He doesn’t immediately pull away, so that’s a good sign.
“We agreed,” he says softly, after a long pause, “after Maggie—”
“It took me a long time to come to terms with that,” I concede at once. “But Luca? I would do it again.”
He puts out a hand to help me up. Good thing, too. These tiles have been hard as hell against my shins. When I’m standing, he keeps his fingers intertwined with mine and touches my chin with the other. “I don’t want you in danger.”
I give a painful chuckle. “Luca…let’s be honest. I amalwaysin danger. But that’s not because of you. From the moment I was conceived, my life has been under threat, not because of anything I’ve done, but because of who Iam.”
He says nothing, his face calm, and then he pushes my hair back from my forehead.
I try a different tack. “Are you forgetting the night we met, too? I am not capable of standing by, watching you take on the whole world without me. I jumped in then and I saved your life. You wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t.”
Luca’s eyes flash, but still he says nothing.
“Now,” I continue doggedly, “Iwilladmit that I’ve allowed you to wrap me up in cotton balls and keep me in a little box. I’ve allowed you to pretend that I’m someprincipessain a tower. But it’s been just that—pretense. It’s time for us to stop playing games, love of my life.” I run my thumb across his mouth, and feel almost relieved when his lips part to let it in. His tongue is warm and gentle as he sucks. “When we first talked about what we could be to each other—when you had me kidnapped and tied up in that chair, and I was wondering if it was my time to die—you agreed then that I could be an asset. It’s you and me, baby. Forever. For always.”
He releases my thumb with a wet suck. “Youhavebeen an asset. You taught me how to behave, how to dress, which shoes to wear—”
I grab the back of his neck and his eyes widen a little. I still have the capacity to surprise him. “Giving you a fucking makeover is all well and good. But that bullshit was always just the tip of the iceberg.”
“You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Yes I do, Luca.Yes. I do.”
His eyes, almost gray in the cold light of the bathroom, flick over mine, and then he leans in to kiss me. “I’ll think it over,” he says afterward.
“Luca—”
“Finch.” He says my name affectionately but firmly, and I know I’ve run up against a brick wall. “Iwillthink it over,” he says again. “Now—”
“No fucking,” I warn. “Nothing too strenuous.” I almost add,You know what Darla said, but that would just piss him off. But it’s true; Darla told him he still needs at least another week of recovery before he can engage in vigorous physical exercise—including sex. He was outraged when she said it, but she was implacable. “I’ll be happy to suck your dick, though,” I say, grinning.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Luca sighs, “but I think I’m tired of blow jobs.”
I recoil in mock-hurt. “Tiredof my mouth?”
He laughs, turning me under the water so my back is against the tiled wall. “Definitely not tired of your mouth.” He brushes his lips against mine, his hand wandering over my body, thumbing at my nipples as we settle into the kiss. His mouth opens mine and I let his tongue in, let him push it into me, a substitute for what I know he really wants.
I’m tentative at first, trailing my fingers over his body as lightly as the water itself, until I’m sure it doesn’t hurt him. Our kiss changes, gets deeper, faster, until he’s devouring his way down my neck, sucking and biting in a way that I know—and he knows—will leave marks. I wrap my hand around the back of his neck and encourage him. I want every one of our enemies to see how much he’s recovered; let them guess and gossip about what we’ve been doing during our time away.
Luca returns to my lips, the intensity of his kiss deepening. He rubs his face against mine, his unshaven skin scraping against my skin; he catches my bottom lip between his teeth and presses down, sucks at it, releases it.
“You’re so perfect,” he murmurs as he gathers up my dick and his in one hand, jacking us together, taking his time. It’s too much and not enough; I’m burning all over but shaking like I’m cold. One second I feel like my orgasm could be right there, one twist of his palm away, and the next I could do this for hours, let Luca edge me forever.
He’s sucking on my neck, his fingers pinching cruelly at my nipples and then soothing when I arch my back or whimper a protest. He knows just how to play my body.
He hasn’t forgotten.
I’d become used to regular sex, used to the notion that we’d always have each other, that Luca would always be there to light me on fire and then help hose it down. It breaks my heart to think I ever took him for granted.
“You okay?” he murmurs, as I choke back a cry. His fingers splay against my neck, tip my chin up so I have to look at him, look into the ocean of his eyes.
I clear my throat. “Yeah,” I assure him. “Yeah, it feels good. You feel so good, Luca, you always have…”
He recaptures my mouth, a new kiss so delicate, so tender, so in tune with my heart right now that it undoes me. The pleasure spikes in a sudden, welcome wave, but it’s unlike my usual orgasms, those ones that explode out of me, pulse through my junk and leave me exhausted. No; this time it flows through my whole body, radiating out in ripples as though every nerve ending in my body wants in on the bliss. I hang on to Luca’s strong shoulders as he works me through it, and just when I think I’ll have to pull my dick out of his hand, just when it’s too much, he comes with a gasp of relief, his cock quaking against mine, painting me up to my nipples in his cum.
We hold onto each other as we come down from the high, and then I adjust the water to a cooler temperature to help wash us down from our mixed, sticky cum. We kiss again under the water flow as we sluice down, a messy, open-mouthed kiss with more tongue than lip, drinking each other in.
