I feel the tension coiling in her body, and recognize how her breathing turns shallow and urgent. Just as her thighs begin to shake and her pussy starts to tighten, I pull my thumb away from her clit, keeping my fingers buried deep and still inside her.
She lets out a sound somewhere between a sob and a curse, trying to rock her hips to create the friction she desperately needs. I use my other hand to clamp down on her hip, holding her immobile.
I wait for her to float down from the precipice before doing it all over again.
When I feel her desperation peak a third time, and her pleas have turned incoherent and broken, I know she’s waited enough. My thumb returns to her clit with ruthless precision while I thrust my fingers roughly enough that I know I am giving her the roughness she craves.
Her entire body goes rigid in my arms, a scream tearing out of her throat as she finally shatters. I pump my fingers relentlessly, wringing every last tremor from her until she goes limp against my chest, gasping.
“That’s one,” I breathe against her skin, satisfaction humming deep and dangerous as I feel her come back to herself in my hands. “I’m still feeling greedy. I think you can give me another… or three before we need to leave.”
I don’t move away. I don’t soften yet. I stay pressed close, letting the moment stretch so she can feel the promise in my stillness.
And I’m going to enjoy every second of it.
25
Lucian
The Kansas City heat clings to me the second I step into Celeste’s new rig, thick enough to fog the windows and slick the back of my neck with sweat. It’s too clean. It’s a blank slate that hasn’t learned a person yet. The old rig had smelled like mornings and coffee and her, it was an ordinary, lived-in scent that felt louder in its absence than it ever did when it was there. Now it’s leather and fresh wood and new beginnings that don’t quite know what to do with themselves.
This is our first time in the new rig after her old one was totaled, so I start unpacking the most important items she needs. I unpack her books. All of them, even the extras she rage-bought after I crossed a line and bought half her TBR like a man who doesn’t understand boundaries. I line the duplicates up neatly, spine to spine. She’ll clock it immediately, knowing her, she’ll pretend not to. She might even laugh, which feels like a minor miracle and a major win.
I then put away all her favorite snacks and teas before filling up her tiny closet with all of the clothes we bought for her while we were still in New Orleans.
When I sit on my bed after everything is placed where I remember it, I let my hands rest on my knees. The new rig feels less like a vehicle and more like a promise. I can’t undo New Orleans or erase the way someone turned her home into a threat, but I can make this place feel similar, make it a quiet that invites breathing instead of fear. It’s at this moment I wish Sir Sass were here with us. Orion picked him up from Rowan at the hotel so he could keep him safe until our next stop, a small precaution to keep him safe if James comes back.
The door swings open, and the heat rushes in with them, thick and heavy like the air has been following them all the way from the parking lot. Celeste climbs in first, her cheeks are pink from the walk, and a few strands of hair have slipped free from her pin and cling to the curve of her neck. She’s laughing at something Shiloh said, arms full of pastel shopping bags.
Linkin barrels in behind her with the confidence of a man who has never once questioned whether he can carry more than he should. Sweat glints at his temples as he shifts a pile of department store bags from one arm to the other. Rowan follows last with a box tucked under one arm, already wearing the expression of someone who knows he’s about to be dragged into something he didn’t sign up for.
Celeste heads straight for the back, toward her room, the bags rustling against her legs as she disappears down the narrow hall. I follow everyone else into the living room and drop onto the edge of the couch, trying to look casual even though my pulse hasn’t settled since I heard the door open. Could I have overstepped while stocking her snacks?
A moment later, she comes back out, lighter without the bags, brushing her hands down her shorts like she’s shaking off the heat. She stops at the kitchen island, ready to direct traffic.
“Where do you want everything?” Linkin asks, already halfway to dumping his haul on the counter.
“Just, uh, set it down,” she says, distracted, her eyes flicking over the space like she’s taking inventory without meaning to.
After a few moments, she asks Rowan to put the kitchen box by the sink, then points Linkin toward the corner where she keeps her shoes. She moves through the motions easily, but her attention keeps drifting, first to the snack station stocked the same way she kept it in the old rig.
Her hand lifts, slow and unsure, and she touches the edge of the counter like she’s grounding herself. She’s staring at everything like she doesn’t quite believe it’s there.
Her breath barely catches as she looks at me.
I lean against the counter, arms crossed, trying to look steady. But the second her eyes meet mine, something in my chest kicks hard enough that I have to swallow against it.
I can see the realization settling over her, and all I can do is hope she understands what I was trying to give back to her and not think I was overstepping again.
“You did this,” she says quietly.
I tilt my head, keeping my voice even. “I thought you’d want it to feel like yours again. I didn’t want you to have to start over with nothing.”
She stares at me for a moment, unreadable, then bends to grab her bags and disappears down the hall before the door softly clicks shut behind her.
The quiet lingers, stretched thin enough that my chest starts to ache with it. I replay every choice, every placement, wondering if I crossed the line again, and if wanting to make it easier turned into deciding for her instead.
Linkin exhales and scrubs a hand down his face, the usual grin nowhere to be found. “That was good,” he says finally. “She needed to walk in here and not have to start from scratch.”
