Chapter 30 #2
I give each breast equal attention, tracing the reactions I remember too well. I feel like a prince when I make her draw in a sharp breath, and like a king when her voice goes thin in the middle and her hips shift restlessly against the mattress.
Her hands clutch at my shoulders, fingers digging in when I graze her with my teeth, then soothe with my tongue.
By the time I trail kisses down her stomach, her muscles are trembling.
Her waistband waits like a line we have already kissed and touched and crossed in every way but one.
I hook my fingers into the band and pause.
Her eyes are on me, bright and steady.
“May I?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “Please.”
I peel her jeans and underwear down in one slow, careful motion, taking in every new inch of exposed skin like I’m being granted access to a temple.
She kicks them free, breath shuddering.
For a moment, I just… look.
She is spread out beneath me—hair wild on the pillow, cheeks flushed, chest heaving, thighs parted in an invitation that feels less like seduction and more like trust made visible.
My vision goes hot around the edges.
“Sophia,” I whisper. “My goddess of sharp words and sharper truth.”
“You’re the one quoting poetry right now,” she says, voice shaking.
“Wait,” I murmur. “Then I give you worship.”
I settle between her thighs, hands resting on her hips, thumbs tracing idle circles into the soft skin.
The heat of her hits me like a wave.
I bend, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of one knee. Then the other. Then higher, along the tender skin of her inner thighs. She squirms, a small, helpless movement that makes me smile against her.
“Flavius,” she breathes.
“Yes,” I say.
I kiss the place where her thigh meets her pelvis, feel the jump of her pulse there.
Then I finally put my mouth where her body has been calling me since I walked in.
The first slow stroke of my tongue makes her whole body jolt.
Her hands fly to my hair, fingers threading in tight.
“Oh—” The sound tears out of her, raw and astonished. “Oh.”
I hum against her, the vibration making her hips dance.
I take my time.
This is not obligation. This is devotion.
I trace her with my tongue, learning the places where she goes soft and liquid, the places where she stiffens and gasps. I circle the tight bundle of nerves at the top of her with the lightest touch, then give her more when she arches, but never more than she can bear.
Her legs tighten around my shoulders, thighs trembling.
She is wet—slick and hot and tasting like something I don’t have a word for that doesn’t sound like prayer.
“Yes… there, please, right there—” Her voice is high and broken.
I answer with my mouth—pressing, stroking, sucking in the rhythm I’ve already learned from her breathing. My hands hold her hips steady, thumbs rubbing small circles against her hipbones to remind her she’s here, that there is a body under all that sensation.
“Flavius—” Her fingers pull at my hair, no longer careful, just desperate. “I’m— I’m going to—”
“Yes,” I murmur against her. “Let go. I have you.”
As I seal my mouth more firmly over her clit, I slide two fingers into her and curl them, her body rising to meet whatever I give.
She comes apart.
Her orgasm crashes through her like a wave breaking on rock—violent and beautiful. She cries out, loud, no attempt to smother it. Her back arches off the bed; her thighs clamp around my head; her fingers dig into my scalp.
I don’t stop. Not until the shudders become too much and she whimpers my name in a pleading way that tells me she needs air, needs quiet.
I ease off slowly, kissing her gently as I withdraw my fingers, moving slowly now, giving her body time to settle.
She collapses back onto the bed, breath heaving, dark hair a wild halo.
I kiss my way back up her body—hip, stomach, ribs, the valley between her breasts—tasting the salt of sweat and the faint metallic tang of her pleasure on my tongue.
By the time I reach her mouth, she’s blinking up at me, dazed and radiant.
I kiss her softly.
She drags me closer with surprising strength, hands fisting in my hair, tongue sweeping into my mouth like she wants to taste the echoes of herself on me.
Heat flares sharp and bright.
“Your turn,” she breathes against my lips.
My cock throbs so hard it hurts.
“Sophia—” I start, already shaking my head. “This was—”
“I’m not finished,” she says. There is steel under the softness now. “I told you earlier: I want to give to you. Let me.”
