Chapter 17 #2
I reach for her—not with urgency, but with something gentler, heavier. My fingers brush her chin, coaxing her face up to meet mine. Her eyes don’t flinch. They blaze. But underneath the heat is something cracked and quiet. Something that’s been breaking so long she’s forgotten how not to hurt.
“You don’t get it do you? I’ve been standing out there, Lou.” My voice thick, ragged at the edges. “Not because I want to…but because that’s where you are. And I keep reaching—God damn, I keep reaching—for you.”
Her eyes meet mine—wide and wrecked, like she’s standing on the edge of something she’s never let herself want. And for the briefest flicker of a second, I swear she’s about to fall. About to let go. About to believe me.
God, I almost see it happen.
All I can think is—how can she not know?
She’s fucking it.
Louisiana is the marrow in my bones. The echo in every quiet moment. My reason, my ruin, the God damn gravity holding me together.
But then she pulls back—gently, but firmly—slipping her chin from my hand like my touch is too much.
“Don’t,” she whispers.
I stay quiet. I wait. Because I know this isn’t anger. This is fear.
She swallows hard, eyes flicking to the sketchbook, then back down to her lap. “You say I’m the one on the outside…like I chose that. Like it’s some kind of stance I’m taking.”
Her voice cracks, just barely, but I hear it. Feel it.
“I didn’t choose this,” she says, quieter now. “It chose me. The moment I realized love had conditions—rules I never seemed to meet. That no matter how good I was, or how quiet, or how much space I took up…it still left reminding me I was never fucking enough.”
She presses the heel of her palm to her chest like the memory still burns there.
“So yeah,” she breathes, eyes still down, “maybe I’m always on the outside. But that’s not defiance, it’s survival. If I never reach for it, it can’t disappear. It can’t fucking abandon me.”
Fuck if that doesn’t break me clean in half.
Because I’ve loved a lot of things in this life, but I’ve never loved anything more than the girl who still doesn’t know she’s worth loving back.
But I’m done letting her hide.
I close the distance between us, my voice rough and sharp, cutting through the quiet like a blade. “That’s your fucking problem, Louisiana, you hide behind your fear and call its survival.” I lean in, breath grazing her skin. “I call it being a chicken shit.”
She blinks, flinching like I just reopened a wound she thought was sealed tight. She says nothing, pulling her arms tighter around herself like that’ll keep me out—like holding still can hold back the storm inside.
But I’m not letting this go, too long I’ve sat back letting her keep me at arms length. And I am fucking done.
So, I let loose the truth burning in my chest—the truth I’ve kept buried, but can’t anymore. “You don’t know what the fuck love is, Lou. You only know what it’s not.”
Her eyes snap wide—the quiet shatters like glass.
Before I even blink, she’s out of her chair, fire crackling off her every move. She squares up, chest heaving, jaw locked tight.
“You don’t know what the fuck I’ve been through. What I carry.” Her voice is raw, sharp, spit cutting the air. Her fists tremble at her sides—not fear, but pure, raging fire. “If you want a fight, I’ll fucking give you one. But don’t you dare tell me I don’t know love.”
I slam the space between us, voice low and brutal, thick with dark hunger. “You’re right. You’ve had your head shoved so far up your own ass, you forgot what something fucking real feels like.”
My hand crashes against her hip, fingers digging in hard as I yank her against me.
Her breath stutters, lips part, eyes blazing with equal parts fury and want.
Without warning, I shove her back—hard—until her spine hits the wall with a sharp thud.
My hand crashes against her hip, fingers digging in as I trap her there, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin.
Her breath stutters, lips part, eyes blazing with equal parts fury and want.
“Allow me to fucking remind you,” I growl, voice rough, dragging my palm up under her shirt with fierce intent.
Then I crush my mouth to hers—bruising, punishing—like I’m trying to shove the memory of me down her throat.
It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet. It’s a reclaiming.
My hand fists in her hair, the other pushing higher, until she gasps against my lips and I swallow the sound like a promise.
The tension snaps, raw and electric—words lost in the heat of the fight, the hunger, the wild need we’ve let tangle between us for ten fucking years.
Her hands slam against my chest, nails scratching as she fights, but her body melts into mine with a hunger that mirrors my own. Our lips crash together—hard, desperate—tasting every year of tension and pain in each brutal kiss.
She bites down, and I groan low, slipping one hand beneath the hem of her shirt, trailing fire along her skin. Her eyes meet mine—wild, defiant, burning with raw need that makes me tremble.
“You want to know what our love is, Lou? It’s in your bloodstream, infecting every God damn inch of you. It’s clawing at your insides, won’t let you eat, won’t let you sleep, won’t let you fucking breathe without me. That’s what this is. That’s us.”
I wipe everything off the table with one brutal sweep—papers, pens, that fucking drawing, all of it gone. Then I grab her wrists, slam them down against the cold wood, and throw her onto the surface hard enough to steal her breath.
Her chest rises and falls rapid-fire, eyes wide and wild—part shock, part something darker, a hunger she’s been hiding even from herself.
I lean down, mouth crashing against her neck with fierce urgency, teeth grazing and tongue dragging along bruised skin. My breath is rough against her pulse, the heat between us snapping tight like a live wire.
“Such a gentleman.” She catches my lips with a teasing smirk, voice low and sharp.
“You don’t need gentle,” I growl against her skin, voice low and hungry. “You need someone who sees all the fucking mess and chose’s you anyway.”
I hover over her, palms pressed flat against the table holding me up, drinking her in—her wild blonde hair fanned around her like a halo and a warning.
Her shirt’s ridden up just enough for that pierced pink nipple to peek out, raw and tempting—looking every damned bit the salvation I crave and the damnation I can’t escape.
