Page 42 of Fire
I look at him, as he waits for my response, his muscles tense, and his face grim.
“Your past matters to me.”
He flinches slightly, almost as if he’d just taken a hit. “I understand,” he says, and starts to pull away from me.
“No, you don’t,” I tell him gripping his hand and not letting it go. “Your past matters to me because the boy who felt he needed to hide who he was, matters to me. The seventeen-year-old who was trying to find a place to belong matters to me. Even the man who looked at the world with hate matters to me because all of them made you the man you are right now in this bed with me. And you—” I take a deep breath. “Matter to me.”
It’s not a declaration of love. I know Luca doesn’t want that from me. I’m not the kind of man, men fall in love with, but it’s important to me in this moment, when Luca is being suffocated by the heavy weight of his past, that he knows I see the man he is in the present.
He leans over to kiss me and then starts to pull back when I clasp my hand against the back of his head and pull his mouth back on mine.
I’m done with overthinking. I just realized I’m in love with Luca and I need to feel his touch. I know there will be a day soon when our stay in the cabin ends, and until then I want to give myself over to loving this man.
Waves of heat flood me and this time it’s me who demands more from our kisses. I push my tongue between his lips to find his tongue and tangle it with mine. Maybe it’s my newly discovered love for him, but each kiss ignites the need for another until I’m gasping for breath, but I still don’t want to stop.
I don’t ever want to stop.
Luca moves on top of me, surrounding me with his strength and heat as I revel in the feeling of his cock grinding against mine as his hands travel over my body. They sweep over my stomach, my chest, and stop to pay special attention to my nipples which Luca pinches and twists until I whimper into his mouth.
Luca pulls away from our kiss and searches out one of the condoms he’d dropped earlier on the bed. “Gotta have you again,” he says as he raises my legs up to rest on his shoulders and kisses me again.
From all the earlier sex, I’m open to him, and this time when he pushes his cock inside of me it slides in easily until he’s bottomed out and against me. I can feel our hearts beating against each other, and I savor this perfect moment as our bodies are connected at every point.
He begins moving inside me and I’m blown away at how right it feels. The first time we had sex it was wild and out of control. The second time was slow and soft. This time, our bodies move together in a seasoned rhythm, that has me moaning Luca’s name over and over again as I buck beneath him.
Is it realizing I love Luca that makes this so good? So intense that it feels like I’m a live wire of pure pleasure and every atom in my body is bursting with love for the man who’s buried deep inside me.
We come together in one long orgasm that leaves me shaking from both the physical and emotional aftershocks. Afterward, I can’t help clinging to him, needing his touch to ground me. He doesn’t seem to mind. He picks up the towel we’d used earlier and washes the cum from my body, and then wraps me back into his arms.
Later when I’m sinking into sleep, he speaks into the darkness. “You matter to me too.”
Chapter 19
Luca
I’m still half asleep when my phone vibrates with a text message. For once it’s not a message about the Reivers and security concerns. I text out a quick reply and after giving Evan a light kiss, I scoot out from underneath him.
As I shower and get dressed, I debate about taking Evan with me. I’ll only be gone for about forty-five minutes, and the security feeds I have in place will alert me if anyone approaches the cabin. In the end, I decide taking Evan with me is the bigger risk The small community around here knows me as someone who keeps to himself other than the occasional yoga classes I teach at the community center. If somebody were to come around asking questions about me, the folks here would definitely remember if they saw me with a friend.
Scribbling out a note, I place it on my pillow, and with one last satisfying look at Evan sleeping in my bed, I leave to run my errand.
There’s another reason I thought it best to leave Evan behind on this little trip. I need to put some temporary distance between us so I can figure something incredibly important out.
Whether I try to make Evan Kelly mine?
He heard all about the ugly parts of my past and still looked at me like a man he could trust. Then he kissed me and took me inside of his body in an encounter that left me knowing how close to impossible it would be for me to ever walk away from Evan.
And maybe, seeing the acceptance in Evan’s eyes went a long way in me waking up this morning and deciding it’s time to start forgiving myself. I still owe the world a big ass karmic debt that I’ll spend my whole life trying to even up on, but maybe I deserve a life outside of that past.
A life with Evan.
I call the only person I know who might be able to help me figure it out.
The phone rings and Grave’s deep, gravelly voice answers. I don’t bother with small talk. “How did you know, you deserved to have Dream in your life?” I ask.
“That’s an easy answer,” he responds immediately. “I didn’t deserve Dream. I still don’t, but I’m enough of a bastard to know that if you win the lottery you fucking take that money to the bank and don’t stop to worry if you deserve the billion-dollar payout.”
“But what if?—”