I close my eyes for a heartbeat.
Breathe.
When I open them again, she’s watching me with that narrow, focused look she gets when she’s about to take apart a problem and reassemble it better.
She pushes gently at my chest.
“Lie down,” she says.
The command hits some old part of me that used to flinch at any order.
But not from her.
From her, it feels… safe.
I roll onto my back.
She straddles my hips, the same position as this morning, but with nothing between us now but heat.
Her hands go to the button of my jeans. They fumble once, twice, then find their rhythm.
“Okay?” she asks, fingers pausing on the zipper.
“More than okay,” I manage, voice wrecked.
She drags my jeans and underwear down, freeing me.
The air hits my skin; I hiss through my teeth.
Her gaze drops.
She inhales.
“Oh,” she says faintly.
Some foolish, boyish part of me wants to preen at the way her pupils dilate, at the little hitch in her breath.
She reaches out with one careful hand, fingers wrapping around me.
I choke.
Her touch is tentative at first, then firmer as she feels the way my body responds—how I jerk in her hand, how my breath stutters.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” she admits, voice barely above a whisper. “About you. In my hands.”
“Goddess,” I rasp.
She strokes me—slow, deliberate pulls from base to head, thumb circling the sensitive ridge. Her other hand braces on my chest, steadying herself.
The dual sensation—the drag of her palm, the press of her fingers, the weight of her body over mine—almost undoes me.
“Look at me,” she says softly.
I do.
Her eyes are fixed on my face, not my cock, watching every flicker of expression as if it’s information she wants to memorize.
“I love watching you feel,” she murmurs. “You try so hard to stay in control.”
“I am losing,” I grind out.
“Good.” A small, wicked smile curves her mouth. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
My vision goes fuzzy at the edges.
I catch her wrist—not to stop her, just to anchor myself.
“If you keep doing that,” I say, voice raw, “this will be over before it truly begins.”
She laughs—low and pleased—and eases her grip.
“Okay,” she says. “Then… together?”
She shifts higher, knees bracketing my hips, one hand guiding me to the slick heat between her thighs.
The tip of my cock brushes her entrance.
We both stop breathing.
Her hands plant on my chest.
“Flavius,” she whispers. “I want you. Inside me. Clear. Present. Not as a distraction from the committee. As… as the life I’m choosing no matter what their decision is.”
Need punches through me so hard I almost see white.
“We stop if—”
“We stop if either of us wants to,” she finishes. “I know. I trust you.”
She lifts her hips, angles herself, and then—slowly, carefully—lowers.
The first tight, wet slide of her body taking me in is like nothing I have ever felt.
I have had sex before.
I have not had this.
Her breath stutters; her nails bite into my shoulders.
We move slowly. I hold perfectly still, every muscle screaming, while she takes me inch by inch, pausing when she needs to breathe, adjusting her angle until her brow furrows and then smooths.
“Almost,” I rasp, hands gripping her hips hard enough I’ll probably see my fingerprints later. “You are… Goddess, you are tight.”
“You’re… a lot,” she mutters, voice strained.
Pride flares even through my careful control.
At last, her thighs meet my hips.
I’m fully inside her.
We both just… exist here for a moment.
No movement.
Just the feeling of her wrapped around me—heat, pressure, the wild, almost painful rightness of it.
Her eyes open.
We gaze at each other.
“Hi.” A tiny, breathless laugh shakes out of her.
“Hi,” I manage.
I reach for her face, cupping her cheek, and draw her down until our foreheads touch again.
Front to front. Mind to mind.
My other hand finds her heart, palm flat against the flutter under her ribs.
“This,” I murmur, voice shaking. “No arena. No crowd. No committee. Only you and me. Do you feel that?”
“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”
She rocks her hips.
Just a little.
The sensation explodes through me.
My head thumps back against the pillow; a guttural sound rips out of my chest.
Her lips curve.
She does it again.
Slow at first—testing, adjusting—then with more confidence as she finds a rhythm that makes her head fall back and her mouth open on a soft moan.
