“Beckett,” I say, just to feel his name on my tongue.
And without breaking eye contact, I reach for his belt.
“Ash—”
“I know,” I murmur. “I’ll be careful.”
The buckle gives. The button. The zipper. I free him slowly, reverently, like this is something sacred.
I lower myself onto the chaise behind me, bringing myself level with him. Close. Intimate.
He’s already hard. Heat radiates from him. Muskier than cologne. Familiar and inviting and achingly him.
The piercing glints softly in the moonlight—gold against flushed skin. I’ve only seen it in flashes before. From a distance. I take a few seconds to really study it now.
“I think it’s beautiful,” I tell him.
His breath stutters.
I press my mouth to him—not the piercing, but the smooth velvet just below it. He hisses, sharp and helpless.
“Does that hurt?” I ask.
“No,” he groans. “You—God—I love you… touching me.”
I lick along the side, slow and deliberate, tasting salt and heat and the faint trace of his cologne. I feel the pulse beneath my tongue. Feel him throb.
My hands slide around his base, slow and warm. My thumbs move in gentle circles, memorizing him, reverent.
His hand sinks into my hair—not to guide me. To hold on.
I let him.
Because even though there’s a low throbbing inside me, pulsing with its own ache—this isn’t just want.
It’s care. It’s connection.
And it’s for me, too.
The way he responds to my touch. The way his body tightens, his voice breaks.
I love doing this for him. Not because I have to. Because I get to.
And maybe it’s also an apology.
He’s given so much, even when I didn’t see it. Even when I couldn’t.
And now… now I just want to give something back. As much as I can. As much as he’ll let me.
I take him into my mouth again, careful around the piercing, listening to the way he breathes—ragged and uneven, like he’s unraveling one thread at a time. His hips lift, hesitant, then steady.
I cradle him with one hand, the other sliding lower, cupping him, and then around his thighs, gripping the muscles there. He groans my name, low and wrecked, and his fingers tighten in my hair—almost painfully, but in a way that anchors me.
I trace around the piercing with my tongue, soft and slow, brushing a kiss just beside it.
His breath falters, body tensing. The tremble starts in his thighs, works up through his stomach.
And I feel it all.