“Is that what you're going to do? Take me anyways?” Her swollen cherry stained lips taunt with a smirk.
“Fuck, no.” My voice is low, feral.
With a flick, I unbutton her shorts and drag them down her legs slowly—deliberate, unhurried. Her body tenses, trembling with the kind of anticipation she’d never admit to, but can’t hide. I watch her defiance flicker in those honey-colored eyes, the blaze behind them daring me to keep going.
I trail my fingers back up, rough against smooth skin, dragging along every inch like I’ve got all the time in the world. When I reach that last thin scrap of black fabric clinging to her drenched little pussy, I pause—just long enough to let the weight of it settle between us.
My eyes meet hers.
“I’m going to ruin you,” I whisper—truth, not threat.
Because we both know I already have.
This isn’t like last night—where I lost control, gave in to the hunger, and took her like I’d been starved.
No, this is something much more. This is deliberate.
Darker. A need that has nothing to do with impulse and everything to do with claiming what is already mine.
One look at her—face flushed, lips swollen, eyes wrecked and wide—tells me she knows it too.
I trail my fingers along her throat, slowly, tracing the fresh bite marks I’d just left behind.
They are red and angry, blooming against her skin like proof of everything we refuse to say out loud.
She doesn’t pull away. She tilts her head, gives me more, like she wants me to see the chaos I’ve left behind.
Because she’s not soft. She never has been. She’s fire—violent, consuming, wild, and the only way she’s ever been met right is with someone willing to burn with her. Someone who doesn’t flinch.
A motherfucker who brings the gasoline.
“Grab the edge of the table, little viper,” I command as I grab the damp triangle of fabric covering her pussy and pull it between her slick folds.
Her hands don’t move so I reach out and give her exposed nipple a sharp slap making her back bow off the table as her raspy moan fills the room.
“What did I say about those fucking hands?”
Then despite the defiant gleam in her eye she reaches up slowly and grasps the edge of the table. I reward her by giving her nipple a soft lick.
“Henny…”
That little breathy sigh—barely a sound—nearly undoes me right there. It’s raw, involuntary, and laced with something that makes my blood burn. And despite every part of me begging to bury myself inside her, I don’t. I won’t.
Not yet.
Because this isn’t about release. It’s about control. About making her feel every second of how long I’ve wanted her. How long I’ve starved.
And I’ll be damned if I’m not going to spend the next hour edging her with my tongue until tears run down her face and she is beyond desperate for me to let her come. Because I’ve spent years haunted by the memory of her taste, by the phantom of her on my tongue in every fucking dream.
I’m going to ruin her slowly. Thoroughly.
And she’s going to thank me for every second of it.
Keeping a firm grasp on her panties I pull the kitchen chair out and have a seat. “Scoot down here, baby,” I tell her, my voice thick with desire.
I watch her inch closer, fingers still white-knuckled on the edge of the table like it’s the only thing grounding her. She doesn’t say a word—just looks at me, eyes dark, lips parted, and takes one slow, deliberate step.
A tremble rips through me.
Because this—this quiet surrender, this crack in her armor—isn’t weakness. It’s her finally giving in to the one thing that’s burned beneath all her fire and fury.
Submission.
Not because she’s small. Not because she’s afraid.
But because she’s choosing it.
God, knowing it’s for me?
It’s holy. It’s ruin. It’s everything.
“Such a fucking good girl,” I praise as my other hand runs up and down her soft body.
I grip her panties tighter between her folds and pull up making her leg shake. “Still so damn responsive after all these years aren’t you…”
Goosebumps cover her body. “What the fuck do you think?”
I throw my head back and laugh—deep, guttural—because there she is. That fire in her eyes, that sharp little edge even in surrender. My fucking girl. “I think after all these years this pussy knows who owns it, who it fucking belongs to.”
I don’t give her a second to prepare.
In one swift motion, I drop my head between her legs, grip the thin fabric with both hands, and yank—just enough to make her jolt, to feel the snap of tension run through her like a live current.
My mouth finds her clit through the fabric, tongue dragging slow and rough over where she’s already soaked, already shaking.
She gasps—loud, broken—and I groan in response, pressing harder, savoring the way she writhes, the way her fingers dig into the table like it’s the only thing keeping her grounded.
Because this isn’t careful. This is claiming.
Lucky for me, I’m just getting started.
That’s exactly how I spend the next hour, keeping her right there on the edge refusing to let her come despite her sobs or desperate pleading. When the timer sounds letting me know school is almost out I rip her panties smooth off, spread her wide and pull her up to meet my mouth.
I nip her clit when I notice her eyes are closed. “Eyes open, Louisiana. Now.”
Then I rise, dragging her hips with me, bending her until her knees nearly kiss her shoulders.
She’s spread open and trembling, held there by nothing but my grip and the force of her own unraveling.
I don’t hesitate—I dive back in with a hunger that borders on violent, tongue going as deep as I can in this sweet little pussy like I’m trying to carve my name into every inch of her.
Her eyes are blazing—lit up with raw, unfiltered pleasure—as she watches me work her over, tongue deep and deliberate.
Every stroke has her shaking, gasping, her hands fisting the edge of the table like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered.
God damn, I wish like hell she could work her clit with her own tongue, and taste what I’m devouring—she’d fucking break.
Then I taste her orgasm coming, and quicken my pace, the squelching sound of my tongue going in and out of her sloppy pussy fills the air around us, until finally, her long body tenses, every muscle tight and trembling beneath my touch.
A raw, desperate sob tears from her throat—loud enough to shake the walls—and just like that, she’s completely undone, utterly ruined in the best way.
And me? I’m the smug fuck who just bulldozed through one of her sacred walls with my fucking tongue.