I grip her hips, guiding, meeting each movement with a thrust of my own.
We find a rhythm together.
A pace that is not frantic, not timid. Deep. Consuming. A slow burn that climbs and climbs until every nerve feels strung with lightning.
Her hands flatten on my chest; her nails scrape lightly over my skin with each roll of her hips.
“Look at me,” I say again, because I need it.
She does.
Our gazes lock, and the world collapses to that line.
Every push, every pull, every stroke is written there—in the widening of her pupils, the tremor in her mouth, the soft, involuntary sound she makes when I hit a certain angle.
“Flavius…” she gasps. “You feel… I have no words.”
“Good,” I say, voice shattering. “You talk enough. Now, let your body speak.”
A breathless laugh breaks from her even as her rhythm falters, hips grinding down harder, chasing something only she can feel.
I shift my angle, tilting my hips, and thrust up into her with a slow, relentless drive that makes her cry out.
“There,” she whimpers. “Right there, right there, don’t stop—”
“Non desinam,” I promise, the Latin fraying with my control. I won’t stop.
Her hands fly to my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones as if she’s trying to hold my gaze as everything else comes apart.
“Tell me,” she begs. “Tell me what you feel.”
Everything.
All of it.
“You,” I choke. “Only you. Te volo. Totus tuus sum. Omnia in me… yours.”
Her breath shudders at the sound, at the rawness I can’t hide.
“What does it mean?” she whispers, her words ragged.
“It means…” I thrust up into her again, slow and deep, watching her break. “It means I am yours. All of me.”
Her eyes shine.
“Flavius,” she says, voice shaking with pleasure and something bigger, “I— I’m—”
“I know,” I grunt. “Let go. I will follow.”
I slide one hand between us, fingers finding the swollen bundle of nerves at the heart of her. I circle it, gentle but sure, matching the pressure with the rhythm of my thrusts.
Her whole body bows.
The orgasm takes her hard.
She cries out—loud, unguarded—my name a broken mantra on her lips as she clenches around me, pulsing, milking.
The sensation of her coming apart on me—around me—pulls the ground out from under my feet.
I let go.
Pleasure slams through me like lightning.
I thrust once more, deep as I can, and spill inside her with a hoarse, helpless groan, shuddering, every muscle going taut then slack.
For a long moment, we just… shake together.
Her arms collapse; she falls forward, forehead bumping mine, breath hot against my mouth.
My heart hammers against her chest where we press together.
“Okay?” I manage, voice shredded.
She laughs—a wet, shaky sound that makes my eyes sting.
“Okay,” she breathes. “More than okay. That was… that was… I need new words.”
“Good,” I murmur. “I will hear them later. When my brain works again.”
She snorts softly against my jaw.
We stay like this for a while—joined, breathing, the tremors easing.
Eventually, I roll us gently onto our sides without leaving her body, keeping us as close as humanly possible. She makes a sleepy, satisfied noise and hooks her leg over my hip, anchoring me in place.
My hand finds the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair. I press my forehead to hers again, soft this time, a slow, lingering touch.
“Te amo,” I murmur.
Her eyes blink open, heavy with afterglow.
“What?” she asks.
“In your words,” I say, voice thick, “I love you.”
For a heartbeat, she can’t move. Then, the smile that blooms across her face is slow and bright and a little disbelieving, like sunrise over ruins.
“I love you too,” she says, for the fourth time today, and somehow it still feels like the first.
I kiss her.
Not with heat. Not this time.
With gratitude. With awe. And with the calm inevitability of a man who has finally, finally found a place to set down his sword.
Outside, the sanctuary settles into night.
Inside, in this small cabin, there is no arena. No crowd. No committee.
Only us.
We’re stepping fully out of the stories that owned us—Rome, academic systems, the Jester, the good girl—and choosing something else.
Choosing each other.
And for the first time in my life, as sleep pulls at the edges of my awareness with her heartbeat under my hand, I let that choice hold me.
I let her hold me.
And I do not feel afraid.