you.”
“You never missed a morning.”
“I never will.”
We finish dinner. Share a dessert - chocolate something, rich and dark and decadent. We argue about whether chocolate or coffee is better for dessert. (He’s wrong. Coffee is too bitter.)
The drive home is quieter. Comfortable. His hand finds mine again on the seat between us, and I let it stay there. Let myself feel the warmth of him, the steadiness.
When we pull up to the house, he walks me to the guest room door. Again. Like before.
“Thank you,” I say. “For tonight.”
“Thank you for coming.”
We stand there. The hallway is dark. Allana’s door is closed, Rosa’s light is off, and we are alone with the weight of everything we haven’t said yet.
“Can I kiss you goodnight?” he asks.
I should say no. I should keep the boundaries firm, keep making him prove himself, keep the distance that protects me from getting hurt again.
“Yes,” I say instead.
He steps closer. His hand comes up to cup my face - gently, so gently, like I’m something precious and breakable. He looks at me for a long moment, his eyes dark in the dim light, and then his mouth meets mine.
The kiss is soft. Tender. Nothing like the desperate heat on the horse, the frantic want that took over my body. This is something else. This is a question.
I answer it by opening my mouth. By letting him in. By sliding my hands up his chest and feeling his heartbeat thunder against my palms.
He groans, low in his throat, and the kiss deepens. His other hand finds my waist, pulls me closer, and I go - I go because I want to, because my body has been waiting for this, because I’m so tired of being angry when I could be this instead.
“Delilah.” My name is a prayer against my lips. “Tell me to stop. Tell me-”
“Don’t stop.”
He walks me backward until my back hits the guest room door. His mouth finds my neck - the same spot he marked on the horse, the spot that’s still tender - and I gasp, my fingers fisting in his hair.
“Inside,” I breathe. “Take me inside.”
He reaches past me. Opens the door. We stumble through together, mouths still fused, hands already working at buttons and zippers.
The back of my knees hit the bed. I fall, and he follows, his body covering mine, his weight familiar and right after so long without it.
“Wait.” He pulls back, breathing hard. His face is flushed, his hair wrecked from my hands. “Wait, I need to - I need to make sure this is what you want.”
“Lucas-”
“I can’t get this wrong again.” His eyes search mine, desperate and afraid. “If you wake up tomorrow and regret this - if this sets us back - I couldn’t survive it.”
I reach up. Touch his face. Feel the tension in his jaw, the fear beneath the desire.
“I want this,” I say clearly. “I want you. And I might still be angry tomorrow, and we might still have things to work through, but right now - right now I need you to touch me like you used to. Like I’m the only thing in the world.”
Something breaks open in his face.
“You are,” he says. “You always have been.”
And then his mouth is on mine again, and there’s no more talking, no more questions, just the slide of skin against skin and the slow, devastating relearning of each other’s bodies.
He takes his time.
He kisses down my throat, my collarbone, the curve of my breast. He maps me with his mouth like he’s memorizing me, like I might disappear if he moves too fast. Every touch is deliberate. Every kiss a promise.
“Missed you,” he murmurs against my stomach, the words vibrating through my skin. “Missed this. Missed the way you taste, the sounds you make-”
“Lucas-”
“Missed the way you say my name.” His mouth moves lower, and lower still. “Like that. Just like that.”
When he finally puts his mouth where I need it, I cry out - loud enough that I clamp a hand over my own mouth. He laughs against me, the vibration making everything better and worse at the same time, and hooks my legs over his shoulders.
“Let me hear you,” he says, his breath hot against my most sensitive skin. “Rosa’s room is on the other side of the house.”
“Allana-”
“Is the deepest sleeper I’ve ever met. You know this.”
He does something with his tongue that makes my back arch off the bed.
“Lucas - God-”
“There she is.” His voice is rough with satisfaction. “There’s my girl.”
He takes me apart with his mouth. Slow, then fast, then slow again. Building me up and backing off until I’m writhing, begging, gripping the sheets hard enough to tear them.
“Please-”
“Please what?”
“Please let me - I need-”
“I know what you need.”
He gives it to me. Two fingers sliding inside while his mouth seals over my clit, and I shatter - wave after wave, his name on my lips, tears streaming down my temples.
He doesn’t stop. Keeps working me through it, drawing it out, until I’m pushing at his shoulders because it’s too much, too intense-
“One more,” he says.
“I can’t-”
“You can. I know you can.”
He proves it. His fingers curl, finding the spot that makes me see stars, and his mouth is relentless, and I break again - harder this time, crying out his name like it’s the only word I know.
When I finally come down, he’s hovering over me. His hair is wrecked from my hands. His lips are slick. His eyes are dark with want.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi.” I can barely speak.
“Okay?”
“More than okay.” I reach for him, pull at his shirt. “Your turn.”
“Not yet.” He kisses my forehead. My cheek. The corner of my mouth. “I want to worship you for a while longer.”
“Lucas-”
“Let me. Please. I have so much to make up for.”
I don’t argue.
He spends another hour proving exactly how much. His mouth everywhere. His hands learning me again. Whispering how beautiful I am, how much he missed me, how he’ll never take this for granted again.
By the time he finally slides inside me - slow, so slow, watching my face the whole time - I’m already wrung out, oversensitive, trembling.
“Look at me,” he says.
I open my eyes.
“I love you.” He moves, a deep roll of his hips that hits every nerve. “I never stopped loving you. Not for one second.”
“I know.” My voice breaks. “I know.”
He makes love to me like we have all the time in the world. Like nothing exists outside this room, this bed, the space between our bodies. He tells me I’m beautiful. He tells me I’m strong. He tells me he’s sorry, over and over, between kisses and thrusts and whispered promises.
When we finally fall over the edge together, I’m crying.
Happy tears, this time. The happiest kind.
He holds me after. Strokes my hair. Pulls the blanket over us.
“Stay,” I mumble against his chest. “Stay here tonight.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He kisses the top of my head. “Not ever again.”
I fall asleep with his heartbeat under my ear.
For the first time in months, I don’t dream about falling.