14. Heather #3
I let out a long, shaky exhale, my internal muscles gripping him tight, welcoming the heat.
This is so different from the hotel. With him above me and my legs wrapped tightly around his waist, there’s nothing between us but skin and breath.
I can see his face clearly in the soft light from the window, watching his expression shift from tenderness to raw, primal hunger as he begins to move.
He starts with slow, deep thrusts, grinding his pelvis against mine so that every slide feels like it’s reaching the very back of my womb. The friction is electric, the wet slap of our skin echoing in the quiet room.
“You feel-” He shakes his head, his voice strained. “God, Heather. You feel like home.”
The word - home - breaks something open in my chest.
“I love you,” I whisper.
His rhythm falters, his chest heaving. “What?”
“I love you.” Clearer now, more certain. “I should have said it sooner. I should have-”
He cuts me off with a kiss, swallowing the rest of my words, and his hips snap forward with renewed, desperate intensity.
He stops being gentle, driving into me with hard, punishing thrusts that knock the breath from my lungs.
“Say it again,” he growls against my mouth, his voice dark and commanding.
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you, I love you, I-”
The orgasm hits me mid-sentence, a blinding explosion that starts in my core and radiates outward. My walls begin to pulse and contract violently around him, milking him with every spasm.
The sensation of my internal gripping triggers him; I feel his muscles strain, his back arching as he lets out a guttural groan.
He thrusts one last time, burying himself as deep as possible, and I feel the hot, thick jets of his cum filling me, flooding my depths as he shudders violently against me.
We stay like that for a long time, joined and breathless, the only sound the synchronized thumping of our hearts. He doesn’t pull away; he collapses onto me, burying his face in the crook of my neck, his weight a comforting pressure.
Slowly, the world returns. He shifts, kissing my forehead and my eyelids with a tenderness that makes me tear up.
He eventually slides out of me with a soft, wet sound, but he doesn’t leave my side.
He reaches for a warm cloth, gently wiping the mixture of our fluids from my thighs and his own skin, his touch lingering and affectionate.
He pulls me into his arms, wrapping the duvet around us both, cocooning us in a private world of warmth.
“I love you too,” he whispers into my hair, his voice thick with emotion. “More than I know how to say.”
I curl into him, listening to the steady beat of his heart, finally feeling like I’m exactly where I belong.
After, we lie tangled together in my gray sheets.
The city glows through the window. Somewhere below, a car honks. The world keeps spinning, indifferent to the fact that mine just shifted on its axis.
“That was different,” I say.
“Good different?”
“The best different.”
He traces lazy patterns on my hip. “I meant what I said. About staying.”
“I know.”
“And I meant what I said about loving you.” His hand stills. “I know we haven’t - I know we’ve been dancing around it. But I need you to know it’s real.”
I turn my head to look at him. He’s propped on one elbow, watching me with an expression I’ve never seen on another person’s face, like I’m something precious, something worth protecting, something he can’t quite believe is real.
“I know it’s real,” I say. “That’s what scares me.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time I thought love was real, it destroyed me.” I reach up, tracing the line of his jaw. “I’m terrified of going through that again.”
“You won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise that I’ll never stop trying to be worthy of you.
” He catches my hand, presses his lips to my palm.
“I can promise that every day, I’ll choose you.
Deliberately. Consciously. Not because you’re convenient or because you make me look good, but because you’re the only person I want to be with. ”
My eyes sting again. This time, I let the tears fall.
“Kirk used to say things like that,” I whisper.
“I know.” Grayson wipes the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “And I know nothing I say will convince you I’m different. So I’m going to show you instead. Every day. For as long as you’ll let me.”
“What if I let you forever?”
“Then forever.” He kisses my forehead. “That works for me.”
***
I fall asleep in his arms.
For the first time in months, I don’t dream about the terrace. Don’t dream about Kirk’s voice saying it didn’t mean anything. Don’t dream about Penelope’s laugh, or the slap at the gallery, or any of the thousand small humiliations I’ve been carrying.
I dream about nothing at all.
And when I wake up the next morning - sunlight streaming through the curtains, Grayson warm and solid beside me, my apartment finally feeling like a home instead of a hiding place - I realize that Penelope was wrong.
This isn’t a revenge fuck. This isn’t a rebound.
This is the first real thing I’ve had in years.
And I’m not letting go.