46. CHAPTER 43 #3
“I thought I’d ruined everything,” he rasped, sweat dripping onto my chest as his hips drove into me. “I thought I’d lost this. Lost you like this. Lost the way you scream my name, and clench for me.”
“You didn’t,” I gasped, nails raking down his back, my legs locked tight around his waist, urging him deeper. “You’re mine—fuck me like you mean it.”
A broken groan tore from his throat, and he obeyed—if it could even be called that.
He thrust even harder, his cock pistoning in and out. His forehead pressed to mine, our sweat mixing, breaths shared in hot pants, everything frantic and full of the pent-up ache of the weeks we spent apart. It felt less like sex and more like two people trying to fuse into one.
The pressure built again, coiling tight until I shattered beneath him. My pussy spasmed around his cock, my vision turning white, and my walls fluttering as I came with a cry, clinging to him as if he was the only thing tethering me to earth.
He followed instantly, burying himself to the hilt.
“Léa…oh fuuuuck, my fucking good girl—”
His body shuddered above mine, his cock pulsing as he flooded my insides while he ground his hips into mine. Then he collapsed onto me. His body visibly shaking as he buried his forehead in the crook of my shoulder, his breath uneven as he fought to keep his emotions in check.
My arms came around him instinctively. I held him tight, unwilling to let go. My fingers threaded through his damp hair, my legs still wrapped around his waist to keep him deep inside me, refusing to let a single inch of distance back in.
We stayed tangled together until our breathing evened out and the world gradually stitched itself back into focus.
Eventually, we moved, separating with a slow wet slide of his softening cock that made me shiver.
He pulled me back to his chest, tucking me into him. I could tell just like me, he had no intention of ever letting go. I lay there, staring up at the skylight, at the Paris night spread out above us, the stars blurred by the haze of the room and the tears still drying on my lashes.
I’d never seen so many stars in a single night before. They lined the sky so perfectly. I could see them wink at us.
“Orion,” I whispered his name soft like a secret. “The hunter.”
I raised my fingers as if to map out the constellation.
My spine tingled as his lips trailed the center of my back, then climbed deliberately, up my spine. Each kiss felt like a claim all over again.
“Do you know the myth, Léa?”
His voice a low thrum at nape of my neck where I could feel his breath feathering my skin.
“Tell me.”
His arm tightened around my waist, pulling me closer, his jaw tucked into my hair, as if the story belonged to us alone.
“Orion spends eternity crossing the sky,” he whispered. “Never stopping, or resting. People say he’s hunting some nameless beast, or some vague glory. That’s the sanitized version that makes his obsession sound noble.”
His lips grazed my ear. I could hear the dark smile in his tone.
“But the astronomers?” he went on. “They know better. He’s not hunting prey.
He’s chasing the Pleiades—seven stars they told him he could never have.
Zeus tore them out of his reach and hung them higher, thinking distance would cure devotion.
” He huffed a humorless breath. “It didn’t.
So he just…kept going. Across the whole sky. Every night. Forever.”
He turned me in his arms until I was looking up, facing him. The intensity in his gaze made the stars above us look decorative.
“The story says it's tragic.” His thumb traced my lower lip, making me suck in a breath. “I don't think it is. A man who knows exactly what he wants and refuses to stop moving toward it? That’s not tragedy, Léa. That’s devotion.”
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
“And the brightest of them all,” he continued, his voice dropping, “the one he would burn the sky down to touch, is Maia.”
“Orion—”
“I spent years building businesses and chasing legacy, thinking I was winning some grand hunt,” he murmured. “But I was just pacing the dark, orbit after orbit, wearing grooves into my own life while I waited to find you.”
His hand found the back of my neck, holding me there with a possessive tenderness that stole my breath.
“You’re not just my wife, Léa. You’re my Maia. The only star I ever actually wanted to catch. If the sky tried to hide you from me, I’d tear it open. If the world dragged you out of my orbit, I’d tilt the whole damn thing until you fell back into my hands.”
I swallowed hard. No one had ever spoken about me like that, with so much feeling it almost frightened me.
He pressed his forehead to mine, our noses brushing.
“So no,” he finished. “I’m not wandering anymore. I’m done tracing empty paths across the sky. The hunt is over, Léa.”
His lips brushed mine in a slow, sealing kiss, that tasted like he was making a promise he had no intention of taking back.
“I’m home,” he whispered. “Right where I was always meant to be, wrapped around the one thing I’d burn constellations for.”